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Guru'Guay

@guruguay1

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🇺🇾 Travel, living & investing in Uruguay
⭐️ As seen in @nytimes @natgeo @bbcnews
📍 Brit in UY since 2000
📚 Guide books on Amazon ⬇️

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Okay, the furry hat may be an exaggeration, but I've lived through 26 winters since moving to Uruguay in 2000. Without fail, every time spring arrives (in September here in the Southern Hemisphere), everybody thinks winter is over. But winter comes back again and again 🥶 Fortunately, there are plenty of lovely days too, as you can see at the start of this video, which was filmed earlier this week. Still, we keep plunging back into winter. My rule of thumb is that it isn't really over until mid-November 📆😅

To learn more, head to 🔗 www.guruguay.com and search for "weather." You'll find much more about what Uruguay's climate is actually like to live with, not just what the thermometer says 👀 by @guruguay1

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7 days ago

Description: here at Guru’Guay we’re always looking out for the most unique places to stay and once we find them, we start to recommend them, and we always go back to check out how they’re doing. Because as our website says, we recommend places who love what they do as much as we do and demonstrate constant quality. So we go back to check them every now and again. This week I went to Colonia to check out our Guru’Guay Top Pick there. To find out which it is, go to guruguay.com
And hit “where to stay“.

It’s the most gorgeous place and on the premises they have a couple of cats and dogs. This cat really took a fancy to me. As you can see. What was crazy was that everybody told me that she’s infamous for disliking practically every human being. If I’m honest, the next day she was not quite as friendly as the day before 🤣🤣 But what a welcome 😻🇺🇾 by @guruguay1

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14 days ago

Café Brasilero was founded in 1877 ☕ It stands in the heart of Montevideo's Old City and was frequented by literary greats such as Eduardo Galeano and Mario Benedetti 📚 Café Brasilero, along with a selection of other historic cafés in Montevideo, is featured in a chapter of the Amazon bestseller The Guru'Guay Guide to Montevideo 🇺🇾

You can learn more about Uruguay at www.guruguay.com 🌐 by @guruguay1

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17 days ago

Living in Punta del Diablo, Uruguay 🇺🇾 started with one brave night out 🌊

Two weeks after moving from Georgia, Shelley and Chas heard about the town’s first annual pride parade on the beach. They didn’t speak Spanish and almost stayed home. Instead they had a little liquid courage and went.

Two local women clocked them as Americans, came right over and made them a Fernelo (Fernet and Coke). Before they knew it they were in a VW bus waving pride flags out the window, then dancing all night at a social club 🚐💃

Now they’re in the group chat, invited to every asado (barbecue), birthday and Christmas.

How LGBTQ-friendly is Uruguay? This is your answer 🌈

Would you have gone? Tell us in the comments 👇

Full interview on our YouTube channel, from the cost of living in Punta del Diablo to moving to Uruguay with cats. Link in bio.

Thanks to @sierra.atlantica for supporting this video 🙌 by @guruguay1

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18 days ago

🇺🇾 Did you know one of the most LGBTQ+-friendly countries in the world is...Uruguay?

Yep. Tiny South American country.

Major human rights record

🌈 Consensual same-sex activity? Decriminalised in 1934—making it one of the first in the Americas

⚖️ Anti-discrimination laws? Passed in 2003—well ahead of the curve

💍 Marriage equality? Legal since 2013—two years before the US

👶 Same-sex adoption? Legal since 2009—and IVF is on the national health

🧑‍⚕️ Trans rights? Legal gender change on your ID since 2009—no questions asked

🎉 Pride in Montevideo? So broadly supported—1 in 8 Montevideans attend

💡 Uruguay shows that LGBTQ+ equality doesn’t need to be a culture war.

It can just be... a matter of basic decency.

Love Uruguay’s unofficial LGBTQ+ anthem? You’ll hear it at all the marches. It’s “Que Digan Lo Que Quieran” by local girl turned international superstar Natalia Oreiro 💖

Want to know more about Uruguay: The global LGBTQ+ leader (you probably didn’t know about)? go to www.guruguay.com/lgbt-rights-uruguay

Guru’Guay thanks relocation specialists Sierra Atlantica for their support of our work around LGBTQ+ themes. They love to work with clients from the community and allies.

sierraatlantica.com/en/embracing-international-mobility by @guruguay1

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22 days ago

Shelley may have found Uruguay sweets and cakes irresistible in her first months 🧁 But Uruguay also had the solution to bring that cholesterol way back down 📉

I went to visit Shelley and her wife who moved to Uruguay one year ago to interview them for our series about foreigners talking candidly about living in Uruguay 🇺🇾

I actually drove almost 5 hours to visit them in Punta del Diablo, a gorgeous beach town close to the border with Brazil in the department of Rocha.

The night before the interview, they took me to their favourite social club. The place where they have met all their friends 🥂

She told me about how drinking Uruguay flagship red wine, Tannat, brought her cholesterol way back down to good levels in just four months.

