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Travelogue Uruguay: Montevideo, Punta del Este, Punta del Diablo, Velizas

Category : Travel
Posted on March 12, 2013 by Nathan Lustig

Uruguay is a small country of about 4m people sandwiched between Argentina and Brazil. Nearly half live in Montevideo, the capital. It sort of feels like an upscale, more laid back Argentina that actually works. People speak the same accented spanish as they do in Argentina, but with seemingly less slang. I took an eight day trip last month during Carnaval for a short vacation.

I arrived into the Montevideo airport, tried to rent a car, but couldn’t find anything, so I immediately took a bus directly to Punta del Este, hoping to find a car there. I hadn’t realized when I booked the flight that it was going to be Carnaval in Uruguay, but that explained why everything was busy.

Punta del Este is the French Rivera of South America. South Americans with money come from all over to play on the beaches, eat in top restaurants and hobnob with each other. As such, it’s really expensive, but there’s great food and good beaches. Nearly everyone there was in good shape, extremely tan and fairly well dressed. It wasn’t really my style, as Punta is very built up and feels a bit like Florida. After a day and a half it was time to move on.

credit: UNEP — Punta del Este. Credit: UNEP

I took a bus north along the coast to Punta del Diablo, a small town that gets overrun with tourists in the summer. One family used to own all of the land, but has now sold lots to developers for cabins, restaurants and small apartments. Since it was Carnaval and everyone had monday and tuesday off from work, the place was packed. It’s really close to the Brazilian border and you can tell: portuguese is everywhere, the merchants accept reales, caipirinas are on every menu. They also accept Argentine pesos, but at 10 pesos to the dollar, or 2x the official rate. Argentinians were happy to pay.

Punta del Diablo has two huge beaches that were full close to town, but if you walked 10 minutes, you could find beaches with hardly anyone. It was hot and sunny, maybe 90 degrees, in the morning, but every late afternoon it got cold. Try to stay at a cabin instead of a hostel, they’re about the same price.

The surf was pretty high, making the water seem colder than it was. There are tons of little restaurants, mostly catering to tourists. The best ones were farther into town, maybe 3 minutes walk. The first ones were touristy, kind of expensive and lower quality. My favorites were a mexican cantina through the center of town and Il Tano Cucino, an Italian restaurant where the owner makes his own pasta and gnocchis outside each day. It was so good I went twice in one day.

At night during Carnaval, the city came alive. Local kids filled up anything they could find to have massive water fights with each other. Others took to ambushing tourists. My favorite was a kid with a hose who hid behind some bushes to spray people. After I got hit, I watched for 20 minutes as other got destroyed by the water.

Later on in the night, there were two parades with local kids dancing, singing and riding around in floats. Everyone followed the parades, dancing, singing and drinking until they arrived at the beach, between three bars. It morphed into a huge outside dance party with the occacional spray of water from some kids. Everyone was happy. You could tell the Brazilians apart from everyone else by how quickly they moved their feet.

After a few days in Punta del Diablo I went on a day trip to Velizas, about an hour to the south. It’s a tiny town, much less developed than Punta del Diablo, but the beach was beautiful. The water was warm and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Looking to the south, you can see the huge sand dunes of Cabo Polonio national park. I wished I’d spent a little more time there.

I spent my last two days in Montevideo. I found a great hotel on booking.com that happened to have a 65% discount in the old section of town with a view of the “sea.” Although everyone calls it the sea, it’s really the rio de la plata, which at montevideo happens to be one of the widest rivers in the world. The old section is in the middle of being restored. There are boutique hotels, small shops, good restaurants and stores that are going into beautiful old buildings. Montevideo has some incredible arquitecture that is way better preserved than Santiago and the old city is going to be incredible in a few years as people start to move back.

I went for lunch at Mercando Central and sampled Medio y Medio, a half and half mix of white wine and champagne that really sneaks up on you. Uruguayans eat the fourth most beef per capita in the world and for good reason. Their steaks were incredible. Bar Fun Fun is a touristy but eclectic bar that’s been in business since 1895, complete with live tango and music. At night, hardly anyone is around in the old city, except at a few bars. It was a little creepy and felt like a zombie movie, especially compared to the day when it’s filled with people

I really liked Uruguay. The country seems stable, people are nice, the cities seemed safe and things seemed to work. People seem to have a really high quality of life. Montevideo is in the middle of gentrification and the old city will be incredible in about 5 years if they continue to make progress. I will definitely be back in the future.

My 2012

Category : Personal Thoughts
Posted on December 31, 2012 by Nathan Lustig

My year end reflections post is always one of my favorite ones to write each year. Here’s a look back at what I did in 2012. Previous versions here (2000s, 2009, 2010, 2011).

