Uruguay

Uruguay is not a country that was originally on my trip radar, but I found out that you could get here by a quick ferry ride from Buenos Aires so I thought why not! And I'm very glad I did. Even though outside of Montevideo the country mostly seems to have one type of tourist attraction - beaches - and I'm currently not in beach mood, I'm glad I came here because I found out many interesting things about a country I previously knew nothing about.

Did you know, for example, that Uruguay has one of the strongest economies of South America (and it's also very expensive) and probably the most progressive society? Weed, gay marriage and abortion are legal. There's about 3.5 million people and 14 million cows. Uruguayans get born with a mate thermos under their armpit - you see them sipping their precious drink everywhere: walking around, driving, on the bus, at work, at home... It came as a surprise to me that they're also the biggest drinkers of whiskey in the world (per capita of course). And, as my walking tour guide explained, they have the "highest level of football fame per capita" - they won the most world cups per inhabitant ;-)

Last but not least, Uruguay is home to the longest carnaval in the world. It goes on for 40 days and it's on right now! It's different to what I was expecting: I imagined street processions Rio style and music everywhere. I arrived and this was nowhere to be seen, and most of the people that stayed at my hostel didn't even realize the carnival was on! So I set out on an investigative mission with the purpose of finding the hidden carnival in Montevideo.

Turns out the carnaval here developed on stages and it has the form of a competition. Originally neighborhood stages were built and funded by local people and businesses. Neighbors put many hours of work into designing and decorating their stages. In the middle of the 20th century there were 160 local stages in Montevideo (called "tablados") but unfortunately (I think) the neighborhood constructed stages over the years have been replaced by government and privately funded ones, which are the only ones that persist until this day. And so to see the carnaval in Montevideo you need to purchase a ticket to one of the venues that nowadays hold the performances. The most famous of them is Teatro de Verano where the groups perform in front of the competition jury. I went there yesterday and I loved the performances and the ornate costumes and face painting. There's also two days on which Montevideo puts on a street parade like the one in Rio, but unfortunately I missed that.

Another distinct characteristic of the local carnaval is that it's dominated by cadombe music. Cadombe is a style of music and dance which originates from the African slaves. A few centuries ago Uruguay was the center of slave trade in South Africa. The port here was able to take in ships bigger than Buenos Aires, and so African slaves were shipped here to be sold on to other countries (where they were used for work on coffee plantations etc). Being a music of African origin it involves drums, and the musicians seem to hit them with all the force they've got. "Fun" fact I've learned from Wikipedia: intense performances can cause damage to red blood cells, which manifests as rust-colored urine immediately after drumming. Yikes!