The Mate Life
I’ll confess. I knew next to nothing about Uruguay before our visit here, other than the Uruguayan soccer star and half-striker, half-vampire, Luis Suarez. A small country of 3.5 million tucked away between Argentina and Brazil, Uruguay can be easily overlooked, like the younger brother of the group. But for us, it was a country of random fascination over the last few years, representing a place we likely wouldn’t visit outside of our world trip.
Traveling to Uruguay is easy from Buenos Aires, only a quick ferry ride from Puerto Madero on Busquebus or Colonia Express. The shortest ferry takes you directly to the small town of Colonia del Sacramento, where you can find frequent buses to Montevideo, the country’s capital, and Punta del Este, a popular beach town. We visited all 3 cities during our 5-day visit there.
Busquebus ferry terminal in Buenos Aires to Uruguay
To say Uruguay is low-key is an overstatement. In fact, an Argentinian couple we met in the ferry line was surprised to hear we were even visiting. I shot them the same question right back - turns out, they were pretty famous actors looking to escape the city and media attention for the weekend. This was later confirmed by non-stop photos from other Argentinians in line. Ok, point made about Uruguay being a quiet getaway.
Colonia del Sacramento is a sleepy colonial town and requires a few hours to cover, at most. After strolling the historic district and beachfront in the morning, we dug into chivitos for lunch, a popular Uruguayan sandwich stacked with cheese, meat and fried egg. It tastes like the perfect hangover cure.
A mouthwatering chivito in the quaint town of Colonia del Sacramento
We also observed an interesting habit of many Uruguayans - mate. Mate is a strong, earthy green tea made popular by the indigenous inhabitants of the area. Although indigenous people are nowhere to be found today (Uruguay is very European), the culture of mate remains, and locals will carry large thermoses of hot water, personal mate cups, and drinking straws (bombillas) with them everywhere they go. And I mean everywhere. From the grocery store to the bank to the casual Sunday stroll, it was tough to find anyone without it. We later learned over 85% of Uruguayans drink mate tea on a daily basis! The dedication to the mate life was simply impressive.
See the thermos? Gotta have your mate, even on the beach.
Like Argentina, Uruguay shares a love for meat and wine. One of our favorite meals we had was in Montevideo’s Mercado del Puerto. It’s lined with small Uruguayan parillas, where barstools surround big grills cooking up fresh meat and vegetables under a wood fire. The meat was cooked to perfection and served simple - no seasoning, no salt, just a small bowl of chimmichurri on the side. We paired the meal with medio y medio, a mix of sparkling wine with either red or white wine. Continuing our gluttony, we tried Uruguyan tannat wine with wine flights at Montevideo Wine Experience and then proceeded to close down a restaurant while watching a Champions League match with some old men who loved cursing out Ronaldo every five minutes. Learned some new Spanish that night 😉.
Uruguayan parilla at Mercado del Puerto
Our last stop was Punta del Este, an upscale beach town with Miami’s beach all day, party all night culture. What we found instead were quaint beaches and quiet restaurants. Unfortunately, our timing was off as we visited just after peak summer season on a particularly overcast and windy weekday. It was nice but not what we were expecting, so we had cut our visit short to head back to Montevideo.
La Mano at the beach in Punta del Este
Overall, our trip Uruguay felt like a nice change of pace after our string of city and outdoor adventures. The lack of “travel FOMO” was liberating (you know, that feeling that you have to see, do, eat everything when you arrive in a new city), and it became easy to enjoy our time there without an agenda.
Strolling Montevideo on a rainy Tuesday
Up next, Anushka’s big 3-0 in Argentina’s wine country, Mendoza!
