The featured image shows the gate house of the old Uruguayan prison, Punta Carretas. It is now an upscale shopping mall in an upper middle class neighborhood. That a McDonald’s is housed there I find amusing. What I learned on a recent tour, and did supplemental reading about on the internet, was that there was…

Uruguay and Brazil are about as different as the rural South is from New York City. Montevideo is high energy, efficient, and prosperous. Other than the capital, there are 17 other cities, all agricultural centers devoted to raising cattle. Most of the residents here are not churchgoers, unlike the bulk of Latin America, which is…