Beef, Business, and Beyond: Uncovering Uruguay with Margarita Mangino

Welcome to the Nearshore Cafe podcast, home to the most interesting stories and people doing business in Latin America.

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Nearshore Cafe podcast where we bring to life doing business in Latin America. First, I want to give a thanks to our sponsor today. That's Nearshore Direct. Go nearshore direct dot com. Great way to find talent from customer service designers and all things in between for growing US Companies that's tapping into the LATAM labor market. I am very excited about our guest today, Margarita Mangino. Margarita, so happy to have you. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Absolutely. Well, Margarita, as you know, we talk a lot about doing business in Latin America. But first I want to set the scene a little bit about Uruguay. It's an interesting country, kind of right between two very big and loud countries. Can you just give us kind of a broad sense, like where it is on the map? How about some of the major cities, things like that. And then we'll get into culture later. But just geography for a second. What is it like?

Okay, Uruguay is a very small country. We are three meter and a half. It's like the size of San Diego for you to imagine in the comparison of the US and we are like a small country just near Argentina and Brazil. I heard yesterday someone telling me, like, Uruguay is between Pele and Maradona. Right. The subject is very important. So I laughed a lot about that because it's kind of very true. But our territory is very plain, so we have more cows than people. That's another crazy.

More cows than people is an interesting fact.

Yeah, exactly. But it is like a lot of cows for people.

Well, speaking of cows, I might just jump right into beef because for those that don't know beef, red meat in Latin America is out of this world. I've had the good fortune to have beef in both Uruguay and Argentina. Tell us a little more about the beef in Uruguay and then maybe how it is similar or different from Argentina.

I don't know. We always have this rivalry. It's called rivalry with Argentina. We're always fighting about everything, like who invented the cereche, who has the best beef, where Gardel was born and you can name it mate and a lot of other things. They are always saying that we are their small like sibling. Right. We don't like it and that's why we fight it back. And I don't know, we are very well known about our beef and it's not that different with the Argentina Maybe there's different names and different ways of doing it. We call it what we do, barbecue for us. And it's like a very ingrained part of our culture. When the weather is good, not in winter, it's not so common. It's not that common. But when the weather is like good from September and on until maybe April, we all gather around the asado on Sundays, for example.

Yeah.

When we do things between friends, it's like, hey, let's do an asado. Right? It's very, very common. But we have really good beef. We export a lot. And it only happened on the last years that we actually started to eat the good beef over here. Best beef was always eaten abroad. Right. But now you can find really good beef in the country too. Yeah.

So the asado, you know, is. I've experienced asado myself in Argentina and it's. It's like an all day thing with friends and family and sometimes even the first. Yeah, the first few hours, it's just lighting the fire and getting that fire. Right. Can you talk a little more about the asado culture in Uruguay? And also because maybe there's some overlap here in Argentina, punctuality maybe is a little more open. If you say, hey, we're having an asado at 2pm, someone might come at 4, or even punctuality in business. Can you talk about that a little bit in Uruguay? Is it a little bit more on track? Is it a little more loose and vague? How does that work out?

Yeah, I don't know. When it's related to family, at least it's not so open. It's like, but we have, you have to, at least in my family, you have to let our parents know that you're going to be late. Right. Because if not everyone is waiting for you to eat and it's like, hey, we won't sit at the table and serve the beef before everyone is present. We might, we always. The thing with the asado is that you start very early, first with the fire. But usually the assador is the responsible of setting the fire and he starts early before the people arrive, usually. Right. It's different between friends. Friends, they, they have like, they, they have always the supporter that goes early to help to set the fire and everything. And they start drinking some beers before every. The other ones arrive. But in, in terms of that. And then you have like a lot of. You have the beef that is the main course of the asado, but you have a lot of other things that are prepared, like melted cheese that we Call provolone or you have chorizo and mojeja chicholines. I don't know, a lot of other things, other parts of the cow actually that we eat, that we. It's like it's served like. How is the word? Picado? It's like. It's like a food finger. Like you eat like, like in the moment and you don't need to be seated on the table. But usually the. The beef is served with salads and other, I don't know, potatoes or sweet potatoes or that kind of things that you can also do on the barbecue. And so we usually try to wait for all the people to be on the asado to serve the main beef. But it's like, that's the thing that make it long because you start. And sometimes on Sundays I can only eat at noon. I. I can't eat again at night because it gets so much that it's like, oh my God, I'm so full. It's like I have been all day long eating and you can't eat because you're like finger putting a lot of things in the moment. Right. So it's kind of all the day. Yeah.

