BABY BEEF : Montevideo's Ciudad Vieja : Sun 12th Jan

Breakfast is rubbish here. We need to go out and find some food. The chatty barman from La Hacienda recommended a few traditional places to go to in Montevideo. Some are close to the hostel. We also find a restaurant website for Montevideo that sorts venues by price. Very helpful. The California Burrito Company is ten minutes away. We head there for some carbs and protein.

Oh my. Its closed. What should we do?

I think we probably ought to eat a cow.

This building on the left is the legendary Mercado Del Puerto.

This is what it looked like when we arrived and were seating by the girl who spoke English and shouted at her mother, who also worked there. We got good service as I am wearing a Peñarol-coloured bracelet. We order 'meat for two' and a bottle of red. And a salad.

This is the consequences of that decision.

A lot of people in the world need to try a whole lot harder with their barbecuing technique now that I have eaten this.

This is the market when we finally finish.

That bucket of meat, red pepper and spud, big salad, sparking water and a bottle of wine cost us about   £45 including tip. Worth every penny. We try to leave but get roped into a chat with Carlos Daniel ('great name!' he says) into returning to sample his own restaurants cuisine the next day. Sarah looks horrified. Or maybe terrified. After that much meat its difficult to tell. We chortle at the menu at Carlos's own asado for Baby Beef. Translations are funny.

 

Sarah obviously suffered from post-meat confusion.

This is another Jose Artigas statue outside another big bank building.

A huge cruise ship lurks in dock.

The streets and buildings are attractive, but not everything is shiny and well here. Plenty of weird homeless street people, just like everywhere else. We take a sharp left and get out of this neighbour (naturally enough it is about half a block from Parliament)

Um. Belfast restaurant will be open when?

"Mr Gambino, what is a 'ute'?"

This is what most of Montevideo looks like.

We return to base camp, eventually, and make a few calls home. I sample a bottle of Patricia Stout, which is fine but a little sweet, and I take an amusing photo of a Chinese swinging-arm cat. Sometime around 3am, after spending an hour or so on www.happyplace.com I go to bed.