So this is it. The voyage to the best country in the world has commenced. Five days to get to the core of things. Is this the best place in the world? Uruguay has less people than Berlin, the place I call my home base. That's not necessarily a negative thing as the amount of idiots is already potentially less.
Uruguay is sandwiched in between two powerhouses, Argentina and Brazil, endlessly long and huge countries with ten climate zones or so they say. Argentines seem to have self-esteem from here to where they once came from (who said Naples?); and Brazilians of all shapes and sizes are just everywhere, not just in my Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg but also on this ferryboat across the Río de la Plata. How did small Uruguay manage to get its spot on the map?
And how has it come to fame recently? Well, take this for starters: it has legalized a) marihuana b) abortion and c) same-sex marriage. I am not gay, I love kids, and I have stopped being serious about smoking weed a long time ago. Still, all these things do stand out if we take into account that smoking reefers probably does less harm than the Internet and that Catholic moralism is nothing against this great wide ocean called life.
It is progressive and it is safe, says Lonely Planet. While in neighboring countries it's gunshots in Uruguay they don't seem to know what a gun is. Not just that, wind energy runs large parts of the country and by 2030 Uruguay wants to be carbon-neutral. It's capital is the HQ of MERCOSUR, a trade bloc in South America similar to the European Union. Is Montevideo the South American Brussels?
Who are the Uruguayans? I will visit them and their country for five days. So who are they? If we judge by its two biggest stars, there is this two-pronged face of the country: on the one hand, its former president refused to live in the presidential palace and drove around in a Beetle. Moreover, he is just super cool and donated 90 per cent of his salary to charities helping the poor. On the other hand is a footballer that bites his opponent in the neck or ear or just any other accessible body part in that region of the face. Savage. Still, Uruguay won the Football World Cup twice and they always push far in tournaments. Biting, exciting, while Berlin has never won the World Cup so far.
I have only met Uruguayans twice in my life. One encounter was of the this-is-my-girlfriend type and can be omitted here, even more so as the couple split up months later. The other one was when I met a guy constantly smoking huge cigars on a catamaran in Cuba, appearing to be the most relaxed person on the planet. He is quite a character and invited me to come to his place in La Paloma.
I have five days to deliver Uruguay uncovered to you and to me. The format is easy: I write, you read, and in between I post some photos and videos that I take with strangers. The videos must not be longer than a minute; some of the best conversations are about one minute long. The ferry from Buenos Aires over to Colonia del Sacramento is leaving. Then it's the bus to Montevideo. The transport company Buquebus (no idea what that means) calls itself "the world's fastest fleet". Smells like yet another superlative.