Saturday, December 19, 2009

Bienvenidos al Uruguay

    I’m back:

    Sorry for the delay in posting. I was away on vacations and and have been working on some projects for the future.

    I went to the south of Argentina and Chile. Mountains, glaciers, snow in springtime, long walks in the woods, and losing myself in nature. But I'm not going into that at this moment. Anyone planning to go there and want information, please write to me at aledelpino101@yahoo.com.ar.

    I met many people from different countries. I noticed that when I told them I lived in Uruguay, many did not know anything about this country. I told them about my blog so they could find more information, but I found that I did not have "basic" information on Uruguay. So, let's get the facts.

    URUGUAY is a country located in the south-east of South America. It's the second smallest country in the subcontinent after Surinam, with a total surface of 176.214 sq.km (68037 sq.mi). It has borders on the north and north-east with Brazil and on the West with Argentina. Its coasts are washed on the south by the Rio de la Plata and East by the Atlantic Ocean.

    It has a population of 3.5 million, 88% of European origin, mainly Spanish. The rest are of Native and African origin.

    The official language is Spanish, with the particular intonation of the Rio de la Plata shared by Argentina and Uruguay. According to the United Nations, Uruguay is the country with the highest literacy level of Latin America.

    The official name of the country is Republica Oriental del Uruguay. This refers to the fact that, before its independence, it was an eastern province of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. Please refer to my July post on the early history of Uruguay.

    It is a democratic country with a parliamentary political organization, governed by a President elected every 5 years and a General Assembly formed by the Senate (Cámara de Senadores) and the House of Representatives (Cámara de Diputados).

    The country is politically divided into 19 Departamentos. The capital, and biggest city, is Montevideo with 1.7 million people, being the southernmost capital city of the world. Located on the coast of the Rio de la Plata, Montevideo is also a very important port. The seat of the Mercosur organization, international common market formed by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, is located in Montevideo.

    Uruguay's landscape is mostly flat with some low hills on the south-east. Its fertile soil has made agriculture and cattle the base of the economy, exporting large quantities of meat and cereals mostly to the United States, Brazil and Argentina.

    Another important source of incomes is tourism. Uruguay has many important beach resorts on the coasts of the Rio de la Plata and the Atlantic Ocean. Atlantida and Piriapolis on the Rio and La Paloma, La Pedrera and Punta del Diablo on the Atlantic, are some of the most important ones. And of course, Punta del Este, with beaches on both, has become one of the most important seaside resorts of South America. Visitors from all over the world, mainly Argentina and Brazil visit the beautiful and warm beaches of Uruguay.

    Music is a very important part of the Uruguayan culture. The main traditional types of music are the Tango (please see my post of August) and the Candombe. The Tango has a mixed European and African origin and developed in Argentina and Uruguay, and the Candombe ia of African origin and became popular mostly in Uruguay. The Folk, Popular and Rock musics are also very important and there is a surprising number of musicians for such a small country. The Candombe music is the base of the very popular celebration of the Carnival, every year in February.

    The most popular sport is football (soccer). Uruguay was the first World Soccer Champion in 1930 and won a second Championship in 1950, in this case beating Brazil in the final match in the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro. The local teams of Nacional and Peñarol have won numerous international tournaments. The Uruguayan national team will take part in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

    There is a lot more to say about this small but beautiful country. I will go into more details of different aspects in future posts. If there is anything in special you want to know about, just ask. I'll be more than glad to give you the necessary information.

    Thanks, and see you in the next post.
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1 comment:

Maestro Pascal said...

An official repository of data about Uruguay:
datos.gub.uy

November 28, 2011 at 6:13 PM

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A Friend Away From Home

I too am a foreigner. I have the advantage of coming from a country that is just round the corner. But I spent most of my childhood and adolescence as a foreigner, so I understand very well what it like is to be away from home. We could say that I became an expert in creating a home away from home. In times when there was no Internet and no cell phones, one had to get used pretty fast to life in new, far away places. And it was at those moments when one learned to really appreciate a friendly face, a soothing voice and a warm handshake. One felt that even living in a different culture and hearing a different language, one could find, and one always did find, a friend to make one feel a little less lost and lonely. Uruguay is very similar to Argentina, so it took no effort for me to feel at home here. Specially when the reason that brought me here is a lovely Uruguayan lady. We´ll get into that later on. But it really amazed me to find such a large quantity of foreigners, mostly from countries that are not so close at hand, living in this beautiful country. I have had the opportunity of meeting some of them. And I thought: "wow, even if the weather is great, it must not be so easy living far away from countries like Canada, USA, Switzerland, India or France. But I have been there so I can understand the feeling. And then I thought, what can I do to help them feel less far away? Could I find a way of becoming their friend away from home? I would really like to. I know Uruguay and the Uruguayan culture very well. I speak some of their languages. I understand them. Yes, I think that might work. I´ll try to help them and become their friend. And that is what I want to do. I am here to help you, to understand you and to try to make your stay in this great country as pleasant as possible.
Just ask, we´ll see what we can do.
Alex