Candombe: the best of montevideo

I’m back from Montevideo (Uruguay) today and I’ve found a quiet grey old city. The heat was horrible which didn’t make sightseeing tempting at all. In spite of that, we went for a 2 km walk on Tuesday morning at 10.30 am, and the temperature was 32 degrees.

Walking near the centre, we came across a friend of mine: Noelia. We talked on the phone the day before and were going to meet while we were here in town, but suddenly we just saw her on the street, and she became our heroine, as she took us to her apartment with air cond, she fed us and we stayed there the whole afternoon.

Then we went to see the beach: Pocitos -they said it was the best beach in Montevideo- but it can’t be compared to Sydney’s.

Anyway it was almost 40 degrees, so I was grateful to swim (kind of) in the Rio de la Plata (Silver river) beach.

But the truth is that I only came to visit Montevideo because I was interested in Candombe.

Candombe is an Afro-Uruguayan manifestation typical of the local culture. It includes drumming, singing and dancing.

The rhythm was originated during colonial time, among the African slaves that were taken to Uruguay coast.

We went to see a show and it was great, colourful and fun. The big Carnival parade starts in February, with lots of celebrations in the streets. I’ll be there one day.

I’m not an expert in the subject, but you can find more about Candombe here:

http://www.eltoquedecandombe.com.ar/

Montevideo has also beautiful sunsets.

People gather near the river (Rio de la Plata) to fish, chat, drink mate and watch the sunset.

Uruguayans are very polite and humble people. That’s the main difference with the argies (sorry to say…) we are not as nice as they are.

But we are back to Buenos Aires and luckily the temperatures have dropped a little bit.

Here’s a Buenos Aires view from the plane. This is the endless city with the Rio de la Plata (same river we share with Uruguay).

We’ll be here for the next 2 weeks, so keep and eye on the blog to read more stories from the Rio de la Plata.