Although I started 2012 in the exact same place I started 2011, LA to see the Badgers in the Rose Bowl, it was a year of big changes, a year in flux. Jesse and I were on the verge of selling Entrustet and I was trying to decide what I wanted to do next. I knew I wasn’t ready to start something new, so in January, I moved back to Chile with the goal of finding a job in a startup that would force me to learn spanish and give me the chance to really get to know how the markets work in the rest of Latin America.

After a month long search, I ended up working with Welcu, a fast growing Chilean Startup. Nico, Carito and Seba had the honor of being my first bosses since I worked for a law firm over the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college. At Welcu, I was forced to really learn Spanish, got to see how Argentina, Colombia, Brazil and Chile’s business culture from the inside out and made some great friends. I also got to be a part of a startup that grew from 6 people in Chile to over 40 in four countries. It was a fun ride.

In April, Entrustet was acquired by SecureSafe and we were featured in tons of international press. My three favorites were being quoted in The Economist, interviewed on Australian national radio and being featured Japan’s national news that went out to more than 10 million people. It felt great to sell a second company and I know I want to start something new again soon.

By October, I’d reconfirmed what I already knew: I am made to be my own boss and decided to off on my own again. Between tinkering with side projects and doing research into new ideas, I wrote a book, Startup Chile 101, about everything you’d want to know about living, working and doing business in Chile and put it on Amazon. It’s been great to hear from people who’ve bought it and see that it’s actually helping them. I also did some consulting work for prospective Startup Chile teams, helping them improve their applications so they’d have a better chance at getting into the program.

On a personal level, I learned more about myself in 2012 than in any year since 2005 when I first went to university. Between being in a foreign country, selling a company, working for someone else, learning spanish, being away from my family, making new friends, going into and out of relationships and generally trying to figure out what I wanted to work on and where I wanted to live, pretty much everything was open for self study and self improvement.

Because I never knew how long I was going to be staying in Chile, I lived in 8 different apartments for short amounts of time. In 2013, that’s going to have to change. I found that although I love flexibility, it’s worth the extra money and potential risk to have a place to call your own. 2012 really drove home how lucky I am to have a great family and an incredible group of friends. Being away from them for 11 months straight, the longest streak in my life, really put it all in perspective. It was too much and I won’t let it happen again if I can help it.

I didn’t travel as much as I would have liked in 2012. I’ll make the excuse that I had a job, but in reality, I let myself down. In the small amount of travel I was able to do, I made it to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Buenos Aires, New York, Colombia and back to Wisconsin. Colombia and Buenos Aires were special trips because in Colombia I got closer to a group of Chilean friends that I’d know for a long time and Buenos Aires because my friend Jesse came to visit from Wisconsin. When I got back to the US in November, I arrived for the 8th annual friendsgiving with all of my university friends. I’m so glad we’ve kept this tradition going even though we’re on three continents and seven states.

I didn’t read as many books as I have in previous years, but really enjoyed Freedom, The Monk and the Riddle, Antifragile, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, Thunderstruck, Unbroken and Steve Jobs’ biography. I also missed riding my road bike in 2012. That’s something I need to get back in 2013. I also didn’t blog as much as I have in previous years and went through multiple droughts of weeks at a time. I think I might have had writer’s block from my first winter in over two years.

In 2013, I’ll be starting the year back in Chile getting ready to teach entrepreneurship at two Chilean universities, while at the same time continuing to develop multiple ideas that I think could be very interesting. In 2012, I eliminated a ton of things that I don’t want to do. I have a feeling 2013 will be the year that my next project becomes apparent to me.

Favorite Posts from 2012

Why I Deleted Twitter and Facebook from my iPhone

Losing our Civil Liberties

A Funny Story About an Acquisition That Didn’t Happen

Why I Will Vote for Obama in November

Who Will be Chile’s Paul Graham or Dave McClure

It’s Time to Have a National Conversation on the 2nd Amendment

Fixing My Relationship with Facebook

The entire What I Learned series

College Advice

The Biggest Problem Starting Up Outside San Francisco or NYC

Travelogue: Buenos Aires

Category : Travel
Posted on December 15, 2012 by Nathan Lustig

In October I returned from my third trip to Buenos Aires in the last year. This time it was for four short days with my friend Jesse who was visiting from Wisconsin, but other times it’s been for business. There’s so much going on in Buenos Aires that I didn’t feel like it was worth writing a travelogue until I’d had a chance to explore a big portion of the city. What follows is a composite of my three trips to Buenos Aires over the past year.

Buenos Aires is my favorite city in South America and up there with my favorite cities in the world. Although Buenos Aires proper is only 4m, it’s really a huge city of 12m along Mar de La Plata, where the River Plata empties into the sea. Most people in the US assume that since Chile and Argentina share such a long border and are in South America that they have a lot in common. But they’re really different: the accents, clothes, personalities and culture. In reality the two things they have in common are Spanish and a love of asados.