And speaking of dinner time, is that also traditionally later in the evening?

Yes, yes, yes, it is usually. I don't know, in school time, 8pm, maybe 9pm in summer it can be even later.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

On summers. And sometimes you can eat even an 11pm it doesn't matter. You. You stay as long as it. As you can on the beach and you see the sunset and just then bath time and everything. And it's really late to. To get dinner after that.

Yeah. Now the summer season, I'll just share a little bit, but I'd love to hear your take. Montevideo was a fantastic place to experience the summer and the Rambla and everyone walking along. Can you give a little more background on what that's like? Especially maybe a Sunday afternoon in the summer on the Rambla. What does that look like feel like?

I have to tell you, I believe all Montevideanos, people from Montevideo, we hate summer here. It's like. And we have so many nice beaches, more on the east of the. Of Uruguay, that usually you have people that go to the beach in Montevideo, but most of the people escape from it. It's like the best of Montevideo actually is spring or autumn, that you can go walk on the beach and it's beautiful. I love that part of the year. I'm actually one last month I went to walk on the beach and it was like 30 Graves Fahrenheit. And it was like, oh my God, I hate it. I want spring because you have a lot of sand and the beaches. It's actually what. What is very curious about Montevideo is that in Montevideo it's not an ocean, it's actually a river. And it's a very wide river that actually Buenos Aires is across the river. And you can. You can't see it. It's not easy to see.

It's huge. Yeah, it's a huge river. Yeah.

And the water, as it's a river, is not very green. So you have sometimes that this more brown than green. That's why we don't actually love the experience of the beach here in Montevideo. If you go more on the east of the country, you start to grab the Atlantic Ocean and you have there so many nice places. Like Punta del Este is very well known around the world and it's beautiful. It's my place to go in summer. Actually, people hate it sometimes in January because it's very crowded, because we have a lot of tourists from Argentina, Brazil that go over there. But I love the beaches over there. And also the good thing about Punta del Este is that we have usually summers that are windy, but because it's like a point that access the water, it depends on the day, on the wind. You have different beaches to go that will be better or not. So. So usually you go to one beach in the morning because it doesn't have wind, and then another one on the evening because it doesn't have wind. So you move with the wind in the summer. But if you go even east, you have places in what we call Rocha. And there's a really amazing place called Cabo Polono that is known as a reserve, nature reserve. And you can't access by car, actually, is there's no cars in the place. It's there you have to cross with these trucks, big, big trucks around the dunes. And some of the houses over there doesn't even have electricity or water. So it's kind of. I love an experience that we had. We took the kids for a. For a weekend and the hotel, the bread and breakfast. Actually you don't have like big, big hotels. There are hostels and bread and breakfast mostly, and they didn't have electricity. So it was night and we were on the deck of our room and watching the stars. And it's beautiful because you don't have much light around. So what you see, it's amazing. And you go to a restaurant and it's lighted by candles. So it's amazing experience, and it's a really, really great place to go if you go to Uruguay. I would recommend it.

Absolutely. Thank you. I'd like to share my own personal experience on the Rambla. So this is probably maybe April. April in the year, but it was like a nice, sunny, sunny day in April, so late autumn right before winter. So it was maybe like 70 degrees Fahrenheit. So perfect. Sun is out. And it felt like the whole city was like walking on the Rambala, you know, on a Sunday afternoon, if they weren't out in the saddle somewhere, they were on the Rambla. And what I remember the most, Margarita, was. So I was walking with my wife, and so. I'm sorry, I will cut that out. So my wife and I were walking on the Rambolla, Beautiful, gorgeous Sunday afternoon, and we saw all these couples. All these couples just taking their stroll, and they had, you know, usually like a guy, he had, you know, one arm around his girl, and the other arm was around the mate.

