When living in familiar territory, we sometimes don’t notice the tools we use to engage with our environment: choir gossip for Ben and Jerry’s Free Cone Day alerts; Craigslist for selling furniture; the Washington Post for upcoming movies or exhibitions. And then when we move somewhere else, and one evening the bus never arrives and somehow everyone else in choir knows that the operators of route 522 will be on strike starting at 5 a.m., it feels like telepathy. But really, they just know where to get their local news and it’s (obviously) not the Washington Post. Luckily, the one thing I learned early is where to look up alternate bus routes; MontevideoBus received a browser bookmark even before I arrived. For new arrivals or the curious, the following websites can also help to navigate, not to mention appreciate, Montevideo.
Transportation: MapRed and the Intendencia of Montevideo’s own map help fill in Google Maps gaps. Tres Cruces, Montevideo’s central bus station, has a website which contains timetables for routes to and from the city. Buquebus or Colonia Express will ferry you across to Buenos Aires, and Carrasco International Airport is the portal for destinations further afield.
In Montevideo, weekend plans are just a wall away.
Housing: Finding short-term housing, particularly furnished housing, can be tough, and real estate agent fees are high. BuscandoCasa and Gallito compensate for Craigslist’s Montevideo scarcity. Mercado Libre can contribute the tchotchkes.
Food: Salir a Comer helps mightily to locate that apocryphal sushi joint, or to try a new resto-pub that breaks away from the chivito-pizza-pasta mold.
Arts: Want access to 80+ film screenings a month for under USD$10? Join Cinemateca. Or check out other events on offer here or here. Or browse the vast expanses of poster-plastered walls around town.
News: Radio station and media outlet Espectador offers extensive online content. Of the newspaper dailies, El Pais trends conservative, La Republica tends to the left of the spectrum, and La Diaria falls somewhere in between.
And of course….
Volunteering: Uruguay as yet doesn’t attract the number of international volunteers that neighboring countries do, and consequently there aren’t many online mechanisms to connect potential volunteers with institutions. Organizations in the Montevideo area which accept volunteer inquiries include: Un Techo para mi País, El Abrojo, Gurises Unidos, DESEM, and the Fundación Niños con Alas.
Flora Lindsay-Herrera is currently a Fulbright Fellow in Montevideo, Uruguay. For more about her experiences, check out her blog.
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Great post! Uruguay is often overlooked as a place for foreigners to land, and thus there’s not many collective resources out there for people. So thanks for writing this!