São Paulo

Brazil wasn’t originally on our travel plan for this year. Don’t get us wrong, we would’ve loved to spend time there, but at the end of the day we felt like it was just too big a place to squeeze into this trip. So when the chance came to spend 23 hours in São Paulo during our layover, we jumped at the opportunity. Arriving into Brazil was a bit of a culture shock after the strictly managed Middle Eastern countries of Qatar and the UAE. Suddenly we were in a beat-up uber, our driver making his way down the shoulder of the highway like a maniac, or otherwise weaving aggressively through lanes to avoid the severe traffic. Unfortunately, even with all of this chaotic driving, the journey from São Paulo’s airport to its city center was still long, subjecting us to high blood pressure and gripped fingers for over an hour. Finally reaching the center of the city, we parked ourselves at Takkø Café for a much-needed midday coffee and a bit of lunch. As we sat there waiting for the caffeine to reach our blood stream, we couldn’t help noticing that Brazil was filled with many more eclectic and diverse people than we had been around for the past several months. The energy here immediately felt much more alive – people shouting, hugging and kissing each other hello or goodbye, styled in bright colors and hair dyed similar shades. What a breath of fresh air! Once our bodies had accepted where they were and our brains were a little more up to speed with what was happening around us, we departed for our mediocre apart-hotel. Realizing the space here was really just for sleeping and not much else, we took off down the Avenida Paulista towards the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. However, in another sad turn of events we arrived at the ticket counter precisely 31 seconds after 4:00 pm and they would not even consider selling us entry tickets for the evening. Feeling a bit dejected, we abandoned our dream of seeing Brazilian art and instead wandered the Avenida, stopping every few minutes to simply watch the world go by. Observing the people of this city quickly became our favorite Brazilian activity, their energy and flair were unmatched by all the countries we’ve visited so far. Later that evening, we were informed that our hotel happened to be near the Japanese community in town, and as we were feeling nostalgic for our time in Japan, we swore off the many exciting Brazilian culinary options around us. Instead, we opted for a traditional Ramen, missing the days when the next noodle spot was just around the corner.

Early the following morning we took another stressful Uber ride back to the airport. This time our driver was so sleepy. we needed to shout our conversation to each other just to make enough noise to keep him awake. Sad to leave Brazil after such a short stay, but glad to be rid of their traffic madness, we boarded our flight to Uruguay.

Montevideo

As our plane landed in Montevideo, we realized we knew shockingly little about Uruguay, what we should do here, or even what the entry requirements were for US citizens. On the last count, we quickly found out that, thankfully, US citizens don’t need a visa to visit. We didn’t even have to speak with anyone at the border as we breezed through their convenient E-Gates, a seemingly impossible convenience for US citizens even in the US. Our Uber into town here was far more calm than our ones in São Paulo had been: our driver was relaxed, the streets were shaded by dense trees, and the neighborhoods emulated a cozy European city. We dropped our bags at our perfectly fine hostel in the middle of Montevideo’s old town and set out to find our first caffeine top-up of the day. Searching for the perfect cafe, we realized just how many unique coffee haunts Montevideo was home to. We also realized that they would likely take up a great deal of our time over the next four days, as we never want to leave a coffee bean unroasted (hah!). Starting with che.co.ffee, we sampled coffee from seven different cafes during our time here, including multiple return visits to our favorite, Federación. For many travelers, spending a large chunk of their limited time in a new destination sipping a coffee, while reading or writing may seem a bit dull. Yet for us, after the rushy-rushy of our African adventure (yes, we’re still recovering), these cafes offered us spaces to decompress.

When not indulging in the local coffee and pastries, we spent the majority of our time wandering Montevideo, both the old town where we were staying and the more modern neighborhoods branching out from here. Montevideo’s old town is full of 300 years of history, dating back to the Portuguese settlement of this peninsula in 1723. This long history has led to a wealth of beautiful, colonial-style buildings towering above the narrow streets, each with its own impressive accents or features. One of our first non-coffee stops was in one of these old buildings, the Mercado Del Puerto dating from 1868. It was built originally as a market for docking ships to restock with fruit, vegetables, and meats, but nowadays it houses several restaurants and cafes, including Carolina: expert empanada makers. During a trip to Chile in 2022 we learned how amazing real empanadas are, and as we’ve been traveling around the world this year, we’ve been anxiously counting down the days until we can gorge ourselves on empanadas once again! While these empanadas weren’t the best we’ve ever had (that honor still belongs to a tiny back-road cafe in Puerto Montt), they were plenty good to satisfy our craving. When we wandered outside of the old town, we found several newer neighborhoods equally full of unique energy, vibrant street art, and kind, generous people.

Each day we spent in Montevideo we tried to see a new barrio, attempting to take in as much of the city as we could. On our first day we got used to our surroundings and explored the old town, but on the second we ventured out, going up to the Aguada Barrio. Here we found the Mercado Agrícola de Montevideo, a huge food hall with options for any craving, before making our way to Cárcel Miguelete, an old prison. Recently, the government has encouraged a redevelopment of this site, which has seen one prison hall turned into the Contemporary Art Museum, and another turned into the National Natural History Museum. When we turned up, we happened upon Montevideo’s Oktoberfest, set up in what used to be the recreation yard of the prison. The atmosphere as we were standing there would have seemed a world away to any of the thousands of prisoners who passed through these halls, a jubilant (drunk) crowd enjoying all of what life has to offer.

