April 1 – April 6, 2019
We were in Montevideo, Uruguay for only 6 days. Our time there was colored by our feelings of sadness for leaving Buenos Aires. However, we loved the neighborhood we stayed in Montevideo. We stayed in Pocitos, a block away from a beautiful and impressively clean beach. We spent some time sunbathing but we couldn’t swim since the bay was full of toxic green algae (the end of the summer for Montevideo).
Montevideo seemed to be a step up from Buenos Aires in cleanliness, organization and overall slightly higher standard of living. However, it also felt less intimate. Since it’s 10 times less populated than Buenos Aires, there were not many people on the streets (only 1.5 million live in Montevideo and 3.5 million in total in Uruguay). It felt a bit like an out of season coastal town. It didn’t seem as lively, colorful and welcoming as Buenos Aires. I was constantly mentioning to Pedja how Buenos Aires reminded me of Belgrade, Serbia while in contrast, Montevideo seemed a lot more like an out-of-season coastal Croatian city. I see Belgrade as a year-round lively, resilient city with a lot of happy-go-lucky spirit, fairly chaotic and somewhat dirty, disorganized, but colorful, full of music, dancing, parties, great food. In contrast, Croatian cities, IMHO, for most of the year are better organized, more predictable, probably a bit cleaner, beautiful no doubt, more proper with a slightly higher standard of living but not as loose, happy, welcoming.
There is so much more to Montevideo and especially the rest of Uruguay than we haven’t seen. I am certain I’m not giving it a proper review. This was only our first impression of a sleepy out-of-season coastal capital.
For us, those 6 days were the time for some reflection, rest and school work and I’m glad we included this quick stop over in our South American tour.
Refresh Journey 