Uruguay is often equated with Argentina, which is located on the other side of the Río de la Plata estuary and that shares its eastern border (for maps, see my last post). While it’s true that these two countries share a common Spanish accent and many common cultural elements, they also have distinct differences.
The politics of Uruguay
One major difference between Uruguay and Argentina is their political situation. Whereas Argentina has been highly unstable and currently has a far-right president, Uruguay is arguably the most stable country in South America. It has had a center-left government since 2005, except for a brief 2020–2025 period when the people elected a center-right president.
The Harvard International Review has an interesting article published in 2025: https://hir.harvard.edu/uruguays-democracy-a-model-for-stability-in-latin-america/. According to their analysis, Uruguay is ranked 15th globally for robust democracy. Like other countries in South America, Uruguay was ruled by a repressive military dictatorship, in their case, from 1973 to 1985, when it returned to democracy.
I have been reading about José (Pepe) Mujica, who was in prison during the dictatorship, but then became president of Uruguay from 2010–2015. During his term the government enacted many liberalizing laws to expand human rights to all groups and to reduce the inequality of wealth. Mujica even donated his salary to the poor. During our visit in March, we felt the ease with which people were living their lives, without fear of repression.
We saw many signs of unity and support for everyone’s rights. Left-side photo: “Join us for Uruguay” mural showing many different kinds of people celebrating their love of country together. Photo courtesy of Jay. Right-side photo: Feminist Neighbor” poster showing many different kinds of women supporting each other. We saw many signs about women’s rights.
My overall impression of Uruguay is that it is not the most beautiful country in the world, but that it has some of the most friendly and welcoming people. We greatly enjoyed our visit in Uruguay during the first two weeks of March and always felt warmly received. Here are some examples of what we saw.
The capital city of Montevideo
About 40% of Uruguay’s 3.4 million people live in Montevideo. The city features historic European architecture, some dating from its 18th century Spanish colonial period. After independence in 1928, Europeans continued to migrate to Uruguay, especially from Spain and Italy.
Left-side photo: The main entrance of the current Supreme Court building that was constructed in 1916 as the home of a very wealthy family in Montevideo. Right-side photo: Another beautiful building, this one with exterior art—a man climbing up to the second floor to meet a woman on her balcony.Left-side photo: a handsome European-style building. Right-side photo: Mercado Ferrando, one of many older buildings that have been converted into attractive commercial spaces that are very popular. This building, with an Art Deco facade, was originally a furniture factory owned by the Ferrando family. We had an nice lunch, including tasty craft beer.Left-side photo: A favorite part of Montevideo is Old Town, located along the coast near the city’s port. This is where we landed when we took a ferry from Buenos Aires to Montevideo. Most of Old Town is a pedestrian area that has been blocked off from vehicles. It’s a good place to see the older buildings, watch people, and shop for artisanal products.
Right-side photo: One of the most emblematic buildings in Montevideo is the Salvo Palace. It was designed by an Italian architect and built in 1928 by three Salvo brothers. Although they envisioned a hotel, it has mainly been used for offices and apartments. It was interesting to learn that in Uruguay it is more expensive to rent than to buy and that most people own their own home or apartment. We saw a building boom while we were there—the country seems to be meeting the demand for housing.Here is a view looking southwest across the city toward the Río de la Plata and the port. Notice the Salvo Palace, which was the tallest building in South America when it was built in the 1920s. On the other side of Montevideo Bay is El Cerro (the hill), a neighborhood and park we visited that feels quite separated from the main city. Even a small hill is notable in this mostly flat country.
We walked through much of Montevideo and found it safe and interesting. Like all cities, it has a large variety of neighborhoods—some wealthy and some poor. The only thing that disappointed us was the lack of garbage pickup. There were large garbage containers in the neighborhoods, but the trash and recycling were not picked up often enough. This was surprising, given the other amenities of the city. We had an Airbnb apartment in a nice residential area with many young professionals. Even there, garbage overflowed the street-side containers.
Art and Murals
One of the joys of walking around Montevideo is viewing the abundant street art. Barrio Sur (southern neighborhood) is a particularly good area for this. Here is an art selection.