On our third day, we walked along Montevideo’s waterfront through Barrio Sur and the Palermo Barrio where we were surprised to find various political parties campaigning with methods that would seem crazy to Americans or Europeans. The Green party was throwing a street fair with food stalls, craft stands, and a brass band playing in front of another rejoicing crowd. Then, just up the street, we bumped into the Broad Front party campaigning with a huge drumming group, loudly playing tango music as dozens of heeled women, and a few cheeky older men tangoed for all their worth ahead of them. They swung their hips down the street, taking breaks at each intersection to perform for, or piss off, the drivers waiting to cross the road. We’re not sure it was an effective way to gather votes, but it sure brought the party to the streets! On our final full day in the city, it happened to be a Sunday, which meant there would be a huge street market in the Cordón barrio. We high-tailed it over after a quick brunch and discovered the largest street fair either of us have ever seen. It seemed to extend for kilometers down Tristán Narvaja, while branching off for several blocks on either side at every intersection. We spent almost two hours exploring as much of it as we could, but there was just no way we would see all of it unless we spent the whole day. By the time we left Montevideo we had really dug into four barrios and scratched the surface on a couple more, but there was so much we left uncovered, it’s such a busy place!

In each of these different barrios we endeavored to find the best food or coffee on offer, knowing we only had a few opportunities to sample the local cuisine. We’re happy to report that alongside great coffee, Montevideo has a thriving culinary scene, particularly in the old town and the Punta Carretas barrio. Uruguay is known for its beef, unfortunately for Sarah, but Jackson took the chance to enjoy a couple affordable, but still excellent, steaks. A rare combination, but very welcome after the expensive food costs in the UAE and Qatar. Jacinto in the old town stood out as a particularly excellent eatery, with a tasty sirloin for Jackson and delectable eggplant for Sarah, plus some of the best free bread we had in the whole country. In between tasty meals we intended to fill some of our time with visits to museums, but there were really only two that interested us, and one of them was closed while we were in town. This left us just the Museo Andes 1972, a small but mighty space dedicated to the tragedy and miracle of the Uruguayan rugby team who was stranded for 72 days in the Andes after their plane crashed enroute to Santiago. The three narrow floors it occupies in an 174 year old mansion, are absolutely packed to the brim with artifacts, first-hand accounts, models, and information boards that intricately describe what it was like for the men and women who crashed up in the mountains and how far they had to go to make it home to their families. Their perseverance in the most difficult conditions, and will to survive is an incredible story that this museum manages to convey to the very last detail.

Colonia Del Sacramento

On our fifth morning in Montevideo we debated extending our time here again, we’d already extended our trip from three to five days, but instead decided to branch out and visit more of Uruguay. Our always helpful host at Circus Hostel&Hotel, Federico, pushed us towards visiting the UNESCO World Heritage town of Colonia Del Sacramento, and boy are we glad we listened. We took a short two hour bus across the southern coast of Uruguay and arrived to a beautiful, cool afternoon, with an ocean breeze gently flowing down the cobblestone streets. Again we decided to stay in the old town, this time in a beautifully modern Airbnb, that despite its seemingly contradictory design, fit in perfectly here. We had been warned that a big rainstorm would be hitting us overnight and into the next few days, so we immediately headed outside to take advantage of the sunshine. Of course, as is tradition, our first stop was for a decent cup of coffee and a snack. Unfortunately for them, we chose the very cute ANITA cafe and proceeded to make a mess of their outdoor tables and chairs as soon as our coffees arrived. Our careless feet shook the tables so violently, almost all of our coffee vacated its cups and splashed onto everything within a three foot radius, including all of our freshly washed clothes. Deciding that it would be a waste of a perfectly good afternoon to go back and change now, we let our pants dry in the breeze as best we could, then continued with our tour of the old town. We had immediately fallen in love with Colonia when we arrived, and had impulsively decided to extend our time here from one to two nights, but as we were walking around we realized there might be shockingly little to do. We covered all of the old town in about forty-five minutes of walking, zig-zagging through the former walled settlement. When we were done with one lap of the town we immediately started on another, this time stopping to take more photos and pop into more shops, stretching our limited activities as best we could.

As we returned to our Airbnb to make dinner that night, the rain arrived, slowly at first, but soon filled the sky with booming thunder and bright lightning. The rain continued to pour all night, and was still coming down with some ferocity when we awoke the next morning. Sensing that this might be more of an “inside day”, we researched the best museums in town and hit the town. After making the arduous five minute walk across town, we were kindly informed that the museums in question all took cash, and since we didn’t have any left, and there were no ATMs around, could we please leave the queue to let the respectable, cash-carrying visitors by. The one exception to this rule was the fascinating, small Origami museum. You may be wondering, as we were, why there was an Origami museum here, in a small heritage town in Uruguay, and not in Tokyo or Kyoto. The reason, as we learned from the elderly man pushing leaking rainwater from the museum, was very sweet. The museum was his wife’s idea (she loves origami) and about a decade ago she began to collect impressive pieces, talk with origami masters, and compile a comprehensive history of paper-folding from around the world. She had dedicated eight years of her life to this idea and when she finally had enough material, they opened the museum… in February 2020. Luckily, their idea was able to survive the pandemic and their small space houses some truly impressive origami and an excellent history of this art. We highly recommend a quick visit if you’re ever in this corner of the world. Apart from this one excursion, we weren’t inspired to spend much time outside on our final full day in Uruguay, as the rain kept falling until the early evening. We picked Chaco for our last supper, an inviting restaurant with great sunset views on the water. While the food was good, the service was frustrating and we’d had better dishes in Montevideo anyways. Slightly disappointed that the only bad meal we’d had during our whole visit was our last one, we walked back into the rain towards our Airbnb to get ready for our early morning ferry to Argentina.