Laura writes:
Well, to some it up, Uruguay was a very cold experience. The coldest winter in 48 years in fact. We had average temperatures of 3 to 9 degrees during the day. The average temps around June and July have always been around 15 during the day with lower temps only at night. What definetely didn´t help was the windy and overcast conditions which occured often during our stay. The whole thing was unusual, but well... the changes in climate are happening world-wide. In fact, we were told that the Gold Coast had the coldest temperatures on record this Winter, Wow!
It was good to see my relatives again after 10 years. It´s funny, but things don´t seem to change all that much in all those years. One of the things that did change and I found a little difficult to deal with was that my grandma was no longer there at the house (she passed away a few years ago), nor my uncle on my father´s side of the family who passed away more recently. It´s a strange feeling living so far away from family as you really get to experience the death of a family member only when you get back there and they are no longer there. It doesn´t quite register until then.
The other change was that my cousins had all got married and moved away from home. This was also a little difficult to deal with as they now had their own families, work and other commitments and were rarely available to go out with us, so we ended up going out more with my aunty and uncle.
The highlight of our 3 month stay in Uruguay was that Nigel got to meet my relatives and they got to meet him. They all absolutely loved him! They often made comments about what a fantastic person he is etc...etc... Nigel also learned more Spanish by being exposed to so many people speaking Spanish around him, even though we were surprised how many people could speak some English, including family members. My cousin´s wife can speak almost perfectly as she has worked for an American company for many years.
Even though we got to do very little tourism while in Uruguay as the weather did not permit it most of the time. We did get to spend a few days in Punta Del Este which is the most popular beach resort in Uruguay as well as amongst Argentinians (mainly from Buenos Aires) who own most of the luxury houses there! This of course does not make some people happy, especially now that there are conflicts between the two countries over the paper mill plants that the Uruguayan government has opened recently, but I guess that´s another story.
Even though Punta del Este was very quiet at the time we were there, we practically had the whole place to ourselves and therefore we got to relax and wind down, especially from the intensity of my uncle and aunty´s place which can get very busy and frantic (they enjoy entertaining very much as they are very sociable people). We were also very lucky that during the days we were there, the weather was a little milder than what it had been before then.
Anyway, Urugay was good in the sense that we received a lot of love and attention, as my uncle and aunty are very caring. They always made sure we had everything we needed, even to the extent of providing all the food for us as there was no way they allowed us to buy our own food. At times we had to sneak out of the house to buy a few things without them knowing! Not easy.
Well, we are going back to Uruguay at the end of January, so the weather will be a lot more enjoyable and we´ll get to do a lot more tourism this time. My aunty and uncle love the beach, so I´m sure we will be doing a lot of that, as well as going to Colonia and perhaps even las Termas (hot water springs) that we never got to visit while we were there. Also we will be there during carnival, which is always a big highlight of the year for the whole of South America as things get very lively. Anyway that is the plan after visiting Cuba.
