Returning from a trip, I’m always asked “How was (city name here)?” and I always struggle with the answer. What words can I use that can’t be used for every other city? Writing, I have the advantage of having as much time as I choose to use to describe my experience and I can write things in a manner that is more descriptive than a conversational style.
On my first day here, a local told me not much happens in Montevideo and time flies by. The pace of life here is never rushed and it’s never too late for anything, literally. Running on La Rambla at night, I see more runners than I saw in the marathon I ran in Olympia. Work out groups meet in the park at 9:30 a la noche and dinner as early as 8p.m. is practically unheard of. Everyone greets everyone in the room with a kiss on the cheek and says farewell to everyone with a kiss on the cheek, even those they never spoke with. This even goes for my tango classes and for office workers. Most restaurants aren’t open for lunch and the workday begins closer to 11a.m. Most of the buildings are from the 19th century, are in various stages of crumbling, and have graffiti on them. Most other buildings are built to fit in with the 18th century style, although not posing to be from the same time period themselves. Every block has some street art. The sidewalks are composed of roughly 8″x8″ cement tiles pushed up at various angles due to the allees of mature Pocitos trees shading every street. The curves match the gently rolling hills of the streets themselves. I can walk anywhere I want to go in Montevideo in less than a half hour.
The locals of Montevideo are notably kind, unless they are trying to give you the tourist price. They’re happy and smiling, go out of their way to be helpful, and too often apologize for their lack of English vocabulary. The politics are left leaning. Voting is obligatory. Medical marijuana is newly legalized. The former President Mujica was in-prisoned during the guerrilla war against the military dictatorship of the 70’s and 80’s and this played a roll in his humanitarian decision to accept six of the over sixty victims of Guantanamo Bay cleared for release (57 are still waiting for a country to accept them). I met two of the victims of Gitmo in front of the U.S. embassy where they were protesting in tents for months on end for aid from the U.S. government after being imprisoned and tortured for over ten years without a trial. They were extremely kind and even insisted I have some cookies.
Leading up to the elections, the city is decked in posters with candidates’ faces, you can’t leave your house without a campaigner handing you a flier, and you can’t go six hours without hearing a vehicle, be it a van, truck, or bicycle with a trolly toting an amp blasting propaganda.
The other sounds this recognizable are the bells on the hoarse-drawn carriages driven by young men who live in the outer parts of the city, coming in to collect scrap metal, and the calls of parrots and pigeons, and Cumbia music rolling through the streets and parked next to La Rambla emphasizing the beet just after the 1,2,3, and 4 and the Candombe drummers parading twice weekly. The city is the most hi-fi city I’ve ever visited, only comparable in sound quality to some historical districts which are frequently hi-fi because of their quieter residential parts and lack of autos.
The nightlife is filled with love of life. Although necessities in Uruguay are as expensive as island prices, luxuries such as entertainment are unheard-of cheap. Never did I see a slow or quiet nightlife scene. Never did I see more engaged audiences, singing and clapping along and giving the most supportive and encouraging applauses I’ve ever heard.
I believe Montevideo’s good vibes are owed to the unique culture of open-heartedness thriving there.