Experiencing Uruguay

By Lawrence Selby – Guest blogger traveling in Montevideo.
A word about the discotheques here in Montevideo and the Cuidad Vieja. I'm not a huge fan of the club scene but it's pretty much my observation that the discotheque clubs are basically the same in whatever city you are in (perhaps Brazil may be the exception). From what I've seen, Montevideo has a decent amount of beautiful women, though (in my humble opinion) it doesn't even come close to Rio de Janeiro or even New York City. The clubs here get going around 2 am and wind down (I'm told) at around 7 am. Enrique, a former student at the Spanish school here (from Sacramento, CA) came up with a clever idea to meet women. He would march me up to groups of women and say in excellent Mexican accented Spanish, "This is my friend, Lawrence, from New York City. He doesn't speak much Spanish, but he loves to dance!" It worked ok for a while, though I was barely able to understand any Spanish over the blaring nightclub music (some women spoke a little English). Though, because I can pass for a Latino with my features, they seemed a bit skeptical that I was really from NYC. After I tried to speak to them in Spanish for a bit, they seemed to become convinced fairly quickly.
On Sunday, I made a day trip out to Punta del Este (about 1-1/2 hour bus ride from Montevideo). Punta del Este is a famous beach resort here in Uruguay which is especially popular with the Argentineans. It is supposedly one of the top summer resorts in South America. The bus terminal is conveniently located at the top of the resort peninsula. One side of the peninsula faces the Rio del Plata and the other the Atlantic Ocean. The coastline around the peninsula is about 5 km (more or less). At this time of year (autumn) the weather is a bit cold and windy (60´s Fahrenheit), so there weren't many people on the beach only a few fisherman and some surfers in full wetsuits. The place seemed nice enough, though with a pretty harbor, a fish market and lots of sidewalk restaurants and cafes along the river side of the peninsula. On the ocean, the water was much rougher and the high rise resort buildings gave way to a nice neighborhood of beautiful beach houses with some bright colors and interesting architecture. On the whole, Punta seems like a pleasant enough place, though nothing to rave about. I can see it being a totally different experience in the summer, though. I can imagine: drinking beers on a sidewalk cafe watching the beautiful people walk by, body surfing in the ocean and watching all the pretty topless girls on the beach (I'm not sure if the women bathe topless here, but hey it's my dream). As I was waiting for the bus back to Montevideo, it started to rain hard for a few minutes and when the sun came out I saw the most perfect rainbow that I've ever seen, stretched over the ocean. I'm not a big rainbow chaser or anything like that but this one was pretty impressive. It was actually a double rainbow and all the colors of ROY G BIV were clear and vivid. This reminded me of one of my favorite demotivational pictures at www.despair.com (see blog picture). "Dreams are like rainbows. Only idiots chase them."