Buenos Aires is a city of amazing food, good looking people, beautiful architecture, wine, beef, culture, nightlife and fashion. It’s the Paris of South America, but with a South American edgy flair. People are generally educated, thanks to good public education and free universities, and love to socialize. Economically, it’s the Italy of South America: fiscal problems, a left wing government that’s nationalized industries and imposed currency controls to try to dedollarize the economy, which has led to rampant inflation and a black market exchange rate. When I first traveled to Buenos Aires in November 2011, the market rate was 4.2 pesos to a dollar and 4.5 to a dollar on the street. One year later it was 4.5:1 officially and 7.5:1 on the street.

People like their leisure time. There’s huge public and private sector unions with massive clout and lots of strikes. While I’ve been in Buenos Aires there have been strikes by truckers, airport baggage handlers and garbage collectors. Theres tons of red tape and bureaucracy and its no coincidence that Spanish speaking LatAm’s biggest entrepreneurial successes have come from Argentina: you learn from a young age how to be entrepreneurial and get things done by bending and breaking the rules. As it stands now, I wouldn’t do business in Argentina, but it is my favorite place to visit.

Contests to prevent tax evasion. Demand your receipt, mail it in for a chance at a free trip.

Argentina has the best food of anywhere I’ve been in Latin America and quite possibly the world. While I’ve had my best meal in Latin America in Mendoza, some of the next best have been in Buenos Aires. And it’s not just at the top end. Buenos Aires is a city where people love and appreciate food. You can walk into just about any little cafe, bakery or restaurant and expect a good meal.

Buenos Aires is know for two things: steak and Italian food, but it’s much more than that. But first, lets start with the steak. Argentina has some of the best beef in the world, most of which is produced by cows that eat grass, walking around on ranches in La Pampa, Argentina’s livestock belt. The most popular cut is the Bife Chorizo, which is certainly not any kind of sausage. It’s most closely related to a sirloin or NY Strip steak in the US. It’s my favorite. They’re also famous for their Malbec, which mostly comes from Mendoza in the north.

We went to La Cabrera, a touristy steak place in Palermo, at about 1030 for dinner. It’s expensive for Argentina, but it was worth it. The 600 gram steak, paired with a full bodied Malbec, was incredible. They gave us free drinks at the end of the meal because they didn’t have a dessert drink I asked about. Buenos Aires has some of the best restaurant service in the world because waiters were a profession up until recently. There’s still guys who have been waiting tables for decades who know everything there is to know about food, wine and service. It’s such a contrast to Chile and many restaurants in the US.

After we finished eating at 1230, we headed out to have a drink. We found a bar filled with interesting people, cheap drinks and interesting decor. After a few Quilmes it was 3am and we decided to go actually go out. We found a club with a line and walked it. Like in Chile people eat and go out late, but Argentina is even later. The place was just getting started. We closed the place at 630 and found our way back to the apartment we rented on Airbnb

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Recoleta Cementery – Wikipedia

Argentina has some of, if not the best, gelato in the world and we couldn’t resist grabbing a scoop for breakfast as we walked from Palermo to Recoleta to check out the cemetery where Buenos Aires’ elite are buried. It’s a labyrinth of extremely decorated mausoleums right in the middle of the city. Its amazing to see how much people spent on a cemetery that occupies prime land! After the cemetery, we stopped for a quick sandwich at La Biela under the shade of one of the more interesting trees I’ve ever seen.

After a quick bite, we wandered around Recoleta, taking in the embassies, old mansions and high end shops on our way down toward Av 9 de Julio, the world’s wides boulevard at 14 lanes. We walked down toward the obelisk, teatro colon and finally casa rosada, the presidential palace. The city just oozes history and architectural brilliance. Buenos Aires was on par with London at one point in the 1800s and they used the wealth to build incredible buildings and one of the oldest subways in the world. Unlike London, Buenos Aires hasn’t done much to update the metro, which we took back for the night. We had dinner at Broccolino, an Italian place with incredible lamb ravioli.

ateno — cc Intelligent Travel NG Traveler Blog

The next day, we took the Subte (subway), down toward La Boca, the area of the city known for the colored houses and of course the soccer team. The walk from the metro station took us through a few rougher areas, but it was great to see the difference in parts of the city. The entire area is dominated by the imposing La Bombonera, where Boca play their matches. When finally we got to the port, it was super touristy with guys trying to steer us into their bars. We left after some beers and empanadas.

