Montevideo Like a Local

I love to travel while I sleep! We woke this morning in Montevideo, Uruguay. After getting too hungry on yesterday’s outing, we decided to eat a big breakfast before getting off the ship today. Today's excursion was called “Explore Montevideo Like a Local” and included visiting two popular food markets. 

Our tour began with a stop to pay homage to General José Gervasio Artigas (1764–1850), considered "a founding figure of the Uruguayan nation.” Look him up if you're interested in history. Interestingly, the statue sits on top of a mausoleum containing his remains. 

 

Jose Artigas father of the independence of Uruguay

From there we were taken to the Ferrando Market. It was busy with locals shopping for meats, cheeses, gourmet products and all kinds of colorful produce. There were also many shops, some of which I would consider high end, and prices were much higher than in the US. There was a separate shop for beef, another for chicken, another for cheese, you get the idea.

 

here's the beef!

colorful produce

 

making this large so you can read the gelato flavors

fruity drinks here

 selection of olive oils

one of several restaurants

fire roasted chicken, duck, goat, vegetables

 

After browsing the market we drove to La Rambla, a long promenade that runs along the coastline. It reminded me of the wide sidewalks along the Brazilian beaches, as it is a popular place for walking, biking and running. As I was walking from the Montevideo letters over to the promenade, I heard a lot of racket in a nearby tree. I looked up to see these 2 green parrots preening each other and a third one on a nearby branch. I only had my phone, so I wasn't able to get the clearest picture.

wild green parrots

Lots of locals were on the beach getting their Vitamin D. By the way, our guide mentioned that Uruguay has one of the highest incidences of cutaneous melanoma in Latin America. This has to do with several factors – a high level of UV exposure, genetic factors (the majority of the population being of European descent) and of course lifestyle.

 

buildings and beach as far as the eye could see

Leaving La Rambla we were on to our next stop, Montevideo Agricultural Market (known by locals as MAM). It is actually a National Heritage Site. It was a much smaller market with 2 levels of mostly smaller eateries. We were surprised to find a Smash Burger, so after lots of “back and forth” (the girl that waited on me didn’t understand a word of English) we thought we were each getting a burger. Turns out we ended up with one burger and one drink and our bill was around $24 as best we could tell. The burger was good though.

 

Montevideo Agricultural Market

On the way back to the ship, our guide talked to us about the national caffeinated drink, mate. He offered everyone a chance to try it, but only one person took him up on it. We were somewhat familiar with it from our previous visit to Brazil. It’s a good thing we had some idea because his accent was very thick and I only caught bits and pieces of what was being said. 

 

mate or porongo cups

Almost everyone carries a mate cup and drinks from it at certain times of the day. I will try to remember to say more about this in a later post. The cups are made from the hollowed out dried fruit of the calabash plant. The walls of the cup are thick and the outside may be carved wood, metal or leather. The rims are covered with metal and the straws are metal as well.

I haven’t talked about graffiti, but the sheer amount of it in all of these big cities is incredible. None of the guides have even mentioned it. I suppose they are so used to seeing it that they are kind of "graffiti blind". It seems like almost every building – even the nicer ones – have lots of graffiti. In fact, almost any vertical surface that isn’t already covered in graffiti is an invitation to paint some. Some of it could definitely be considered “artistic” but at least an equal amount is just spray painting in black letters. 

My thinking is that they just don’t get too concerned with trying to remove it because it would just come right back, and it would be costly to continually re-paint. And like all large cities Montevideo has some really beautiful and impressive parts, but it also has run down areas where trash accumulates and the homeless sleep on sidewalks.

 

Ronnie posed with this blue cat for me

Here are a few examples, none great quality because they are all "bus window" photos, and dirty windows at that! But you get the idea.

Before I end this post, here's something kinda neat that happened. We had our third dinner in a specialty restaurant tonight. When I made our reservations, I indicated "sharing" (a table) because it's a great way to get to know other people on the ship. Tonight we were seated at the table with a couple from Georgia. Come to find out, he also has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Texas A&M University! And he and Ronnie had the same advisor and know many of the same people. Who woulda thunk it? That makes 3 Aggies we've met on the ship so far.