Uruguay (Montevideo and Punta del Este) February 29-March 9, 2024

By Becca Ben April 17, 2024

I had booked our flight between Iguazu Falls and Buenos Aires, thinking that we’d want to return to Buenos Aires for a few more days, having just spent a week there. After our Falls trip though, we felt like we’d pretty well covered BA and were ready to keep moving, so we booked a ferry + bus from BA to Montevideo, Uruguay. After more than a month, we were leaving Argentina!

We got to the big bus station in Montevideo and immediately took out money from an ATM. We had forgotten how easy that is supposed to be and were so pleased to have Uruguay pesos in our pockets to buy small priced items, yah. We took two taxis and arrived at our apartment building near the center of town, in a ~ 6 story building; we’d rented a small 3-bedroom, 2 bath apartment.

Our first day in town was a Friday, so the kids did a bit of work then we hopped in two Ubers and went downtown to the central square - we walked about Uruguay’s independence hero’s memorial (General Jose Artigas). I also walked down to the Montevideo beach that was a short walk from our house and enjoyed some kind of international beach volleyball tournament and a bunch of people promenading, with their mate teas in hand. I could not convince the kiddos to leave the house that evening though.

Ferry from Buenos Aires to Uruguay.

Montevideo civic center.

The beach in Montevideo; pretty nice for a capital city beach!

The next day, we got an earlier start and walked over to the Estadio Centenario, a history futbol stadium, built for the first World Cup (1930) when Uruguay beat Argentina to win the very first World Cup trophy, 4 goals to 2 (Uruguay’s 2nd World Cup win was in 1950, when they upset Brazil, the host that year with a score of 2 to 1)! The stadium is named for the 100th anniversary of the nation’s constitution and the museum to the stadium was pretty interesting, partially because Scott and I (along with our buds Jesse and Tim) attended one of the featured matches, the 2010 semifinal when Uruguay beat Ghana in a famous, “hand of god” play in South Africa.

While we were enjoying futbol nostalgia, it began to rain like we were in the tropics, just crazy crazy rain - We called Ubers and got absolutely soaked running from the building to the street (which was fronted by an extra wide sidewalk that you might expect next to a 100K person=stadium). We sheltered outside the main, Uruguay art museum that was puzzlingly closed. It was supposed to be open, so we hung out with a dozen other people sheltering from the rain but, when it appeared it would not open, we gave up and walked down to the Montevideo port. The Port has a big old airy shed with a sort of fancy-restaurant food court. The place is filled with delicious scents but we had already eaten so we just grabbed my city-magnet souvenir, and kept walking.

We rounded out this long day in the city with a visit to free, rooftop building viewing platform to take in the city sights, a spontaneous stop at a nearby barber shop (all the males sorely needed haircuts; Scott stopped at a Cuban Barber Cuts shop while we hit up an ice cream shop; despite cajoling, Alex and Luke refused cuts; they really do not like haircuts and especially paid cuts; I am trying to find that sweet spot between being an authoritarian and recognizing they are individual humans with agency; do I really want to impose parent-law on hairstyles? Minimal hygiene, yes I do, but hair length..? hmmmmmm).

Estadio Centenario, built to host the first World Cup in 1930 which.. Uruguay won!

Estadio Centenario. We hopped on a ~2 hour bus to the beach getaway for Buenos Aires residents - a town called Punta del Este, sort of the Miami of Uruguay. We walked along the beach road from the bus to our apartment and observed dozens of mid-to high-rise apartments, a 4-lane beach road, and a very wide, sandy beach. Yes, our apartment was just two blocks off the beach and our ~9th floor unit had a balcony with a view of the beach (nicely laid out, just behind & between two other towers that were a block closer to the beach). It was a pretty sweet spot! We pretty much just went to the beach (or, as Ken [of Barbie and Ken] would say, we beached) every day and swam in the apartment pool and used the apartment gym. We rented bikes and made the somewhat long walk to the grocery store each day and just generally did school work and hung out. It was nice; but we came away thinking Uruguay seems like a very scenic and good place to live but does not have a whole lot for unconnected visitors (meaning, visitors without family or ties to the place) to do. One weird thing, some apartments (including ours) charged separately for electricy use; we were unpleasantly surprised that after ~5 days (with no A/C or dishwasher or laundry usage) the manager clocked our rate at about $20, cash only in Uruguay pesos only. They explained, yes, electricity is expensive here. Eh, what can you do?