All those who, like me, have traveled the roads of Uruguay, will surely have discovered a country that lives in calm, inhabited by kind and humble people.
Unlike what happens with its neighbor across the Río de la Plata, here nobody rushes. Quite the opposite: its people have learned to enjoy life little by little, like a good mate, that drink no self-respecting Uruguayan is ever without.
This calm reflects the soul of a society that has learned to live with its differences without friction, and to celebrate its achievements with the composure of wise nations.
A particular, distinctive atmosphere comes through at every stop along the road, right there, when you make your way into one of its villages, just as the landscape turns different shades of green and is dotted with the colors of the cultivated fields.
In a setting more or less like that, one arrives at the village of Garzón, located in the department of Maldonado, 33 km from José Ignacio or 65 km from glamorous Punta del Este.
The peace one breathes seems to suggest the village still hasn't woken up from its siesta. Its scant 200 inhabitants enjoy the silence, broken only by the song of a bird or the occasional cicada.
With its dirt streets, yet proud and tidy, Garzón lets itself be explored, inviting us to forget our urgencies. There's no need to hurry here, since every corner of it is reached quickly, without any rush at all.
Today, it's home to a couple of restaurants and boutique inns that open their doors as one would to a friend invited over for a meal, and perhaps its main star is the hotel and restaurant that shares the town's name, Garzón, run by Francis Mallmann, the internationally renowned Argentine chef.
