This one time, in Uruguay…

15 years ago, I’m pretty sure I thought Uruguay was a country in the Middle East… 5 years ago, I knew it was in South America (thanks to the World Cup), but I thought it was a poor, third-world-ish country… less than 1 year ago, I realized how very wrong I was.

I’m not sure where my initial impressions of Uruguay came from. I imagine just the fact that I’d never heard much about it led me to assume there wasn’t much to hear. I’m happy to report that my world views have changed a great deal in the last 15 years, but even in the last 5. I can now name all 196 sovereign nations in the world (with a teensy bit of help from the Countries of the World quiz on Jetpunk). I’ve learned to find the beauty in every country, and I love finding out about new places, not just to visit them, but to understand the culture, the history… and of course a few fun facts!

I ended up visiting Uruguay in January primarily due to proximity. After hundreds of hours of research, I’d finally decided on Buenos Aires as my winter trip, and with Uruguay so very close I simply couldn’t resist. Plus, I was disappointed that my grand plans of trekking around Argentina for 2 weeks never came to fruition, so I was pretty excited to add a couple of days in an unexpected place.

It’s a quick 2.5 hour ferry ride from Buenos Aires to Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay), so I figured I could do it with minimal planning. Alas, I do nothing with minimal planning, which is why I’ll be writing separate posts for Colonia del Sacramento and Montevideo/Punta del Este.

Rather than keeping it short and sweet (a skill I’ve never been known for..), I’m going to take this opportunity to share some fun facts I learned about Uruguay during our trip.

Basically, Uruguay seems really cool. I’d have definitely liked to have spent more time there, and would recommend it to anyone. The food was pretty good (I had a Spanish omelette that used french fries as the potato!!), though it is very beef based. This is fitting because Uruguay has around 4.32 cows per person. So everyone needs to do their share. Neil had to do his share and mine. One of the specialty dishes is chivitos, a beef sandwich with the usual fixings, plus bacon and egg. I did not partake. Turns out I’m in the minority of people who don’t believe eggs belong on burgers.. or sandwiches of any kind, really. I also don’t go for egg McMuffins. Gross.

Moving on. Most of the following fun facts were obtained from our tour guide in Montevideo, so I’m trusting in his accuracy, but perhaps you should take them with a grain of salt. This also applies to the 4.32 cows per person, though I’m quite happy to believe that. On that topic, I also wrote a note to myself that:

Uruguay consumes more beef and ‘whiskey’ per capita

I wish I could remember a) why  ‘whiskey’ was in quotations and b) more than whom?? I can’t though, so I’ll leave you to puzzle that one out on your own and let me know if you have any brilliant insights!

Uruguay was initially founded by Freemasons, and has become a really progressive country. With free health care and university, all schoolchildren get computers and retirees are given computers AND lessons on how to use them, which I think is pretty awesome.

The Uruguayan president is considered something of a ‘grandfather’, having tasked himself with taking care of the people. And honestly, it seems to be working. Everyone we saw was quite happy (we were mostly in tourist areas though, so take that with a grain of salt too). As much as this could just be propaganda from the tour guide, one of the undeniable results of this grandfatherly concern is a serious lack of salt (my favourite condiment) on tables. Apparently salt, along with mayo, ketchup, etc. are not allowed to be displayed on tables (you have to actually ask for them) in an effort to keep the population healthy.

This healthy population seems intent on not re-populating their wonderful country though, as there are more immigrants than babies born each year, and hardly any marriages or nuclear families. In fact, if a couple were to get married, they wouldn’t normally have a large celebration, but instead just go down to city hall.

The country is struggling to increase birth rates without offering incentives to woman to have children. Turns out women are real people, with value outside of just procreation and the ability to choose what to do with their own bodies and lives. I may sound sarcastic, but I really do think this is commendable of the Uruguayans and wish other countries had the same philosophy.

One of the reasons the citizens of Uruguay are unconcerned with marriage is that the country is largely non-religious. The secular sentiments negate the idea that living with someone, being in a relationship, etc. is a sin. Uruguay was also the first country in Latin America to allow gay marriage (though one suspects it’s not all that common, given the marriage stats of the overall population!).

Those are all the fun facts I have for now! Stay tuned for more of our adventures in Uruguay 🙂