Drew Sorenson, his wife Adriana and his son A.J. spent the end of March in Uruguay, not as tourists, but as explorers discerning what it might be like to live there. Drew said that the relatively low crime rate and the stable government is similar to Iowa, but the climate is much gentler. He said 80 percent of the population doesn’t own cars, and particularly in the countryside, travel is leisurely along winding gravel roads.
They were particularly taken with the town of Minas, a town of about 30,000 people abut an hour inland from Montevideo.
Sorenson is known as regionally and nationally as an astronomer. He said he enjoyed the peacefulness of the sky in Uruguay. He has also shown and sold photographs. He shares a few with GreeneCountyNewsOnline reader. In his words:
The port. “We were there shortly on the weekends when we arrived and before we left. The port was busy all the time and although I am sure this port is much smaller than Buenos Aires, I was impressed with how quickly they seemed to load/unload ships and yet, how many ships were still ‘out at sea’ waiting their turn.”
The street markets. “On Sunday afternoons, vendors of all sorts set up tables on street after street after street from about 10 am-4 pm. Most of the streets are lined with trees (some of them ash, starting to turn their brilliant yellow for their autumn) and are relaxing and peaceful despite all the activity, full of a life that doesn’t seem at all out of place in a stone and concrete city.”
The buses. “Although there were times when there wasn’t a bus on the block we happened to be on, that ‘vacuum’ didn’t last long at all. There generally seemed to be at least one bus available and the streets might have been busy, but never crowded. Even as business let out on a Friday afternoon (like this pictture), there never seemed to be anything like a traffic jam. If you count the lights on the far left of the picture above the gal’s head (which I am pretty sure must be another bus) I think I can count 11 buses in this picture.”
Minas ! The family in the park. “This park was in the business district and a place where a lot of people would sit for a while and read, talk with family or friends, or take a short lunch. A lot of people walked as this mother and kids were doing, but a very popular thing was to sit and drink some ‘yerbe mate’. There seemed to be several different school uniforms and it seemed boys, even into middle school, might have a smock with a big bow.”
The view from Artigas park. “This picture is looking generally west I believe, from the north end of town. The park has one of the largest ‘guy on horse’ statues in the southern hemisphere (if not the world, as we heard someone say). We greatly enjoyed Minas. Compact, active, full of variety. Here we met Rodrigo Sierra, a science teacher at Eduardo Fabini high school who has revived and uses a 4″ Unitron refractor and its observatory. In high schools in Uruguay, astronomy and philosophy are taught for one year. Wow !! What a place !!”
