Montevideo, Uruguay - Week 4 (aka Medellin, Colombia?)

Hello Family and Friends,

This week should really be called "Return to Medellín, Colombia". Yes, we went back to Medellín, our favorite city thus far. So the story is that we realized that we were going to be flying to Australia two days before some very good friends of ours were going to be flying from Medellín to Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires is only a little over a two hour ferry ride from Montevideo. It felt like we were going to barely be missing them. I was like "Ah shoot, we are just barely missing them". Brett was like, "Do you want to fly to Medellín and surprise them"? My one and only stipulation was to make sure that we were not infringing on their family time. Once that was confirmed, plane tickets were booked and hotels were confirmed. It literally took no convincing at all to get me to say "yes" to returning to Medellin. I didn't ask how long the flight was, if it was a direct flight or even how much it cost. Our friends, Julian and Taryn, were going to be there (with baby Tomas!) and that was all the convincing I needed. Plus, the last time I had seen my good friend Taryn was when she was very pregnant with her first son who is now 7 months old. So if I needed any reasonable excuse, it was that we had to fly to Medellin while we were still on this side of the equator in order to meet her baby boy. So we conspired with Julian's mom and dad to surprise them at lunch. The surprise was a success! Julian was speechless and Taryn and was on the verge of tears!

Atlas, Brett, Danielle, Tomas, Taryn, and Julian

Julian and Taryn are such amazing people. Even though they had a full schedule of catching up with their family in Medellín, they still made more time than we could have ever expected.

This time, instead of staying in Medellín, we stayed up in the mountains in Retiro. This was also a special treat, because on our first visit to Medellín, Retiro was one of the little towns we had visited outside of Medellín and I told Brett that I would love to spend a weekend there. So I got my weekend in Retiro!

A neat little sign in the central square of Retiro letting you know how far you are from other cities of the world. We are a little over 7, 000km from Montevideo where we are "suppose" to be.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/c45804_da7966d6200e41b79206c4d50ceb9893/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Atlas chasing the pigeons in the main square of Retiro. The voice you hear is Julian shouting "corre" which means "run".

The view from up the mountain near Retiro. Medellin can be seen in the distance.

It was a beautiful weekend that confirmed so many things that we love about Medellín. Of course we went to our favorite mall, Vivo Envigado, and got a box of cookies from our favorite cookie store, Braun (and no they don't pay me). Also, because we were staying up in the mountains, we also got to see another little town near Retiro called "La Ceja" which translates to the eyebrow. It's so named because of the shape of the valley where La Ceja is located. Brett did knock over a parked bike with the rental car. To be fair to Brett, it was parked in the road. No one was hurt and there was minimal damage to the vehicles. However even with that little hiccup I would say that I like La Ceja even better than Retiro. It still a has a small town feel, but with more energy than Retiro.

After our visit to Medellín, we flew back to Montevideo just so we could pack up before catching our flight to Melbourne, Australia. Montevideo, in general was a total bust for us. Below is our scoring rubric for Montevideo, but I would say that in general it was just fell flat.

Food: D-

The only reason Montevideo doesn't get an "F" in the food category is because it was edible and it didn't make us sick. However, it was the most boring food I have ever eaten in my life. The A+ food we had in Colonia isn't enough to pull Montevideo food score up from edible. The food essentially serves it's caloric purpose of giving you energy and I can't live like that.

Service: D

Yet again, none of South America really gets a good score on service. You must ask for service or you just don't get it.

In home convenience: D

Let's just say that we ordered a tablet cover for Atlas and even after 3 weeks we left the country without getting it. Supposedly it was in the country but stuck at customs due to not having paid the proper tax. In order to get the item we would have had to go to customs in person and pay the missing tax, we think. Also getting a taxi big enough to carry our luggage to the airport was impossible. We called for large taxis twice and the largest we could get was a full size sedan. We had bags in the front seat and on our laps. Even food delivery was difficult. There were very few options after 8pm.

Neighborhood Walkability: C

Where we stayed was attached to a mall. The mall only had fast food as eating options. However, around the mall were sit down and fast eats. Also within walking distance of the mall was a great laundry mat and a yarn store. There is a good grocery store within the mall. However there was no large department store within the mall or nearby. We were also within walking distance of "la rambla". It is a about a 14 mile pathway along the water where people walk, run and bike. There are also benches along the pathway to drink mate (an iconic Uruguayan hot beverage).

Pollution: A-

Air quality is very high due to a 97% renewable energy grid, a very large adoption of EVs and they are a coastal city. However, they have poor water quality due to aging infrastructure and leaking pikes. Fifty percent of their clean treated water is leaking into the ground. Also, they have to occasionally use brackish water for drinking. I bought bottled water while we were visiting because I didn't like the taste at all.

Publear: C

While we were there it was vacation time so a lot of locals were out of Montevideo and vacationing in Punta del Este, an expensive surfing town, Colonia or Buenos Aires. These locations are abou 2-3 hours from Montevideo. We didn't visit Punta del Este but we did go to Colonia and Buenos Aires. And if we alive in the southern hemisphere we will definitely be back to Buenos Aires.

People: B

People in general were nice. They weren't stand offish and we experienced minimal racism.

Safety: A-

Very safe. No problems whatsoever. I would wear Atlas baby bag on my back without any concern for theft. When we were visiting with Massi and Fernanda they told us that in general you don't have to be concerned with being swindled or taken advantage of when doing business.

Driving: NA

We didn't rent a car in Montevideo. Part of the reason is that cars were very expensive to rent and there weren't many automatic options. Traffic in general was light and they drive on the right side of the road.

Infrastructure: C+

No metro system, but a very extensive, affordable and easy to use bus system. You do have to buy a physical bus card from a store, Abitab, but it can be reloaded from an app on your phone.

Bidets are normal and everywhere but public restrooms

Sidewalks are abundant but not very well maintained. Many of the road crossings don't have an individual walk sign, you just follow the traffic lights. Besides the rambla, there are no bike lanes. Roads in the city are of good quality.

Maintenance of the buildings is also poor. The AC went out in our entire hotel three times. It's not really a mystery as they would have the doors open while the AC is running. Also the laundry machine in our hotel worked only once for the entire four weeks we were there.

Montevideo is the last of our Latin American countries to visit. Our next country will be crossing into a different hemisphere completely; the eastern hemisphere.