Impressions of Uruguay



So we bought a car not long ago, this is how you do it in Uruguay. You go to the bank and get the cash you need. This is done more or less the same way as Las Vegas, only they are more anal about the whole process here. The money that we took to the car dealer was in cash, with. big wads of $10k each and small ones of $1k each. Cars here are very expensive, but no one blinks an eye at when you drop this kind of cash on their desk.



The teller opened her drawer, and found she was a bit light on dollars at the time. No matter a quick visit to the vault and here you go. In the interest of secrecy, they gave me a giant pink envelope with "Banco de Republic Y Uruguay" on it. 

So with a pink bundle with the national banks name on it the size of a brick bulging in my pocket, I left the bank and headed home. After all the dealer didn't open for another couple of hours. I think walking to a US car dealer with cash would cause a second degree terrorist alert!

We had some wicked wind the past few days. The surf was wild and the tide was super high. Some trees blew down and the temperature dropped a lot (50f) some trees blew over and closed a couple of streets, but not much of that. 

The surf almost engulfed the entire beach. 



When the storm was over the beach had been reshaped and was a simple flat plane sloping down to the water. Now the temperature is heading back to the 80's and 90's.


This is the same area a day later - without the wind. The surf is over 100 feet back from where it was and the waves are more or less gone. Punta del Este is the collection of buildings that are above the water on the right. The taller ones closer by are condos.

Hey check out our new house, We close in a month! Its 4 bedrooms and 5 baths, but the rooms are small. 


We need to paint the inside other than that its under a 10 year warranty by the architect (required by law in Uruguay), it has a pool, but the pool and house are not nearly as big as the ones we had. A lot different from our old house but thats fine for us.


Posted: Thu - November 1, 2007 at 03:24 PM      

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