Uruguay

I spent Sunday in Colonia, Uruguay, with my group from Expanish. It was an early morning (I had to wake up at 6 am, which is fairly early considering that I had only returned home from the previous night's milonga an hour and a half before,) but we got there early enough to spend the entire day. The first part was a tour of the old city. Colonia is very much a city trying to expand its tourism. It was given the classification of world heritage site, at least the small part that consitutes the old city. It is the oldest town in Uruguay: quaint, with Portuguese roads intersecting Spanish roads (after the Portuguese conquered the natives...the Spanish conquered them.) I think our tour guide was being paid both by us and the Uruguayan government to help boost their economy, "This is the church...a lovely place to get married. A French couple was married here in 2007...an couple from the United States last year with 80 wedding guests that all stayed in our town for three days...if any of you are getting married or know anyone who will soon be marrying please come marry here in Colonia. It is very good for our economy and tourism. The priest will be done with the service in 15 minutes and you may speak with him about marrying here in our church." She was very keen to plug Colonia and all of its wonderful attractions on many occassions.

Myself and a friend from class--ironically another environmentalist from about an hour and a half away from where I go to school on Long Island who goes to a school, Oberlin, about an hour and a half away from where I live in Ohio--rented bicycles and road around the city. We saw the more modern areas of the city, the more spread out parts (because it is really more of a village than city,) and the long sandy coast. We enjoyed some time on the beach, despite the cold, and crawled through a hole in the fence around the old, crumbling bull fighting ring (as bull fighting was outlawed in Uruguay after the Argentians had it built for their wealthy looking for a vacation spot to enjoy.)


As Noelia (my couch surfing host,) told me, they DO drink matte even more in Uruguay than in Argentina. In the evening, it seemed that at least half of the population was carrying around their thermos under one arm with matte in hand.

While walking back to wait the last couple of hours at the boat (as it is winter, wandering around outside, especially in the evening, is only enjoyable for so long) we passed a group of men on a site street with a fire in the road and a dozen drums laying around it. We walked over to talk to them and learned that twice a week at night they get together to play traditional Uruguayan music in a mini parade in the old city. It was the best part of our day! We spent the whole day as Americans LOOKING at Uruguayan houses, beaches, food, people, and matte, but finally we got to talk with them and experience a little bit of their culture from their side.