Yeah, overall it was a great trip, and more to come. Really, the only negatives were the sushi place and some sunburn, the latter of which was far less painful. Montevideo’s definitely a smaller city than Buenos Aires, and the country as a whole significantly smaller than Argentina – all of Uruguay could fit in just Buenos Aires province and has a population roughly the same as the city of BA proper, a bit over 3 million, over half of whom live in Montevideo. It’s a wealthier country overall, far less poverty in evidence, and it’s more expensive – it has a strong economy – it’s the only country in the Americas that hasn’t gone into a recession in these last few years. The “uruguayo” as the peso is referred to in slang is running about 19 or 20 to the dollar, so it makes prices look high, and indeed, prices are about 30% higher than in Argentina. The accent, vocabulary, and dialect of Spanish is pretty much the same as Argentina – some vocabulary is different and there’s more of an influence from Brazilian Portuguese in that and accent at times. Wine country is spread around, but, there’s a bit of a concentration of wineries in the area north of the city ranging from 30 minutes away to about 2 hours away – I wrote up the ones I visited way back in a series of posts that start here. And, about five years ago wrote an article for Wine Business Monthly on the Uruguayan wine scene, and I think it’s just gotten better.

Seems like a pretty city. Your photos are great. Nikon does it well. How far is where you are from the wine country? Are Uruguay’s wines decent? Up and coming?