Day 9, Around Montevideo, an afternoon

After my long morning walk and a short cooldown, Jim and I head out again. Early afternoon, still really HOT.

Leaving our hotel, it's just steps to the Mercado Del Puerto, and the cooking smells are everywhere!

The large building on the other side of the Mercado is the Customs House. All the containers of the port must face this imposing place. Alongside the Mercado, between our hotel and the Customs House, are the row of patio restaurants, including the one where we ate dinner last night.

Headed inside the Mercado Del Puerto, the space feels immense! High ceilings, dark woods. At the center is an old wooden clock. And the space is filled with large and small stands, firing up barbeque, serving empanadas, cervesas and wine. Just a few souvenir shops, this is really a place for lunch. Crowded...locals lunch, and probably the tourists off cruise ships.

Uruguayans love carne (meat). Beef, chicken, pork. And served barbeque (grilled). The most popular food stand seems to be for empanadas. All varieties, 37 Uruguayan pesos (about $2). Take a number for the line, and I am now enjoying a pollo empanada (chicken). Yummy!

empenadas...37 pesos

Pollo empanada and a coke

Next this afternoon is a Montevideo city tour. Starting at the port, where you see all the containers stacked up.

The rest of our tour, sadly, is mostly explained in spanish with a few english words tossed in. Not enough to exactly understand much, so I offer instead mostly pictures.  We drive through different neighborhoods, and the diversity of Montevideo is amazing.

One of the highlights for Jim was seing the Casino, located behind the Radisson Hotel on Plaza Independencia! No, he did not play.

In the port area, across from the rest of the city, is a small hill. As I understand it, that is a poor and dangerous neighborhood.

view toward port area

From there, we drive through a wealthy neighborhood.  Large homes behind fences. But Montevideo's style is more open, and so there are not high walls blocking the view of homes. In fact, our earlier guide from the airport said that the President of Uruguay freely walks the streets with just 2 bodyguards.

Parks are everywhere in Montevideo! They seem nicely maintained.

Toward the end of our tour, we drove a few streets of the Carrasco neighborhood. Very wealthy, homes with large open yards, it could have been Santa Barbara or Scottsdale in the general appearance.

Heading back toward the port and our hotel, the drive is again along the Ramblas. On our tour bus, I did talk with a Brazilian man who said that he knows people buying places here in Montevideo, as a beautiful and affordable place to have vacation home. He also says that the ease of conducting business in either peso or dollars or reals, is because Uruguay allows people to have bank accounts in any one of those currencies.

Benefit or hazard, that's something new to ponder?

Tonight, our last in Montevideo...we went back to El Palenque!  Tried a couple new dishes, and I had a celebratory glass of medio y medio. We loved this town, highly recommend it for 2-3 nights.

amusement park along ramblas

music stage for entertainment on the beach