Montevideo was pretty and clean. Overall, I loved the architecture and the green spaces. The cleanliness may be assisted by encouragement and support of the regular population. We saw evidence of this type of initiative in this passive aggressive message posted on a neighbourhood tree, full of spare plastic bags: "The poop of your dog that you don't pick up, will come back to your life in different ways."
The older part of the city is small and surrounded on three sides by water so it was easy to navigate and there were pretty vistas everywhere we looked.
There is a super long paved boardwalk along the bay that is punctuated by bronze inlays on the ground that follow a timeline of the geologic beginning of earth all the way through the evolution of plants, invertebrates, vertebrates and finally us! It was fun to read the plaques as we strolled along.
Downtown even has a beach with parks nearby.
Many, many people in this region of South America carry Mate (pronounced Ma-tay) which is basically a green tea which they traditionally drink out of a cup made from a gourd with a silver straw with a filter at the tip to strain out the leaves. Typically they will carry a thermos with hot water to keep topping up the gourd which has the leaves packed in it to continue making tea and they drink it throughout the day. This tea is overwhelmingly more popular than coffee. Starbucks has not gained a foothold here.
Here is a local outdoor market (probably a weekly market) with a bus that has been transformed into a cheese shop. Super cute!
18 de Julho Avenue - the main street in Montevideo
Montevideo also has an impressive collection of shipwrecks in its port.
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