In February 2007 I participated in a research cruise in Antarctica. We sailed from Rothera on the Antarctic Peninsula, and arrived in Montevideo (Uruguay) on the 19th of February. Our flight back to London was leaving on the 20th so we had a day to discover Montevideo!

To be honest, my expectations were quite low. On the ship, when you asked the crew about Montevideo, they started talking about the meat market. I was fed up with eating meat on board, and thought that if the most exciting thing in Montevideo was the meat market, it couldn't be a very nice town. Fortunately, I was very wrong! It happened to be a national holiday the day we arrived, so everybody was enjoying a day off and the city seemed very relaxed. The weather was perfect, warm but not too hot, a light breeze, palm trees everywhere (a bit bizzarre if you've just come from Antarctica!). And... I even enjoyed the meat market :)

Here are some photos of our arrival in Montevideo. It was strange to wake up to a cityscape instead of the empty ocean for the first time in two weeks!

The first thing we did when we got off the ship, was take a photo of the ship...

We then went off to explore the city. This is in a small park near the harbour area. I soon noticed how EVERYONE was drinking mate (a drink made out of herbal leaves, a bit like tea but quite bitter) all day, see the picture of the boy in the park. They carry around a special mug with a straw that works like a strainer at the same time, and they drink the same mate all day. They just add hot water from a thermos. It was impressive to see so many people carrying these around! It really is their national drink I guess :) We wanted to try some but you can't actually buy it anywhere unless you buy your own mug and mate leaves!

We had a pleasant lunch in the meat market. I was brave enough to try baby squids, blood sausage and sheep intestines (not recommended), not my usual behaviour but I decided to give it a try - most of the meat was actually really nice! Somebody told me that the meat market is in an old station building. The station was built to be transported somewhere else, but something went wrong and it ended up staying in Montevideo where they turned it into a meat market. Not sure if this is true, but the building does look like a train station!

These are two photos taken in one of the numerous parks in the city. Palmtrees everywhere, with interesting fruit/flowers (?). In the second photo a very common image: a couple relaxing in the park and note the mate mug under the bench.. hehe.

This is the main square in Montevideo. From the big building, we saw laundry hanging from one of the top floors :). The monument is to honour a general who fought for the independance of Uruguay, his ashes are in a kind of basement under the statue and it's well visited!

We went to the beach for a while. Some people were smart enough to bring their swimming clothes, I wish I had done! It was perfect weather for a swim. But hey, I was going to Antarctica and didn't think I would be needing a swim suit. The beach is right in the city, very nice! I enjoyed watching the woman with her child, they were so cute! After feeding the little one... out came the mate :)

We walked around the boulevard at sunset, it was so beautiful! There were people everywhere, enjoying the sunset, having picknicks, drinking mate, fishing, playing games. It had such a relaxed atmosphere, I enjoyed it a lot! In the last photo you can see the bay looking towards the city center. What a city to live in!

At night we went to see a big carnival show (it was Mardi Gras!) in an open air theatre. What a perfect ending of our day! It was amazing to see. There were three carnival clubs competing, the first one was what you expect of South American carnival - girls wearing tiny bikini's and big feathers. The second was more comedy, a group of guys in funny costumes singing and telling jokes. I don't speak Spanish so I couldn't follow much but apparantly it was mostly about politics and making fun of the Argentinans ;) The thousands of people in the audience seemed to enjoy it a lot, they was lots of laughter and even singing.

We didn't see the third group as it was already midnight when the second group finished and we were all very tired, so we walked back to the ship. Our flight back to London was the next day, so it was a very short visit. I really enjoyed it though! Such a pleasant city - I hope to see a bit more of Uruguay and the rest of South America one day :)