MONTEVIDEO, THE CAPITAL OF URUGUAY

 THE URUGUIAN PLUNA COMPANY IS MY DESTINY

Walking through the Antonio Carlo Jobin International Airport in Rio de Janeiro a fixed thought comes to mind: I would give .............. to have a Saint in front of my path too, who anticipates me by pointing out to me what is the right gate, ect., to avoid going a long way on foot unnecessarily. In the end, the Uruguayan Pluna Company is for me since today it is the cheapest of all (270 Dollars x 4 routes: 1- Rio de Janeiro - Montevideo, 2- Montevideo - Santiago de Chile, 3 - Santiago de Chile - Montevideo, 4 - Montevideo - Buenos Aires) and leads me to a place that is not a beach: this place is called Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.

MONTEVIDEO, THE CAPITAL OF URUGUAY

Arrival in Montevideo with a small airliner of the Uruguayan Pluna Company, on a sunny day with 19 degrees centigrade. Here people don't speak much English and in truth I don't speak much English either, but let's say that the official language is Spanish and I can understand something. The Carrasco International Airport of Montevideo is beautiful and there is also a tourist office, located on the ground floor which distributes well-made tourist maps for free and provides useful information. I take myself to the center with an old bus line: number 700, which passes in front of the airport (the same also buses no. 700, 701, 704, 710, 711). You have to do the ticket on the bus and today 20/05/2012, it costs 33 Uruguayan Pesos the single way. The bus goes to the Urban Bus Station, located in Via 25 Agosto del 1825, near the Commercial Port, making many stops, all on request. It also passes adjacent to the Tres Cruces International Bus Terminal. Logically it does not reach Piazza Indipendenza, but passes a few hundred meters north-east of it. It is better to tell the driver to drop you off at the nearest stop. However, even if the distance is only 18 km, the bus takes about 40 'to 1 hour, depending on the traffic, to reach the center, where there is no dog around, as it is Sunday and therefore they are all in the stadium watching the game. I walk a little with difficulty through the center; there isn't much to see and what's more it doesn't seem like the safest city in the world to me. I move very buttoned up keeping the camera and the camera under my jacket and I take them out for a few seconds in the moment of need, to immortalize the historicity of the moment. People seem helpful. We see that there is a lot of poverty. Here not even the shadow of tourism, even if I meet the usual genie of the lamp on duty who runs around with the camera around his neck in plain sight, which translated into a word means "ROBBE". I soon get tired. There is too much to walk, not even the shadow of bicycles and so I go to the Urbana bus station, located in Via 25 Agosto del 1825, near the Commercial port and take bus n. 705 (33 Pesos one way), to return to the luxurious Carrasco International Airport, about 18 km from the center. The bus crosses the suburbs where degradation and poverty appear more evident.

My complete travel report with map, photographs and videos is available at this link:

http://vivendosalendo.blogspot.com/2012/06/finalmente-le-foto-di-rio-de-janerio.html