PUNTA DEL ESTE

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With a year-round population of just 10.000 people, Punta del Este is Uruguay's best known beach resort. The city is located on the tip of the Peninsula.
Weather wise, Punta del Este is clearly not a tropical place and the average temperatures are just around 25C in mid summer. Here are caribbean beaches in clear advantage. This however has not being a reason to stop realstate prices from booming, reaching a level very close if not the same as let say Miami Beach.

MONTEVIDEO: friendly and hospitable capital city

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Buenos Aires was nice to see and a bit hard to visit (my subjective feeling) but how would it be in Montevideo?

Well, Uruguay's capital city is small and humble enough and at the 
same time active, offers a good infrastructure, has a nice coast line, and an old downtown with museums and restaurants to visit, eventhough it is said to be a bit dangerous at night. I found Montevideo a visitor friendly, very hospitable capital city.

COLONIA DEL SACRAMENTO:

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Being a small country, Uruguay has a history that is often related to wars against or between external powers. Colonia del Sacramento, one of the oldest towns in the country is just an example. Founded in 1680 by Manuel Lobo (Portugal) the settlement was conquered by the Spanish who settled on the opposite bank of the river at Buenos Aires. 
The colony  returned to Portugal the next year. It was conquered again by the Spanish in 1705, but given back in the Treaty of Utrecht. It kept changing hands from crown to crown due to treaties, being later incorporated into Brazil after 1816, when the entire Banda Oriental (Uruguay) was seized by the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brasil and the Algarves. Uruguay's independence in 1828 put an end to this.

PAYSANDÚ: welcome to Uruguay

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With 175.000 sq Km and 3.5 million habitants Uruguay is not only the smallest but the less populated country in this trip. The population lives mostly along the litoral, with Montevideo, the capital, counting 1.9 million. 
The economy is basically agriculture and cattle based, with a cattle size estimated in 9 million heads. A joke I heard here: if cows would become smarter we would be in trouble; that why we eat them so much. They really do. Paysandú (80.000 people) is the fourth largest city and was my entry point to Uruguay.