This mural in Barrio Sur is entitled “Cuña (Cradle) del Candombe”, a style of music and dance that originated in Uruguay among the descendants of liberated African slaves. Every Monday evening, people congregate in nearby Parque España to hear groups play this music. We were there on a Monday and enjoyed the festive atmosphere and feeling of camaraderie. Uruguay is known for having the world’s longest (40 days) carnival, featuring this music. Sometime we would love to attend! In Colonia del Sacramento, a group of drummers and dancers paraded along the streets for hours. We heard a similar happening one evening when we were staying in Montevideo.This is another mural in Barrio Sur. Tia Tina (Aunt Tina) was apparently a beloved teacher, maybe of music, given that this mural is on the wall of a school with students engaged in musical activities.Left-side photo: I loved this mural of a woman with binoculars on the wall of an apartment building. Is she a bird watcher? Center photo: A mosaic fish on the side of a wall. Right-side photo: People were selling books everywhere—in bookstores like this one with a cool cat and on the streets.A mural on the side of a university building: “Books teach me to think and thinking liberates me.” Photo courtesy of Jay.Some crazy critters! Left-side photo: Colorful calavera (skull) on a wall outside a museum. Center photo: A pink octopus with houses, this one on a wall in Colonia del Sacramento. Right-side photo: An art piece in an artist’s studio in Old Town. It was large—around 2 m tall. We enjoyed talking to the artist who entitled his piece “An Emotional Utilitarista”. Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that suggests actions are right if they promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people—sounds good!
Fundación Pablo Atchugarry
Our most impressive art experience was Pablo Atchugarry’s Foundation, located a short distance north of Punta del Este. Atchugarry is an Uruguayan artist who has achieved international fame with his monumental sculptures. He has spent considerable time in Europe and established a home in Lecco, Italy, where he founded the Museo Pablo Atchugarry that houses works spanning his entire career. Since 1982 he has making immense sculptures using the famed Italian Carrera marble.
In 2007, Atchugarry opened the Fundación Pablo Atchugarry in Uruguay. This institution aims to provide a stimulus for the arts and create a place for artists of all disciplines to meet in an ideal location that combines nature and art. It is free to the public and includes monumental work by Atchugarry and other artists. We delighted in strolling the immense grounds filled with fabulous art in a natural setting.
A view across the grounds of Fundación Pablo Atchugarry. The white sculpture is one of Atchugarry’s Carrera marble works. Note the hills in the background. This is Cuchilla Grande (large knife), the low ridge between two shear zones shown in my previous post.Left-side photo: A large metal sculpture with Jay and our friend Elizabeth. Right-side photo: An art piece entitled “Milagro (miracle) en los Andes”. The U.S. sculptor Jeffrey Breslow created this piece for the 50th anniversary of a 1972 tragedy, when a plane with an Uruguayan rugby team crashed in the Andes on their way to Chile. Some of them managed to survive until they were rescued 72 days later. A 2023 film called “Society of the Snow” is a reenactment of the event.Left-side photo: Some smaller examples of Atchugarry’s Carrera marble statues. This building, and the one in the background, house smaller works of Atchugarry and other artists. Right-side photo: We got to see the artist (blue shirt) walking across the grounds with his wife and dogs, and two guests. We thought the guy in black was probably his personal assistant.
Food and drink
As in Argentina, grilled meat is very popular in Uruguay. Although I am a pescatarian, I still found plenty of excellent options, including delicious fish and even good vegetarian dishes. Many foods reflected Spanish or Italian influences. One thing to know is that food in restaurants is expensive—not much different than here at home.
