Uruguay 2: The sun shines so red in Montevideo...

...Hansi Lang already knew;)

It wasn't easy to find a suitable accommodation in Montevideo ahead of time, but: Peter can (almost;)) do anything! Through airbnb, we stayed in an apartment in a high-rise building at Plaza de Independencia with a view of about three-quarters of the sights of Montevideo, which can be found directly at the main square.

We took five days for the capital of Uruguay and felt very comfortable here.

With temperatures always around 30 degrees Celsius and humidity levels of up to 80%, strategies are needed to stay fresh: drink a lot, take showers in between,

but above all, eat helado (ice cream) as often as possible!!! We reluctantly admit that the ice cream at 'Piwo' was almost even better than our usual favorite in Vienna (besides frozen yogurt at Zanoni), namely 'Eis am Schwedenplatz'.

From our landlords, a young likeable couple, we received a recommendation for a popular Irish pub 'Shannon' with supposedly excellent beer and live music every day. The story behind the establishment is also very interesting: about 15 years ago, some friends, after their graduation trip through Europe and Russia, after completing their business studies, felt like opening a pub in Montevideo based on the Scottish pub model, where beer culture combined with good music and coziness should invite people to linger.

It seems to have succeeded, as it is frequented by locals and tourists alike. However, we came to the conclusion that the beer at Schweizerhaus from our perspective simply cannot be beaten....

But the Uruguayans seem to enjoy drinking mate tea even more;).

Since last year, there has been a very liberal attitude towards cannabis here. Every adult local can obtain up to 40g of cannabis per month from the pharmacy, tourists are not affected by this regulation.

However, so far, there are neither crowds nor noticeably many people smoking marijuana.

After watching a demonstration late in the evening (from the balcony), I looked up what it was actually about.

These were protesters who wanted to draw attention to the obvious shortcomings in dealing with the unfortunately frequent cases of violence against women in the country (as well as in all of South America). So far, men who mistreat or - in the worst case - murder their wives still often get away with it without punishment! A proposal to change the legal situation was submitted a year ago, but has not yet been addressed.

I read that Uruguay - although the smallest country in all of South America - has the highest rate of femicides in relation to only about 3.3 million inhabitants.

Hard to imagine, because apparently people here still like to get married. Nowhere else on our trip have we seen so many freshly married couples as here, who also gladly let me take pictures of them.

We wish them all a happy future, even when life together sometimes presents challenges and mutual respect and a loving approach become particularly important, because this is usually not very difficult during the honeymoon phase;).

But now we want to move a bit further: to the coast to Punta del Diablo, a small seaside resort where hippies used to hang out;).