Mate, yes, I know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other arm was around the mate. And it. It was like one couple after the next, after the next, after the next. It was. It was. It was great. It was. It was one of my favorite Uruguay experiences. And is that. Is that common, do you think?

It is totally common. And it's beautiful. It's like everyone's doing sports or taking a walk around the Rambla. And I believe it's the big difference between Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Buenos Aires was built taking the air back to the. To the river, actually. It's like a inside city, and ours was built around the river. We embrace it, and it's beautiful. Even if I have to cross the city to a meeting or going somewhere, if. Even if it's. The driving is longer, I will go through the Rambla because it's so beautiful to have that view that I will take the longer. Just go through the Rambla. It's amazing. Something that when we lived. Also when we lived in Madrid, that is like an inside city, too. It's like most things that we miss the most.

Yeah, yeah.

It was really common to go. And. And if the weather is. I'm. I'm so envy sometimes that I'm going to meetings or somewhere and I see people running on the Rambla or walking, and I was like, oh, my God, I have to do it. I have to go back. Time to go.

It was. It was awesome. The. You know, we talked a lot about the meat as a centerpiece. And, you know, some of the other Other side dishes, what else would you say that are like, very custom to Uruguay? Like any. Any other types of foods that you'd. You'd recommend?

Well, we have something that is called chibito that is like, if anyone comes to Uruguay, we will say you have to grab a chibito. It's like, it's. It's our it. And it's nothing more than a sandwich, actually, but very well, craft sandwich. Like, it's. It has like a special kind of bread and the meat is very easy to bite. And it's not like you will bite the sandwich and start fighting with the beef. It's like it should be very tender. Right. And then it has different versions, like a very basic one with lettuce and tomato. But then you have the, I don't know, the stronger one that has bacon and cheese and egg and a lot of that. It's called the canadiense. I don't know why the Canadian cibito, this fun anecdote about the chibito. Once I was with a Chilean couple that I was working with and they came to Montevideo and I took them to a bar that is very known for their chibito. And I said, okay, you should order a chibito. And they were like, okay. And she was like, hey, are you sure? Would it be that much to order a civito? And it was like, no. And she was like, so struggling about it. And I was like, oh, my God. What do you think is a chibito? Because chibito for us is also an animal that is like a small. How do you say cabra? Do you know cabra what it is?

Yeah.

And it was like, no, it's not an animal. It's like an actual sandwich. And we laughed because confuse her. But I would say to you is one of the things that we will always recommend for people to eat. For sure.

I love it. I also wanted to ask about maybe like the ethnicities of Uruguay. Is it primarily Spanish, Italian? Are there any other influences there?

We are 99% European.

Yeah.

So sometimes it's very boring, like you don't have that much diversity like you see in. In other countries in Latin America and in the US So sometimes when I see other ethnographies and events and everything, I. I become happy. It's like, oh, my God. We are having people that come to live to Uruguay. Right. But we are mostly European. We are more Spanish than Italian. And that's the main reason that why our personality is so different from the Argentina, especially the Buenos Aires. They are much more Italian than we are. That's why they are louder. They trouble with the neutrality and that kind of things. We are more. We are more humble, we are more serious. We were also more gray at some point in Uruguay. It was like, oh, my God, we are so gray, like playing and everything, that it was kind of boring. That changed. That changed a lot in the last two decades, I believe. And it wasn't well seen to stand out, for example, if you have money or you have had success in your business. And so having good cars or having a big house wasn't well seen. But that changed a lot. And it changed a lot also because a lot of Argentinas came to be live here after what's happening over there. And it shook the city, right. And the country on a lot of things. And I think it's really. It was a good thing for us.

But yeah, Margaret, as you were talking, I could definitely relate. There's a little bit more of a subduedness, I think, especially if you come from Argentina over to Uruguay. You're like, oh, okay, it feels a little more quiet, a little safer, a little stable, a little more stable, a little more secure, more sane, more polite, more humble, everything that you were saying. And I wanted to ask maybe how that even connects to business sometimes. Uruguay, I've heard, is called the Switzerland of Latin America with banking and so forth. Can you maybe talk about business, culture and banking and what Uruguay might be recognized for?

