Since I haven’t posted anything substantial in about a million years, this is going to be a huge post. Read it somewhere where the internet loads pretty quickly– though most of the pictures should load just fine since the file sizes are relatively small.

Where were we? Punta del Este… seems like years ago. That was summer, the beach, and a time before classes had begun. Life is a bit different now, but let’s start where we left off.

After two days in Punta del Este we headed back to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. Since we just had a day there and the weather wasn’t super pretty, we opted to take a three hour tour of the city. We had a great and informative guide (and in Spanish!), and with the sort of rainy day I think the tour was a good decision. Montevideo is a big city, and we wouldn’t have seen as much if we had just walked around!

Our tour started in the oldest plaza of the city (so sorry, I’ve forgotten the name!). The plaza set up is the same as Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo, with a church facing a the cabildo (town hall), very standard in colonial times. We went inside the church, La Iglesia de San Juan. It’s really interesting to see the churches here because they are elaborate and beautiful, but it’s clear that they come from a less wealthy population, since they are less simple than some of the elaborate cathedrals I’ve seen in person and in pictures. The picture that has statues in it is the tomb of the first archbishop of the church back before Uruguay was independent.

The plaza is a lot smaller than the Plaza de Mayo, but has a lovely fountain in the middle of it. It was hard to get a good photo of the Cabildo because of all of the trees in the plaza, but the picture on the bottom right is the original city hall, which is now used as a museum and it very touristy.

I feel like a loser for not remembering the plaza names, but it’s been a while! Anyway, after we went to the oldest plaza, we went to a large one that is the center of Montevideo activity. The buildings are all quite tall and the open space in the plaza is huge! It doesn’t have the political importance as the Plaza de Mayo, but it is a really interesting place. The building on the upper left is supposedly influenced by Cubism.

The building on the top is the Montevidean equal to La Casa Rosada– the president works there, but lives out in a less urban part of the city. The Teatro Solis is a huge and old theater in Montevideo.

This building belongs to a famous Uruguayan family and holds a special importance to people in Montevideo because when it was constructed it was the tallest building in the city, and one of the tallest in South America. It is now apartments, but has been used for commercial uses and was briefly a hotel.

Underneath the plaza there is a mosemleum that contains the ashes of an important Uruguayan liberator. His ashes are illuminated (as is the entire area) by natural light. Important dates and battles in Uruguay’s history are written around the room. Two guards stand there at all times. Poor things probably get their picture taken a lot!

We then went to see the Uruguayan congress building. Uruguay has a centralist government (rather than a federalist one), so all of the laws of the country come out of the capital from traffic laws to court regulations. It’s a small country, but it’s still a different way of thinking about government. The church in the picture is evidently one of the most beautiful in the capital. It was hard to get a shot because it’s located on a normal (narrow) street, rather than on the side of a plaza.

We drove around some of the less urban areas of the city and didn’t get out of the van as much since the weather wasn’t holding up for us. It was sprinkling when we got to one of the beachy areas in Montevideo, but we got out for a little while anyway. The picture in the middle right is a picture of a very nice 5-Star hotel in Montevideo, though it’s currently under construction. Some important ambassador lives in the house in the lower left, though now his name and country both escape me.

Whew!!! That wraps up Uruguay! As always, thanks for tagging along on that little history lesson, and sorry I’m not in that many of the pictures. It’s a tricky balance when you’re on a tour! The good news is that the next big trip was with two other people (Susan and Sarah), so I did a little better. I’m going to cut this post off here just because this is where our Uruguayan voyage ends– but I’m pretty sure everything will get posted all at once.