Days 7-8: Montevideo, Uruguay

Upon my arrival in Montevideo, I was disappointed. The guide book says that it is a beautiful place, but I thought it was kind of run down, although it is nice that it is on the beach, and it does have some nice architecture. I settled on this hotel, from my balcony I had a nice view of the principal plaza:

I went to see an art exhibit of a famous Uruguayan painter, Joaquin Torres Garcia. The exhibit was about a trip he made to New York and the art which it inspired. It was interesting to see something about New York from a different perspective. 

His work was quite good, but my favorite exhibit I have seen on this trip is still The Benito Quinquela Martin museum in Buenos Aires.  

After I got a bite to eat I met two Chileans at my hostel, Kenny & Daniel, who were backpacking through Uruguay. They are pictured here:

We got along well and they brought me to a heavy metal show they were going to see at a bar called "Living." Living is an English word which in Spanish has been adopted to mean living room. The metal show was short lived, but the bar was a lot of fun, it had couches set up so the place looked like a couple different living rooms in one place. They had a couch just sitting on the sidewalk out front, and most of the people at the bar were outside drinking in the street. Just in the street, not in an outdoor section of the bar, something which of course would not be allowed in the states. It was a lively, fun crowd, and my impression of Montevideo improved after talking with the locals and having fun in this setting. We left right before the sun rose, and it was still open. Somehow during the course of the night I was assigned the nickname "El Maestro." I'm happy to say this is not the only time I have been referred to as such (the first time was when I was a professor at a university in Mexico, but that's a whole other story.) Unfortunately, later in the weekend  "El Maestro" changed to "The Master," which has nowhere near the same ring to it.

I got up "early" the next day and wandered around taking pictures, a lack of sleep being a constant theme on this trip. At night I headed out with Kenny and Daniel again, we started the night by going to drink beer down by the beach. You have to descend a staircase to get to the location, it is a spot which would be highly inadvisable if not accompanied by non-yanquis. Of course, a local shady individual approached us and he must have been able to tell I'm foreign because he kept asking me questions. I always responded with head nods or murmurs, and for more complicated questions Daniel or Kenny would jump in and answer. It actually turned out he was very friendly, and most likely approached us just to try and sell us drugs.

Later in the night we took a 20-30 minute bus ride to a suburb of Montevideo, where there was a house party/rave:

It was obviously the house of a very wealthy Uruguayan, they had a DJ, lights, a bar, and even an artist painting a canvas, an abstract painting which one can assume was intended to capture the energy of the party. Again we left very early in the morning, it was a long walk to the bus stop, and luckily as the others started to fall asleep I was alert enough to make sure that we got off at the right stop and made it back safely to the hostel.

Here are some pictures of Montevideo:

The next day I would be headed to a new adventure in Punta del Diablo.