Of course, Uruguay is recognized as a stable country in Latin America. And I was actually impressed. The other day I was talking with a guy from Honduras and he was saying to me that he wanted to come to live to Uruguay. And I was like, why? I was surprised. And he was like, you are among the countries more stable and beautiful to live in Latin America. And it's true. I lived abroad and I came back. Right. But I have roots with my family and friends and we are very European in that sense. For us, it's very important, the community around us and the support and having all the family and friends around us. But mostly what it is, we are like a country that is very stable in a lot of things. It's in terms of government. It doesn't matter if we change who is in the government, it doesn't change us. And we are very democratic. If the people voted for it, we will be fine about it. So, yeah, it's really nice to see that when you have the comparison with a lot of other countries that are living other realities, we are really stable also in the economic side. And we were known for being the first country to women to vote in Latin America. So we were really advanced on a lot of social politics and that's why we became known as the Switzerland of Latin America. At some point we started to last. To last. Note to lose that I don't know differentiator and one of the good things that I believe in the last 20 years the government started to invest in a lot of other things that made us advanced and being well seen as a country. For example, in terms of we have a lot of abroad investors coming over from Finland, the US A lot of big companies that are investing in Uruguay and open their operations here. And that became like a first class business center in Latin America. We have for example, exceptional connectivity and Internet migration. 85% of our households have fixed broadband access and for example 75% of which have fiber optics. So it's, it's very spread for if you compare it for other countries also we have, for example 100% of our country's public schools have connectivity too. And we are the only country in the world that provides free laptops to all public and secondary students. Oh wow.

I didn't know that.

We have distributed more than half a million free laptops to students and teachers in the five years. For example. It's called a program called One laptop per child and it was aimed to bridge the difference. The division that was the digital division that we had in terms of the population that has less income. Right?

Yeah.

We are also one of the leading countries in terms of wind energy production among with Denmark, Ireland and Germany for example. And 90% of electricity is now generated from renewable sources.

So that's incredible. Wow, that's really, really, really world leading statistics there.

Yeah, it is. And in the. I just yesterday posted something because we were recognized as in the sustainable travel index and we were among the 21st positions in the ranking and the other 19 countries were all European.

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Very, very leading the way in Latin America.

And it's so it made me so proud to see that we are becoming that advanced country again. But because the governments, it doesn't matter if they change, they continue with the politics that the other one was implemented was implementing. It's not like I will kill everything that they did before.

Right.

It doesn't work that way here. So it is very important for all the country we are among. We're in this together. It doesn't matter what political party you are. We need to work together to advance the country. So it's really refreshing to know that yeah.

As an American, that hits home because every four years we swing one extreme and the next four years we string the other extreme. And it's great to see forward progress all the time. And you can see it with the country.

You have parties that are investing more in social initiatives and other ones that are more into business and doing business abroad. For us, we are such a small country that our inside market, it's not enough. So we need. It's always thinking about exporting and how we can still do like a. A partnership country or another community or. Or that kind of thing, because it's, It's. We can live from what. It's the market inside, only the market of Uruguay. So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to also ask, as we're on this topic, how has that impacted maybe the talent market in Uruguay? And maybe if there's certain pockets listeners should be aware of, whether it's design or software development or banking, are there certain sectors or talent pockets?

We should talk about tech talent. It's amazing. We are among one of the countries with better tech talent over here. We started investing in promoting the IT industry and tech industry for a long time. And we have, I believe, if I'm Wrong, more than 500 development companies, software companies.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. And one of the things that we usually have very good English and really, really good talent. So it's kind of hard to. We. It's limited. Right. So we are so few that a lot of companies over here, what happens is that if they want to scale and they want, they want to grow, we tend to hire in other countries, Latin America too, because it's not enough for the population here that we have. But we have really good universities that are always renewing the new generations that are coming. We are very well known for the technology industry especially.

Yeah, yeah. I'd like to hear a little more about your career, your journey, especially what you're working on today and then maybe what you were doing prior to.

