A short stay in Libertad - the town famous of a jail

The name meant freedom, but it had the largest jail in the country and we did not have a chance to visit.

The night we left Pedro in Montevideo, we went to Pablo’s car to go to Libertad, 30km away. It was a quite town and a good break from the city. If our host, Pablo had not planned going to Colonia the next day, we would have stayed a few more days in Montevideo. Colonia was a sailing port and I wanted to visit. It was also a heritage site.


Back to Pablo's place. It was behind a chemical retail shop owned by his parents. It was a studio flat that we stayed on the upper attic. The town was small and pleasant. He always have friends hanging around his house and Diego was there all the time. We shared our chinese cooking including fried rice, noodles and chickens.

Walking around the town, we found a small zoo in a park. There were animals jailed in small cages, including a peacock, two goats, a pig and a poor monkey, who used to be in a zoo near Montevideo. According to Pablo, some stupid politicians proposed a zoo and brought these animals in. We saw the monkey "entertained" himself by rotating in the cage, with shits on the ground. Maria made a dance with the monkey (M: l'll call it 'The Solitary Roundabout') and hopefully this video could get notice of the animal group in the country.

Although Pablo lived by himself in the studio flat, his mother did his laundry. We were surprised and feeling uneasy when his mother did the laundry for us, while we expected to be shown the washing machine and we do that ourselves. The washed clothes were even well-folded and put in a big plastic bag like what a laundry shop does. It was a pity that we did not meet his mother often and thanked her for that. There were also two big dogs. One was in his seven year old (in his teen) but he was so huge that he was taller than Maria when standing up. He was very friendly and eager to get our attention.

We had a good time in his place, watching the boring draw game between Barcelona and Milan, listening to Diego’s guitar and Pablo’s candomble after dinner, with beer and chocolate, till 2 am was a good experience indeed.