Guru’Guay regularly interviews English speaking foreigners living in Uruguay. We choose people who have all had very different experiences. This will be the first time we talk to someone living in Rocha 📍

What all the interviews having common is that I ask then talk candidly about life in Uruguay, what they find difficult as well as what they love.

Watch the entire series “Living in Uruguay (as a foreigner)” on youtube.com/guruguay ▶️ and make sure you hit subscribe to never miss a new interview.

Shelley’s interview will be out September 25th ⏰

🌊 www.guruguay.com/punta-del-diablo
🍷 www.guruguay.com/uruguay-wines by @guruguay1

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a month ago

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a month ago

After particularly damp and gloomy winter, the last few weeks of August were beautifully sunny in Uruguay 🇺🇾 And it was magical to see Cerro Pan de Azúcar (which translates as Sugar Loaf Hill) as the sun set after a warm winter’s day on August 31 🌅 Pan de Azúcar stands at 389 m (1,276 ft) above sea level even though it's just about 5 km (just over three miles) from the Atlantic ocean. That evening the sky was gently pink and a little muff of mist cloaked the eastern side of the hill ⛰️

Want more about Uruguay? don’t miss www.guruguay.com 🔍 by @guruguay1

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a month ago

Guru'Guay regularly interviews English-speaking foreigners living in Uruguay 🇺🇾🎙️ We choose people who've all had very different experiences.

We ask them what they wish they'd known before moving to Uruguay. Here's a taster — watch the full interviews where we go into depth, with everything from the trivial to the practical to the deeply personal.

In every interview we ask people to talk candidly about life in Uruguay, what they find difficult as well as what they love.

Watch the entire series "Living in Uruguay (as a foreigner)" 🎥▶️ on YouTube and make sure you hit subscribe to never miss a new interview.

https://youtube.com/guruguay?sub_confirmation=1

Music: Ta' Rengo by Diego Janssen by @guruguay1

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2 months ago

Is there any other country in the world with a state-sanctioned celebration of musical "golden oldies"? 🕺💃

In 2004, the Uruguayan government passed a decree to officially denominate the eve of August 24 as "noche de la nostalgia" — Nostalgia Night.

The idea came about almost half a century ago. It was 1978. Uruguay was in the throes of a military dictatorship.

A 20-year-old radio DJ heading up a show called Old Hits decided his station would hold a party and only play golden oldies. They chose the eve of Uruguay's Declaration of Independence, August 25 1978.

Sylvana Cabrera Nahson was seventeen: "The dictatorship was a terrible time. The military could subject you to a spot-check whenever they wanted. There were curfews, aggressive raids. And suddenly, in the middle of this cruel reality, this event, which was pure recreation, appeared. The contrast was so intense."

An annual celebration was born 🪩

Most parties start off with golden oldies in English —Queen, The Bee Gees, even Barry Manilow. As the night goes on, expect Uruguayan and Argentine rock and cumbia.

Read more to know why Uruguayans are so nostalgic, and how you can attend ➡️ guruguay.com/uruguay-celebrations-nostalgia-night/

also www.guruguay.com/uruguay-dictatorship 🔗 by @guruguay1

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2 months ago

One of the most interesting exhibitions going on in Montevideo at the moment 😱🎭

Life-size costume reconstruction by students of the EMAD, Montevideo's dramatic art and music academy. The students in theatre design take a picture from history, 2D, and then they recreate it in 3D, in paper.

🏛️ The pieces are on display in the CCE, the Centro Cultural de España, in Montevideo.

⬇️ Go downstairs to the basement and check out a lovely exhibit by a dear friend of mine, Federico Ruiz Santesteban, and his daughter.

🗓️ The paper dresses are on until September 13, and Fede's is on until October 3.

CCE:
📍Rincón 629
🕐Monday to Friday: 11am till 7pm
🕐 Saturdays: 11am till 5pm

Current affairs note: The paper dress project is a flagship of the EMAD. Professors are currently in conflict with the institution due to reductions in payments for teaching hours.

For more recommendations visit 🔗 www.guruguay.com and hit ‘things to do’ by @guruguay1

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2 months ago

Your favourite restaurant or bookshop or vet in Montevideo has the potential to end up in the New York Times or The Guardian or the Lonely Planet 📰

⭐️ You can nominate them to be included in the new Guru'Guay Guide to Montevideo.

Being in the book (this is the last edition) could have a real impact on the business you nominated.

🏙️ the only city guide to Montevideo sold internationally.
🏆 regularly in the top 50 best-selling South American guidebooks on Amazon.
🌎 sold in paperback in North America, Europe, Australia, Brazil and Japan.
💻 available digitally in the rest of the world.
🗞️ an essential resource for international journalists and other guidebook writers.

So… what are you waiting for, get nominating!
Vote here: 🗳️ guruguay.com/nominate
and in Spanish guruguay.com/es/nominate

Voting closes August 31 2026

Music: Ta' Rengo by Diego Janssen by @guruguay1

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2 months ago