Okay, well, I started to work very young and I was 18 when I had my first job, and I was studying at the same time. And the best thing that happened to me it was that I started to work with someone from my family that he gave me a. He gave me the opportunity. And we launched the operations of a nonprofit organization from an American nonprofit organization that supported entrepreneurs. And it was early 2000s, the word entrepreneur here in Uruguay didn't exist. We didn't know what an entrepreneur was. So it was really, I don't know, motivating to me to learn a lot about that world. And it made a huge mark on me. It made such a huge mark that I met my husband over there. We have been 20 years together so far. It opened a world for me of these tech companies that were thinking globally scalable businesses that were growing outside and in a very dynamic industry that I fell in love with. And I was studying actually communications and at some point I graduated but I felt like I needed more. I wanted to have better understanding of the business world. And that's why we married with my husband and we went to leave to Madrid to study. I studied an MBA in Madrid actually. And when I got back I actually got an offer again from Endeavor, the nonprofit organization. And I started to work over there again but not on marketing, but more on business. And it was like expanding the MBA because I was learning so much of all these startups and these companies that after four years I decided that I wanted to invest myself more in growing in the tech industry after I left the nonprofit. In the last 10 years I have been working in the IT world mostly in marketing and sales, mostly in the B2B market but working in product companies or in development. And in the last month I actually ended my last job in a software development agency where I was chief growth officer and co CEO and launched myself my own company. So I became the entrepreneur. Right. Full time entrepreneur. I was. I already founded another company with my. With my husband another partner like two years ago in the renewable energy sector that wanted something that is very well known here in Uruguay and we wanted to help companies to become more professional with their data analysis and everything. But I. I have mostly a part time job over there and so. But I wanted my own like entrepreneurship. So I started Market Minds that is actually a fractional CMO agency and with another kind of services. I'm trying to empower founders that need help with their marketing strategy so they can take their brands to the next level. Something that I identified in the this lots of years working with the startups that actually usually marketing is the founder is under the founder umbrella and sales and operations are always a higher priority for them. Yeah, marketing is more like the addition of different initiatives, random initiatives without a strategic. Actual strategic plan behind and that's where I focus and try to help.

Yeah. And that if anyone wanted to find that. Can you give the website or any other places they should look?

Yeah, of course. Is a market. How to say Gion. It's like the bar.

Oh like the underscore or is it a dash?

Dash. No, it's not dash. Dash is in the middle. Like no, under but in the middle is dash.

So dash is in the middle, underscore is below.

Yeah, it's market-minds co. Market-minds and that's.com co.

Okay, market. We'll make sure we get this right for our audience. Market mines co. Yeah, thank you. And fractional cmo I can validate. I've had many great conversations with Margarita about marketing. She's a great go to person if you're thinking about marketing strategy. I think another thing that you bring to the table, Margarita, is grit and perseverance, which maybe I'll speak that possibly you learned that from your father who is, who had a very interesting experience. Could you just take a few minutes and tell us more about, more about that. And I'm sure you know there's a lot to dig in there.

Yeah, of course. Well, my dad was on a plane accident. Plane crash accident back in 1972 in the Los Angeles mountains. It's one of the most famous stories of Uruguay, of this group of rugby players that were going to Chile to play a friendly match. Go having fun for a weekend because Chile was really cheap at that time. Really happy going to spend the weekend over there. But the thing that happened is that when they were going and flying over the Los Angeles mountains, the plane crashed and they actually survived the crash, which is amazing. I went to the place and if you see where it hit the mountain and how the main part of the plane just slides through the mountains through the snow, it's kind of impossible to imagine. You know, it's like so impossible. But they not only survived the crash, but they also survived 70 to 73 days in the mountain in the middle of winter with lots of snow. The only thing we have around was snow. So they had to learn to survive over there. And they lost so many friends in the middle that it's devastating. The story is amazing and it's devastating at the same time. And the thing here also is that Uruguay is a very small community. So in the same group of friends of parents that were of the same community, there were kids that came back and kids that did it.

Yeah.

I have, for example in my family I have my dad, he came back, but some cousins of my mom didn't and actually the brother of his, of her brother in law didn't come back also. So it was really hard for a lot of families and for all of them over here. It took my dad 30 years to talk about it. So open.