We headed back up toward San Telmo and since it was Sunday we wandered across the famous street market where you’ll find just about everything for sale. We had a late lunch at a small Italian restaurant and walked around the old cobblestone streets. As it got darker and the traffic went away, you could almost feel yourself going back in time. We stopped into a small dive bar full of immigrants from eastern Europe for a cheap drink and hung out for awhile taking in the scene, then headed back up toward Palermo to meet some friends.

Our friends decided they wanted to go out in Puerto Madero, the newly developed area of town along the river, which had sat vacant and underdeveloped for decades. Now its revitalized with glitzy clubs, top restaurants and interesting people. It’s expensive compared to the rest of the city, but we had a good time. It wasn’t really my favorite place because it just doesn’t feel much different from any other big city in the world, maybe because its so new, but my friends and the many other tourists who were there loved it.

The next day we decided to walk to el Ateno, an old theater that’s been converted into a bookstore. The inside is beautifully converted and it was packed with tourists and locals alike. We stopped for another ice cream and took it all in. We took a taxi back to Palermo and decided to do some shopping. Palermo has many boutiques and you can watch as Argentines and tourists alike shop for fashionable clothes. Although the sticker prices are high, typically $75-$150 for a button down shirt, if you’re exchanging dollars that you brought with you, you can save up to 60%. One store owner heard me speaking in my accented Spanish and asked if I had dollars to spend and quoted me a 50% discount. After our shopping, it was off to the airport. Luckily we’d booked for Aeroparque, which is in the city, instead of Ezezia, which is a $40, hour long drive outside of the city.

There’s so many more amazing places I missed in this post that you’ll have to discover for yourself. Buenos Aires is an incredible city that should be on your list of places to visit if you have the chance. And right now it’s a great value and likely will keep getting better as their economy continues to have problems. I can’t wait to go back again.

Chile is mixing the right ingredients for an entrepreneurial explosion

Category : Entrepreneurship, Startup Chile
Posted on June 5, 2012 by Nathan Lustig

Last night I attended ASECH’s Cumbre de Emprendendores (entrepreneur summit), which brought together entrepreneurs, Chile’s President and Minister of Economy to talk about the challenges and goals of economic growth via entrepreneurship. Founded about 8 months ago, ASECH is a privately funded association founded by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs. Their goals are to bring the Chilean entrepreneurial community together and give entrepreneurs a voice in government by lobbying for more entrepreneur friendly laws.

So far it’s been an huge success. Over 1000 entrepreneurs from 9 of Chile’s 15 regions have joined ASECH. They hosted meetups and workshops, but most importantly they’ve been shining the spotlight on the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and pushing the government to help fix them. People say that in the US entrepreneurs don’t have a lobby. We don’t. In Chile, we now do.

Why it’s important

I believe that the world is going through the biggest change since the industrial revolution and that the country that figures out how to create the right landscape and culture that fosters entrepreneurship will be best positioned for the future. Entrepreneurs aren’t asking for handouts, they want a more level playing field against incumbents. Governments around the world should be clamoring for entrepreneurs and job creators.

What’s happening in Chile is unprecedented. Between private initiatives and public policy, Chile is on the way to getting it right. Say what you want about President Piñera, but he gets entrepreneurship. He understands why its important and continues to support it both with words but more importantly with action, unlike many politicians who only pay lip service to entrepreneurship. If you contrast Chile with Argentina, the US or many countries in Europe, you’ll see the differences. You’d never see Argentina’s President at a gathering of entrepreneurs. In the US, President Obama mostly pays lip service to entrepreneurship, same as Europe.

598864_184512431677578_117925206_n — President Piñera

Chile is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the big changes happening in the world economy. It has a stable government that is serious about changing laws to make starting a business easier: opening a bank account, receiving payments from large companies in 30 days or less and making the playing field more level. In Chile, the government is engaged, the private sector is growing. Chile also has a strong, educated, up and coming private sector made up of entrepreneurs who are eager to make sure these changes happen. They want to build businesses to make Chile a more equal place.

There are two ways to make a society more equal and more prosperous. Government can redistribute by giving away money and taking from others or businesses can redistribute wealth by creating more of it. It happens via entrepreneurship. The first country that gets this right, will have a huge competitive advantage in our new economy. Between government policy and a strong entrepreneurial sector, Chile is on the right path. It needs to keep it up.

These types of changes don’t happen by accident or in a vacuum. They are part of an ecosystem, powered by people. Congratulations to Nico Shea, Cristian Lopez from ASECH (and previously Startup Chile) for having the vision and execution to make it happen. Keep it up guys. There’s still a long way to go. And for anyone else interested in being a part of it, get involved. There are tons of opportunities. Take the leap and be a part of Chile’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Check out this video produced by ASECH about the struggles new businesses have to just get a bank account. For my english speakers, an entrepreneur walks into a bank and asks for a bank account for his future business. The executive just laughs him out of her office.