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I celebrated my 46^th birthday in March in Uruguay! It was the first birthday I ever celebrated outside Ireland! I sang -It's a long way to Tipperary- for my guests just to mark the occasion! My tango from Ireland!! Uruguay is a very pleasant and peaceful country and a great place to party! It is a good place for a relaxing holiday in the countryside or by the sea; it has excellent food and most of all it is a great place to go if you have Multiple Sclerosis! This was the second time I had gone there for rehabilitation with the same physiotherapist as last time. Eoin Kelly (Tipperary hurler) and Frank Lampard (Chelsea footballer) eat your hearts out!

During the summer the beaches are said to be among the best in the world and they are crowded with it Argentine tourists! The climate in Uruguay is temperate: warm summers and cold winters. The coolest month is June, while the warmest is January. The rainfall is equally distributed throughout the year, but tends to be a bit more frequent in the autumn months. There can be frequent thunderstorms in the summer. I was there in autumn this time and we got a week of thunderstorms(March). The humidity was hard also especially with MS.
I went there first in 2005 on the recommendation of my Uruguayan friend Natalia who often spoke to me about the ability of Uruguayan physiotherapists. I went once more to Punta Del Este about 2 hours car journey from Montevideo the capital.

The remaining Saturday I had free I decided that a trip to the hills would be in order. We visited the hills and stopped off for lunch in a town called Minas there we had as good a meal as you could eat. Steak and salad. Alberto explained to me the difference in the flavour of steak on low ground compared to hilly pastures. There was a difference alright. It tasted of herbs! We then made our way to the coast to a place called Piriápolis.! Think coastal resort in Uruguay and what's the first name that comes to mind? Punta del Este, of course. But this place was much more beautiful with no high rise buildings which is currently destroying Punta Del Este in my opinion.
However, developed before Punta del Este, and now considered Uruguay's second premiere resort, Piriápolis, between Montevideo and Punta del Este . It attracts a fair number of visitors who like excellent beaches, a relaxed vacation, and a variety of things to do and see. Developed by Francisco Piria, who bought the land surrounding a protected bay, the resort town revolves around the classic waterfront promenade, the Rambla de los Argentinos named for the clientele Sr. Piria catered to. Francisco Piria, son of Italian immigrants and born in Maldonado(nearPunta Del Este), was the pioneer in mining granite rock from the hills and transforming the valleys into vineyards. He created the resort Piriapolis which rapidly became a tourist attraction. He built the Argentino Hotel and a home referred to as Castillo de Piria or Piria's Castle which I visited. Built at the time of the "belle époque," Piriápolis - has the look and feel of the French Riviera. Soon after it was complete, Piriápolis was acknowledged as the most sophisticated beach resort, called a balneario, in South America.

I find that a lot of physiotherapy in this so called first world sticks to tried and trusted methods. It has been much different in Uruguay at least with the physiotherapy I have received there from Mercedes. One of the most important components of any progressive MS person is a well planned and executed rehabilitation programme. I believe this should be ideally done on a yearly basis. In Ireland there is nothing in operation by any health board that I know. This is nothing short of disgraceful. As a country we should be ashamed of ourselves.
I find in Ireland that physiotherapists treat a stroke victim or someone with arthritis the same way as someone with MS. The same exercises done with the same methods. The physio in Uruguay is largely a mixture of yoga and physiotherapy. The exercises are light but very effective. I have found that the exercises helped me with balance and ability to walk a little better. She also introduced breathing exercises this time as an effective way of relaxing the body. In effect- exercises that met my specific needs and abilities. Physio to keep me as mobile and active as possible and not 24/7 in a chair! Mercedes also introduced me this time to Pelvic floor exercises to combat my urine retention problem and it is still working well. Touch wood!!
My physiotherapist provided me with physiotherapy up to two hours daily, 6 days a week resting on her Sabbath day-Saturday. My time in Uruguay was short. Three weeks to be exact! As my Saturdays were free I decided to see a bit of the country this time around

Alberto and Cristina my hosts were always talking about Chuy. A city that was located on the Uruguayan border with Brazil. One side of the street is in Uruguay the other in Brazil! The border town of Chuy, is 140 miles northeast of Punta Del Este, offers a popular duty-free shopping area on the Uruguay side. Brazilian coffee, tobacco and other consumer goods are available at advantageous prices in Brazil. You can also buy prescribed medicine over the counter! We went there and spent the day shopping. It was dusty, dirty and hot but worth the visit. We were checked twice by Uruguay Customs on our exit from Brazil.
Returning via a beautiful village named Punta Del Diablo (Devil's point). It's a tiny fishing village built on sand dunes next to a long stretch of wild, rugged beach. You can feel its remoteness instantly and it is such a breath of fresh air to see a place that tourism has barely reached yet. There are no hostels, no shops selling tacky souvenirs, no boat trips being shoved in your face and almost empty beaches. A beautiful relaxed place where I had an espresso and was introduced to Uruguayan Grappa for the first time. It was nice but a little too sweet!
Uruguay's capital, Montevideo, is home to half the country's population. It's one and a half million get to enjoy a long, sandy coastline and a wonderful historical centre with fabulous buildings, monuments and plazas from the 19th century. Artigas, the local liberator, occupies a prime spot in the Plaza Independencia. Roads in Uruguay are second to none and my trip from Punta Del Este was a pleasant one...

My only reason to visit there was to make contact with a neurologist named Dr. Carlos Oehninger (Committee Vice President of Latin-American investigations into Multiple Sclerosis) in the neurological hospital (hospital de clinicas). Cristina my host who is a doctor set up that meeting. I spoke at length with him about treatment of MS and medicine. He told me that in Uruguay beta-interferon was not widely available and that they invariably had to make do with copies made in the laboratory. Practical treatment for Primary Progressive seemed to be much better than Ireland.
While I was there I made contact with his wife Magdalena who was connected with emur (MS Society Uruguay) which was founded in 2002. The organization is young and needs a lot of funds and resources. She had seen my book- Bright Clouds and wanted to translate it into Spanish. I agreed and told her to keep anything from the sale of the book for emur. That task is now been undertaken by a Karina Stuone an MS sufferer who is from Uruguay but who lived in Canada for a while. Good luck to her!

Food!

I have never eaten better at such a value. In many ways it is similar to Argentine food, but is priced more reasonably. The national dish of Uruguay is beef, and huge slices of it are charcoal grilled on a spit. Uruguayan Food is traditionally based on its European roots. Mediterranean foods, especially from Italy, Spain, France and Germany. Many foods from those countries such as pasta, chorizos(sausages), and desserts are common in the nation's diet. The Uruguayan barbecue, asado, is one of the tastiest in the world.
Spaghetti is either served with sauce, or plain with dry chopped spinach on top. Ravioli was either stuffed with meat such as ham and served with a sauce, or stuffed with spinach and served plain. Gnocchi (ñoquis in Uruguay) are traditionally eaten every 29th of every month and you have to put money under the plate of gnocchis because it is said you will have money for the whole month!  Pasta is one of the main dishes in Uruguay because of the many Italian immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Uruguay is a country that everyone should visit at least one in a lifetime. Roll on my next trip!!

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