Montevideo - Punta Del Diablo

30/04/13 to 05/05/13 - We arrived in Montevideo, in the early evening and stayed in Pocitos on the east side of the city. Pocitos is famous (trust us it is) for hosting the first ever world cup match, because the main stadium was completed a week late. The Pocitos stadium no longer exists, but the area is now the safer and more affluent area of Montevideo. We had pre-booked a hostel and we happened to stay with a good bunch of people, with everyone sharing meals and drinks as well as travel advice. There were a few characters, including a Uruguayan man who looked like Jack Nicholson and had a scary laugh, and an American ex airforce pilot who believed the FBI were chasing him.

Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay and we spent the next day touring the old city, with some nice, unique and also some not so nice buildings. The main square included a mausoleum to the country's founder General Artigas, which we stumbled across by accident as it was underground and guarded by two guards. The place had a nice, spooky ambience with the starship-like lighting and soviet-like block lettering on the walls.



After a fair bit of walking, it was time to try the Uruguayan version of Parilla, so we went to Mercado del Puerto. We went for steaks and they were every bit as good as the Argentine version. We were also given a free glass of Medio y Medio (half and half), which is made from half champagne and half white wine. After walking some more we returned home to try some Uruguayan maté, which is different from maté Argentina.



For our final day in Montevideo it was raining heavily, but there was one thing we couldn't miss so we walked for 45 minutes getting thoroughly soaked on our way to Estadio Centenario, home of the inaugural Football World Cup in 1930. As you can imagine, Flora was well chuffed.

In truth the stadium wasn't a looker, but it didn't really matter as we visited the Museo de Futbol, inside the stadium. We got a view of the pitch and imagined it was 1930 and this tiny nation of just 3 million had just won the first ever world cup (Uruguay have won it twice, which makes them the best international team ever on a per capita basis). The 90,000 fans must have been going wild. Hopefully they had better weather than us. The museum had some old, blood-stained shirts and antique boots, as well as numerous trophies. Probably the best were the posters in typical 1930s modernist style, and they fitted with the Art Deco design of the stadium, with its tall concrete tower. The place was a reminder of how football used to be in the good old days. As we left a cheerful chap said "Goodbye and good luck for the next world cup".

Things dried up a bit and we went to the Torres Garcia museum, where Flora was much happier. This was interesting and his paintings and sculptures and toys showed his interest in geometry. We delayed our bus out for a further day to rest a bit and dry out.

The next morning after yet more Dulce de Leche on toast we caught our bus to Punta del Diablo. On the way we saw ostriches, millions of cows and a pub made from an old aeroplane. PDD was a surfing town, a bit more built up than we imagined, the place Uruguayans go on their holidays, with small guesthouses and bungalows for rent but it was off-season so it was quiet. Except our hostel which had several wedding guests, and due to their noise late at night, we didn't sleep much. We wandered the long beach the next morning before leaving Uruguay in the evening for Brazil.