Uruguay, Part 1

How we accidentally had our best trip ever

We woke up that Wednesday morning from the best sleep either of us had enjoyed in years. My husband, Randy, usually feels so excessively groggy in the morning that we paid several thousand dollars to find out he does not have sleep apnea. But at the El Ceibo Estancia, we both felt strangely well-rested. I do mean "strangely." Like we were many years younger. We have visited many places we found relaxing and thought we had rested well after vacation days, but this felt different. Was it the utter absence of noises from the modern world? The lack of wifi? A magical property of being near sheep? (Just to be clear--it was not silent. The monk parakeets and sheep made plenty of noise from sunrise to sunset.)

Whatever the underlying reason, sleep that restful was unforgettable. It was the most extreme example, but that morning also captured what was so great about our trip to Uruguay.

When I told people in the U.S. we were going to Uruguay for vacation, I was often asked, "Why?"

Truthfully, I was looking for a sale fare to a Spanish-speaking country so I could work on my Spanish, and the one that I found was to Uruguay. I bought a sale fare from American Airlines--$722 per person before I upgraded to Main Cabin Extra. You can get to Montevideo from Atlanta in as little as 13 hours from Atlanta, but we were traveling for 22. Quite a bit of that was a long layover in Miami which we actually enjoyed as a soft introduction to our return to Latin America.

I was already interested in Uruguay, though. I watch a lot of travel vlogs, listen to travel podcasts and read books and articles about travel. Somehow through all of that I had formed a positive opinion of Uruguay--although the only thing I could have told you about it was that it was supposed to be relaxing with a laid-back vibe.

It's easy to understand how North Americans don't know a lot about the country. Uruguay is a small--about the size of the state of Washington--and there are only 3.4 million people in the entire country (as opposed to 7.9 million in Washington state). Also, because for decades it has been stable politically and economically, it isn't in the news here often since the news tends to focus on war and strife.

But Uruguay is a popular destination for Latin American tourists so there is tourist infrastructure in place to make travel easy. Although English-language resources are somewhat scarce, the ones I found were very good.

Karen Higgs's Guru'guay website and books are without a doubt the place to start, and I enjoyed a couple of podcast interviews with her as well (Amateur Traveler and Extra Pack of Peanuts).

The Bradt Travel Guide to Uruguay by Tim Burford is also excellent, and I'm glad I had both to refer to when I was developing the outlines of our trip.

For selecting lodging I use the reviews on Booking.com, though. If I place I like the sound of there is mentioned in a guide that is great, but even if not, I prefer to rely on the travelers' reviews.

Our trip was only 10 days, but we were able to include:

48 Hours in Buenos Aires:

Time to Explore Montevideo:

An Estancia stay:

And time on the coast:

Although the videos above hopefully convey our overall experiences, I'll be posting more details about our travel logistics in the weeks to come....