It’s time for a new latin love affair
Beaches, beef and beautiful people – tiny Uruguay really does have it all
MIDDAY in the Mercado del Puerto, a 19thcentury market hall, and every table in every steak restaurant is taken.
Finally, I spot a spare chair at La Maestranza, where slabs of meat spit and click on the grill.
The waitress scrawls my order, the tenderloin, in brisk fashion. But the cut, when it arrives, is cooked to perfection.
I eat it slowly, listening to the Spanish chatter of my fellow diners.
The sole clue that I am in Montevideo is a faded poster on a nearby wall of the celebrated Uruguay football team.
Otherwise, this might be Buenos Aires, Rio or any other of the iconic cities of South America – busy, hungry, rather fond of beef.
Uruguay has long struggled to assert its identity. It is squished between two power nations of the Latin world – Argentina, across the epic River Plate; Brazil to the north – and it is a country that has traditionally lacked profile. This is partly due to size: it is the second smallest country in South America, with just 3.3 million people.
Yet Uruguay is gaining a reputation as an intriguing destination, not least for holidaymakers keen to explore a little off the beaten path on a fascinating continent – or doze on beaches that come really come alive with local and tourists during the peak summer season.
Few would claim that Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital, has the glamour of Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital just 180km across the Plate estuary.
But when I go to the urban sand of Playa Ramirez, I find the great river impersonating the ocean as locals bask in the lunch-hour sun.
There is a cosmopolitan vibe to the city that extends to the affluent districts of Carrasco and Punta Carretas, with its elegant homes, c hi c s hops a nd upmarket restaurants.
Then there is the Ciudad Vieja (Old Town), where stallholders sell second-hand books in front of the cathedral on Plaza de la Constitución and cafés are opening on the gentrifying streets.
I pause for a salad at Jacinto on Calle Sarandi, before wandering into the MAPI museum.
There, shards of South American life from the centuries before the Spanish conquest – Inca weapons, Mapuche pottery – are housed in a former ministry of defence building.
URUGUAY’S compactness compared to its huge neighbours (it is roughly twice the size of Ireland) means it is easy to venture outside the capital.
Initially, my tour carries me 190km northwest along the river to Colonia, a town founded as a Portuguese fort in 1680, which has barely evolved since.
It is dotted with remnants of the past: the whitewashed Basilica del Santisimo Sacramento and the ruins of the Portuguese governor’s mansion on Plaza de Armas.
You do not have to travel far inland to find another side of Uruguay.
The upper 80 per cent of the country is devoted to farming. For half a week I soak up the silence on rural estancias, or ranches, where mornings involve hearty breakfasts and jaunts on horseback with gauchos to check on the livestock.
This means, in some cases, gentle rusticity: like the enchanting Estancia Los Platanos, near the outpost of José Batlle y Ordóñez, where Marina Cantera Nebel and her husband Andres maintain an estate that has been run smoothly by five generations of the same family.
In other cases, it means discreet luxury: El Balcón del Abra, near the hamlet of Mariscala, is an oasis of gourmet food and views across a rolling landscape that has been the home of German expat Ursula Heinen for a decade.
But it is difficult to ignore the call of the water for more than a few days.
Uruguay has 650 glorious kilometres of ‘coastline’ – 400km where the Plate flows to its conclusion, a further 250km where the Atlantic nudges the country’s south-eastern edge.
At the spot where river and ocean meet, Punta del Este dances to an insistent beat.
This beachside area offers mega-hotels and drinkeries that lure thousands of Argentinian holidaymakers to the curves of Playa Brava and Playa Olla. Colombian superstar Shakira is also a fan.
But apart from high-rise buildings and crowds there is a subtle side to ‘Punta’: the little marine-blue church of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria and delicious ceviche served at seafood specialist Lo De Charlie.
As I continue along the Atlantic I see surfers in the town of La Barra, many of them gathered at chic watering hole Sacrebleu.
Then comes José Ignacio, transformed, in the past decade, from a fishing village into the sort of destination applauded by trendy style magazines.
The clapboard houses are worth millions and there is a crescent of white-yellow powder on which all the beautiful people maintain their tans.
Playa Vik is a five-star retreat where modern artworks loiter daringly in the lobby and the breakfast room gazes at the water through floor-to-ceiling windows.
Like much of Uruguay, it feels undiscovered. But it is unlikely to remain that way.