Montevideo

31 March 2006
Day 13
Montevideo
2) Uruguay
Distance stilllll 1.2km

The bus route ended at a large shopping centre in a suburb of Montevideo which showed clues of a well developed modern city. From there I went by taxi (taxi’s here are very cheap) to a backpacker type hotel extracted from the lonely planet book I am using as a guide. Not quite Djibouti standards (one would need to read the pending Freedom Flight book to appreciate Djibouti) but it certainly fulfilled all the criteria one would expect from such an establishment.
Montevideo city centre is not the best example of its splendor. Like so many other cities, it is dealing with the migration towards the suburbs and boy are the suburbs beautiful. I met up for a beer with a motor biker, Santiago, whom I contacted via http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ and he showed me around the beach front area of Montevideo. It could easily be mistaken as being the French Riviera with its miles of beach lined very upmarket apartments. Really impressive areas.
A sight in the city centre that to me spoke a million words and in a way reminded me of home. Imagine, a young poor man standing on his old wooden cart filled with bags of arbitrary garbage like goods, holding the reins of his ill looking horse which is pulling them down the road while behind is an impatient BMW M5 motor vehicle desperately trying to overtake.
We live in a world of disparity.
There are many ornate buildings closed up or busy being renovated and amongst them are sections of very chic looking restaurants and night clubs. Something that has been noticeable both here and in Buenos Aires is the very late hours that people come out for the evening. A restaurant will be completely empty at 9 pm and by 10pm it will be packed for the first serving of the evening and it goes on until the early hours of the morning. How everybody works the next day is amazing.

I am now on the ferry back to Buenos Aires to hopefully sort out riding the motor bike across the border. Hold thumbs.

Adios
Ricky