Left-side photo: A common view in restaurants is a man grilling many types of meat. Right-side photo: A typical restaurant with people at tables pouring out onto the sidewalk. Note the cow by the restaurant’s name with various cuts in different colors. Despite the cost of food, restaurants were often packed. Uruguays love to get together around food and drinks.Left-side photo: With such a long coastline, it’s no wonder that we had delicious fish and seafood, here at Restaurant Tartarruga Sea-bar located between Punta del Este and Montevideo. I had the day’s fresh fish with roasted potatoes and a very fresh salad. Jay had fish and chips with the same salad. Right-side photo: We had some excellent food in Montevideo, in this case at Toledo Bar, which features creative drinks and tapas. We felt like we were in San Francisco!Fruits and vegetables in the markets were very fresh and inexpensive. For example, the watermelon (sandia) was 16 pesos/kilo (18 cents/pound).Of course they do have their high-calorie fast food. The most popular seemed to be chivitos (“little goats”), Uruguay’s most iconic sandwich—like hamburgers in the U.S. The main ingredient is thinly sliced grilled beef that is topped with slices of ham, bacon, lettuce, tomato, melted mozzarella cheese, and a fried egg. You’d get plenty of protein—and maybe a heart attack too! Jay had one in Colonia del Sacramento and managed to survive the experience.Left-side photo: As in Argentina, matte is extremely popular. Stores had large supplies of matte bowls and bombillas (straws). We saw many people on the street with their “kit” that included a hot-water thermos. Right-side photo: We were pleased by the quantity and quality of craft beers. This is a hip bar in Montevideo with a wide selection. Photos courtesy of Jay.Uruguay is also famous for its wine. These are the varietals we tasted at the Dardanelli Family Winery. From left to right: a tasty olive oil; Albariño, a Spanish varietal that is widely available and well done; Merlot, a commonly produced varietal; Marcelan, a tasty cross between Cabaret Sauvignon and Grenache; a “Blend of Barricas” (barrels) with Merlot, Tannat and Cabernet Sauvignon. Uruguay is known for the Tannat varietal but we preferred it blended with other reds, as in this example. In general, we thought the quality of their wine was good.We got to enjoy food and wine in Punta del Este with Elizabeth and Neil, our neighbors up the street in Ashland. While I did suggest Uruguay as a relaxing beach stop after their February bike tour in Chile, it was surprising that two of their days in Punta del Este overlapped with two of the days we were on that part of the coast. The restaurant Bouza serves tapas and their own wines.
Even more surprising was our one-day overlap with a couple who are good friends of my sister and brother-in-law. Their daughter and family had recently moved from Switzerland to Uruguay, and they were visiting from Ohio for a few weeks. We had breakfast together and learned why their daughter was drawn to Uruguay from a spectacularly-beautiful country—it’s many of the reasons described in this post!
Museums
We visited some good museums in Uruguay—here is a small selection of items we liked.
Left-side photo: Just a little bit of geology! Uruguay’s National Museum of Natural History opened in 1838. It is the oldest scientific institution in Uruguay and one of the oldest natural history collections in the world! This impressive fossil specimen of Doedicurus is characterized by its heavy armor and a distinctive spiked tail club (Jay pretends he got bonked—ouch). They lived in Uruguay about 8 million years ago. They are now extinct but are related to modern-day armadillos and anteaters.
Right-side photo: Most people think of Argentina as the birthplace of tango, but the most famous tango was composed in 1916 by Uruguayan musician Gerardo Matos Rodríguez and first performed in 1917 in Café La Giralda in Montevideo. “La Cumparsita” (the little street procession) is often regarded as the anthem of tango music. The image is the composer sitting in front of a photo of Café La Giralda—now a museum that we toured. You’ll notice the cafe patrons were all men—apparently gay men in Montevideo were the first to hear this tango.Left-side photo: A lithograph of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza from the famed Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Ashland’s sister city—Guanajuato, Mexico—has a three-week-long Cervantino festival of music and art and a museum with many images of this famous pair. So we always like to see more images, this one in Montevideo’s Museum of Visual Arts. Center photo: Jay in an old building in Colonia del Sacramento. The entire Old Town of Colonia is a museum of structures from the time of Portuguese and Spanish colonialism. Right-side photo: Colonia del Sacramento’s Museum of Origami contains an incredible collection of folded-paper art, mainly from Japan. This piece is from a Russian artist now living in the U.S.
Concluding remarks
We discovered much to like in Uruguay and would certainly visit again, especially with more opportunities to interact with the local people. We did not see any of the country’s interior, which is sparsely populated and largely agricultural. The country is best known for its beaches. We prefer mountainous terrain, but in Uruguay the interesting rocks are exposed at beaches. The beaches and beach towns were quite tranquil in March, after most people had returned to jobs and school, and we would recommend this month to visit. Another month to consider is February, when carnival lasts for the whole month.
This night scene on a cobbled street in Colonia del Sacramento is a good place to end. Uruguayans doing what they love best—chatting with friends and family over food and drinks.
