Montevideo





“I see a mountain,” said the sailor a few hundred years ago. And that’s how it got its name. Truly, without the mountain there they would likely have sailed right past it because Montevideo is flat, flat, flat.

We hired Santiago, a young James Woods lookalike to take us around in his taxi, and he drove us to the top of the mountain, now crested by a white fort. We could see it from the ship and the view from up top was fabulous. Alas, we didn’t spend much time up there because we were approaching 3 hours, which was to be the length of our tour.

We hired Santiago, a young James Woods lookalike. His English was pretty good so we happily climbed into his cab. Unfortunately, the advertised air conditioning in his taxi didn’t work and he had a glass barrier between the front and back seats so even though he spoke good English, we heard little of it. Well, sometimes we heard it, when he turned around and spoke directly to my face using his hands to emphasize his speech. We were content not to hear too much.

Montevideo is a large city and has lots of parks, but there was little grass in them though that could be because the trees were so huge and cast such a large shadow that maybe it was difficult to grow grass underneath them. The parks were also fenced with wrought iron so there were only a few entrances and exits and the vendors, at least on this day, were selling most flea market items instead of the usual handicrafts. It was just different from the parks we’ve seen in other South American countries.

We didn’t see much in Montevideo that would ever make us want to come back. The city has lots of litter. Mind you, that’s common in all cities down here except Lima, which was incredibly clean. Lots of old, historic buildings. It used to be a walled city and in the central area of town, dividing the old city from the new city, are red lines bout 50’ apart showing where the walls used to stand. This downtown park was quite lovely and also houses the mausoleum of their liberator hero whose name escapes me right now.

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