Montevideo, like San Francisco, is surrounded by water, a city on a peninsula. But the peninsula is pointier and, rather than sitting on a bay, it sits on the Rio de la Plata, which flows down from the confluence of the Rio Parana – the second longest river in South America – and Rio Uruguay.

Sediments from the north are brought down through the continent to the South Atlantic Ocean, here. The water in the river appears brown because of this. It is classified a muddy estuary by NOAA, but to me it’s more like a massive delta under a river continuously carrying the silt of a continent rushing out to sea.

The Rio de la Plata is the widest river on earth because the river pushes far out into the South Atlantic Ocean. The definition of the river is measurable by lack of salinity, but submarine measurement of the river bed also reveals a long, sloping, gradual alluvial fan pushing miles out into the sea. Oceans are rising everywhere as a result of warming temperatures, but here a powerful river pushes back.

This makes Montevideo and Buenos Aires river cities. There are few seagulls in Montevideo or Buenos Aires, one sees more shore birds and tidal hunters like the egret or, palm and fruit tree birds like the monk parakeets.

Buenos Aires is upriver, to the West of Montevideo both at around 34.5 Degrees S Latitude. The Buquebus ferry between the two capitals, crossing the wide, brown river gives one a good feeling for the size of the Rio de la Plata.

One has to travel East from Montevideo, past Punta del Este, where the ocean finally approaches the shore of Uruguay, to find seagulls in flocks. The district to the east is Maldonado where I spent most of my time in Uruguay.

I rented a car and drove eastward from Punta del Este as far as Jose Ignacio and back, considering the beaches and the rolling hills and vineyards of Piriapolis, Punta Gordo, Punta Negro and Punta Ballena – home to Casapueblo, a sun sanctuary created by the artist Carlos Paez Vilaro.

I visited the James Turrell Sky Space at Jose Ignacio – a remarkable structure in an idyllic environment –

and watched the color of the sky change from within the columnar ring of granite from the Dolemites – saw Jupiter emerge from the inky blackness of night.

I saw Alpha Centauri for the first time in my life, and then saw Centaurus every night for forty nights, and learned the path of Sagittarius and Hydra before it.

The shape of the land in these “puntas”at the coast all the way down to Tierra del Fuego like fractal curves of the earth, give one a unique vantage on the celestial hemisphere. From the earliest days of my arrival I could see the curve of it clearly.

It was summer and the sun was a dangerous laser beam. The sun is on the flags of both Argentina and Uruguay because it shone at an auspicious moment of the May revolution of 1810, initiating their independence from Spain, but it could also be for the sheer power of the sun.

The solar rays and heat felt different here at the end of their summer. My skin darkened significantly. The light itself was very different from San Francisco. When I was in Punta del Este I was 10,000 kilometers from San Francisco, going against the 23 degree tilt of the world – the obliquity of the ecliptic.

The Riviera of South America, Punta del Este is a thriving tourist destination for wealthy Argentines and Brazilians. I was told the private airport that serves Punta del Este will end commercial flights on the last day of this year – only private jets after that. Condominium buildings and resorts properties are being built everywhere.

Prices are climbing. There is tension between longtime residents and developers, and comedic derision of Argentine tourists by locals, though they call Buenos Aires a sister city.

Uruguyans have an advanced and refined culture that can be found even among the people living simple lives in Maldonado, but it’s different from that found in Buenos Aires. The pace is slower, more at ease in eastern Uruguay.

Buenos Aires has the energy of a city of the world. The buzz and bustle of New York or Paris or Tokyo.

As I did in Thailand three years ago, I made a study of the legalization of marijuana in Uruguay and found a thriving subculture or growers and producers working collectively with little to no interference from the government. They are proud that they were the first nation to legalize it but, in keeping with their character, don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s just obvious that the right position is legalization.

There is a collective sense of righteousness in Uruguay that reminded me of Japan – a rectitude. It’s what drives them to be progressive – doing the right thing.

Take look at this recycling station!

Here’s a story I have been telling about the Progressiveness of Uruguay.