Asado in Uruguay

On our first night in Uruguay we ate asado in our hostel. One of the hostel staff, Nacho, said: “It’s the only thing we are good in Uruguay…growing meat and burning meat. And eating meat.”

My Spanish teacher told me there’s something like 3 million people and 5 million cows in Uruguay. Uruguayans eat the most beef per capita.

On my last day in Montevideo. I saw some builders cooking lunch, at eleven in the morning.

Seems like builders everywhere have the same attitude to break time, only their style differs.

Things I heard over an asado in Hospedaje Lautaro

In Argentina, a policeman trains for 6 months and then they give him a gun. If you get pulled over for a traffic charge, or in fact have any kind of interaction with the law, you can talk your way out of it. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

During military service, Israelis all talk about where they’re going to travel. After military service, they all travel to south America, India or south east Asia.

Argentinians are the worst visitors in El Calafate because they “don’t know how to travel”; they expect too much and ask for special treatment because they’re Argentinian.

In Curaçao, they speak Papiamentu, a creole of Dutch, English, Spanish/Portuguese and African languages. Hugo Chavez has ambitions to annex the island so the US government is pressuring Holland and Curaçao not to let this happen.

Residents of Buenos Aires state think they are different from residents of Buenos Aires city. To everyone else they’re the same.

Marijuana in Holland is increasing in strength. Previously it was 8-9% THC but due to the use of fertilizers it can now be up to 20%. This is a problem for tourists who go to Amsterdam and ask for the maximum strength not realizing just how strong it’s going to be.

When Argentina’s economy crashed in 2001, Patagonia was relatively unaffected. But during the world financial crisis, tourism decreased (except Germans who continue to visit in large numbers).

Germans near the border go to Holland for shopping. Police often stop and search young people coming back from a weekend of shopping and have an uncanny ability of knowing who is in possession of contraband.