Uruguay was one of those trips where I didn’t really know what to expect until I stepped off the airplane. I was surprised by how nice and developed Montevideo was. I found several parts of Uruguay with standards similar to those of any Western country, and the country is even a popular weekend getaway for people from neighboring Argentina.
Since this was one of my earlier trips, I don’t have many photos from Montevideo outside of carnival. For the first few days I had a different problem occupying most of my attention. Somehow I had left my bank card in an ATM in Argentina, so when I arrived in Montevideo I was completely broke. I mean literally no money at all.
A taxi driver I met was incredibly helpful. He agreed to drive me around even though I couldn’t pay him and trusted me to meet him again a day or two later. He took me to a bank and even helped negotiate a hotel room where they agreed to let me pay later. Eventually I was able to have my bank wire money to Western Union and pick it up using my passport.
Having money again was a good feeling. All the people who helped me during those first few days also gave me a great first impression of Uruguay. Once I had some cash in my pocket, I could finally pay everyone back and start exploring.
Carnival happened to be taking place while I was in Montevideo, so one night I took a taxi to see the festivities. The carnival itself was impressive, with music, elaborate costumes, and crowds enjoying the celebrations. I ended up taking even more carnival photos later in another town.
Punta del Este
Punta del Este was my next stop after the capital and is probably Uruguay’s best-known resort city. It has some amazing beaches during the day along with casinos, clubs, and bars at night. Some of the clubs don’t even open until around 3:00 in the morning, so if you’re into nightlife you’ll have plenty to do here.
You’re probably familiar with the book or movie Alive, which tells the true story of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972. The house pictured above belonged to one of the survivors of the disaster. Beyond places like this, Punta del Este seemed less about traditional sightseeing and more about its beaches, restaurants, casinos, and nightlife. Downtown was particularly impressive at night, and I couldn’t believe how nice it was.
The beaches were probably the highlight of my time in Punta del Este. One of the city’s most recognizable landmarks is La Mano, the enormous sculpture of fingers emerging from the sand at Playa Brava.
I’m not much of a fan of clubbing, but one night I became friends with a group of older wealthy Norwegians and got dragged along with them. I normally traveled to warm countries with little more than shorts and flip-flops, while these guys showed up wearing expensive suits and jewelry that I couldn’t imagine dragging around the other side of the world.
By the end of the night, each of them had met a woman who appeared to be around my age. Walking back with the group while I was by myself felt a little awkward, but the next day the Norwegians had a much bigger problem. They told me the women had stayed at their apartment but disappeared during the night along with a significant amount of their belongings.
Carnival in Maldonado
The Norwegians had rented an apartment, and the women had even taken their keys. After waiting for them to have the locks replaced, we all headed out again, this time to nearby Maldonado.
Carnival is most famously associated with Brazil, but celebrations take place throughout much of South America and the Caribbean. Even a smaller city like Maldonado had its own carnival. It obviously wasn’t on the scale of the largest celebrations in Brazil, but it was still a lot of fun and worth seeing if you’re in Uruguay at the right time of year.
Maldonado’s carnival had a more family-oriented atmosphere, while the celebration I saw in Montevideo felt more like a large party. My previous trip before Uruguay had been to Sudan, so the atmosphere and elaborate carnival costumes were quite a dramatic change from what I had experienced immediately beforehand.
More of Uruguay
Beyond the cities and carnival celebrations, Uruguay also had beautiful stretches of coastline and quieter natural scenery. Between the waterfront in Montevideo, the beaches around Punta del Este, and the celebrations in Maldonado, the country turned out to have considerably more variety than I had anticipated.
What stayed with me most, though, was the kindness of the people who helped me when I arrived without access to my money. It was an unusual introduction to Uruguay, but one that made the trip particularly memorable.
