"URUGUAY .... HERE WE COME...." Top 5 Page for this destination Uruguay by schurlif

I've been living in Brazil since 20 years and had never made it to this neighbor so close.....Well , on October 1st, 2006 there were presidential elections in Brazil and Brazilians must go to vote or else risk a hefty fine. Camila has been called in by the SET ( Supreme Electoral Tribunal ) for every election in the past years to serve her country and be an electoral assistant at the local school , which means , 12 hours non stop work in return for not one single penny... This is called citizen duty , whatever.... This time again , she was going to spend the whole day watching people coming , voting and going . So , we had the great idea to have a weekend escape out of the country which is a legal excuse for not showing up.... This is how the idea came up to hop over to Montevideo and Punta del Este for a nice four day weekend.......

arriving at Montevideos Carrasco Int'l Airport

The official uruguayan name for the country is R.O.U. (Republica Oriental Uruguay). Why "oriental " ? Because Uruguay lies east of the river Uruguay which opens up to the Rio de la Plata (Delta) , the absolute widest and broadest estuary of any river in the world , more than 700 km wide that opens up to the South Atlantic all the way to Punta del Este..... Uruguay has approximately 177.000 km² and 3.3 millions inhabitants of which about half live in the capital Montevideo.
MVD seems to be a very cultural city, people dress nicely but even though it is not obvious to the quickie tourist like us, there are major social problems among the population, an absurd rich but very small elite with mansions in Punta del Este, vacant most of the year, costing somewhere between 5 million and 40 million dollars and a wide range of lower middle class, dressed nicely , working hard but making barely enough to survive. Camila is more socially dedicated than I and investigates all the doubts she has about political and demographic differences and will ask just about anyone , the sales girl in the boutique , the waiter in the restaurant and so on……

typical uruguayan landscape

So , if half of the population lives in the capital and at the same time province Montevideo , the other half lives in the 23 or 24 other provinces with such nicely sounding names like Colonia , Florida , Flores , Durazno , Rio Negro , Maldonado , Rocha , Lavalleja , San José , Treinta e Tres , Cerro Largo , Soriano , Salto , Artigas , Paysandú , Tacuarembó , Rivera , Canelones .....
Uruguays general landscape is somewhat dull and without any special landmarks besides the river banks ( Rio Uruguay and Rio de la Plata ) , the highest point in the country is the Cerra Catedral with only 514 meters.
Uruguayans are very proud of their countries history and keep on talking about their "Independência" , "Constitucion" and the "Reinado"( Kingdom ) de Buenos Aires" to which Uruguay once belonged .... They "suffered" an English invasion during Napoleonic times....
The main tourist attractions are the two cities of Montevideo and Punta del Este.

• Pros:nice weather , fantastic food
• Cons:some people complained about social injustices
• In a nutshell:perfect four day weekend getaway from São Paulo