Uruguay

Just got back from Uruguay yesterday. It was a fun and interesting trip. We went to Montevideo (the capital) as well as Punta del Este (beach) and Colonia (cute small city).

Politics and economy

Uruguay is seen as the most progressive country in South America. Abortion is legal and so is gay marriage and smoking weed.

It is interesting because the government controls weed in the economy. So only residents are allowed to legally buy it and they have to be part of a registry.

They are forward thinking and put a big emphasis on equal rights for people. That being said, they have their own issues and a semi complex history.

Mercosur

One of the days, we visited the Montevideo office of Mercosur, which is the organization that helps with collaboration between Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

We talked to someone who works with FOCEM, which is a fund within Mercosur that has $100M each year for projects within the the four countries. They help with things like infrastructure, education, social organizations and so forth. It was very interesting learning about them, I’ll hope to write something that goes into more depth later.

Montevideo

There honestly wasn’t too much to do in Montevideo. We ate some good food, went to the Cannabis museum, explored some plazas and went to this place that celebrates their Carnaval celebration where we got to play some music and jam with some locals.

Punta Del Este

We went to this beach one of the days. We had heard awesome stuff about it, so even though it was a 90% chance of rain most of the day, we decided to go. Ended up getting super lucky since there was no rain and instead was really beautiful. Fun day.

Colonia

We also went to this cute little town called Colonia. We went to the top of their lighthouse, hung out by the water, walked around, ate some good food. It was like this old European town with cobblestone streets and tons of old cars.