When we told our friends that we would be travelling to Uruguay, they tended to be mildly surprised. Why Uruguay? And where is it?
We had to look it up on the map too.
Uruguay is the second smallest country in South America (after Suriname) and doesn’t have the wow and splendours of its neighbours Argentina and Brazil. Apart from its beaches! Most of Uruguay is pretty flat and the country has more cows than people (about 3 million people, god knows how many grass-grazing cows…).
But there’s more to Uruguay than meets the fleeting eye.
For instance, according to Wikipedia, it ranks first in Latin America for democracy and peace, and first in South America for press freedom, size of middle class, prosperity and absence of terrorism. ‘Egalitarian’ is probably one of the best ways of describing Uruguayan society.
Uruguay is also Latin America’s most secular country. Laicidad,the separation of church and state, goes back to the 1860s but was enshrined in the constitution in in 1916, when references to God were removed from the parliamentary oath and religious references were dropped from the names of cities and villages. Religious instruction is forbidden in schools.
It is true that a cross was erected near the bus station in Montevideo when pope John Paul II came to visit. But The Guru’Guay Guide to Montevideo, written by a local (Karen Higgs), tells us that many Montevideons are still annoyed about this.
Public education has been free and compulsory in Uruguay since 1870, and university access remains free.
95% of Uruguay’s electricity comes from renewable sources, and fresh drinking water is available throughout the country.
AND if you pay by credit or debit card in shops, bars or restaurants, 20% gets quietly, automatically refunded, because you are a tourist, after all, not a Uruguayan tax payer.
Being a tourist means you don’t have a weed entitlement either, but that seems like a fair trade-off. Uruguay was the first country in the world to completely legalise cannabis (the legislative bill passed in 2013), with the government taking charge of the entire supply chain, from crop to distribution. Each Uruguayan citizen is allowed to grow six cannabis plants.
So you can buy magic brownies in Uruguay, but what Uruguayans really love is dulce de leche (think sweet, milky, creamy) and puré de patatas. Comfort food supreme!
For all these reasons, and many more, we think Uruguay is a gem that bigger better-known countries (like the US and the UK) could take some pointers from…