Yeah, yeah. I mean this was in the, in the 70s before a lot of technology. So when the plane didn't arrive in Chile, everyone probably assumed the worst. And then 72 days later, these survivors appeared.

Yeah, I heard one time this story is so amazing that the clubs that were part of this initiative of having friendly matches every year, they actually took like, this year I go to Chile, this year they came to Uruguay. And it was like something to have fun and engage between two different rugby clubs. But after the crash, they kept doing it until now. Doing it until now. And I went twice. Twice, I believe. And one of the times one of the guys that actually was at the airport waiting for them shared his story about how they heard about it and how they were like, why are that they not here? And how they went to the embassy in Uruguay to be connected and learning what is. How was the search and everything. And. But it actually. 72 days is two months and a half. So yeah, life goes on. Yeah, like life goes on. And my mom was already my dad's girlfriend at that point. They were together since they were 14 and my dad was 18. He was really. He wasn't among the youngest. And one of the things that my mom couldn't accept is, was that he was dead. She was convinced that my dad was alive together with his mom. And there's a lot of stories about moms and girlfriends that thought about it. And my grandpa was like, you two are crazy. He couldn't even imagine that he. He was actually a pilot. So he knew like what it was about. Plane crash. So it is. There are so many facts around the story. And then it is amazing. It's an amazing story. My dad actually. Story doesn't end there. So when he got back, he actually, with the money that they got for the first book, he bought a piece of land because he wanted to be a farmer. But then he lost the farm because of a business of his dad with three little kids. I was the third and I was only three years old. He put everything we had on a car and we went to leave to rio de Janeiro, 36 hours on car. So from Monterrey with nothing. So we started over again in Brazil. We stayed there six years and he did really well. We got back to Uruguay because my mom wanted to come back to Uruguay before it was too late for us to. The kids took him back and he started a new business over here. And two years later he lost everything again.

Oh my God.

Started from scratch. And not everything, but it was like the business wasn't that bad, that good. So we started to reinvent ourselves. He Needed to reinvent himself again. And it was a story of his life, actually. He reinvented himself so many times that I think it was like a lot of the learnings that they had over there and a lot of the learnings that I have ingrained is like, yeah, things can always get worse when it's money and job. It's just a job and just money. It would come, come and go. So, yeah, there's a lot of other things that can be so much worse that it doesn't matter. You lay off. Come on. You have a lot of resources to turn around the situation and you can complain. Right? It's like I grew up without the possibility of complaining. I was actually talking with a guy today and I was like, hey, I can't complain. I was like, oh, my God, I have studies. That's so. But yeah, it's. It's like, it's an amazing story and it make him. This story make him so strong and so resilient. I learned a lot from him, actually.

Yeah. I mean, so much to take away there, but always get back up. Always get back up.

I mean, that's the story of my dad in the accident is very peculiar because he. He broke his leg in two parts of his leg. So in the 72 days, he never walked. Wow. Some of the guys that. They were the Doctors, they were 19 years old, right. They were medicine students. One of them, Roberto Ganesa, grabbed his leg, accommodated the leg, made some tourniquet or something, and he said, okay, that's. And my dad has the leg just as he lifted in the mountain until today. Because when he came back, he went to the doctor, his dad took him to the doctor, and the solution was break it again. And my dad said, no way, I won't break my leg again. Leave it like that. It's working so I can walk and it's. It's all good. But he never had the. So his vision from all the. The other people was from behind. He was always looking to the others.

Yeah.

On a different.

Incredible. Yeah. So there's the Hollywood movie alive that some people know about this story. And I think you mentioned there's another film coming out. Can you talk about that?

It is Bajona that he's the director of the movie of the tsunami, actually. And he just produced the last movie that is going to be launched on the Venice film festival on September 9, actually produced by Netflix too. And my dad already. All the group of the survivors already saw the movie twice. And now all the families have the opportunity to Go tomorrow to an event premiere before it's launched, like publicly in the film festival in September. So incredible. I have to tell you. It's like I know I will have to face a lot of emotions tomorrow.

Yeah.

Make me a little bit scared about it. And I know that I have to watch it with my kids after that at some point. I was just remembering the other day that I had the same thing when I was their age, when a live Hollywood movie was launched. It was 1993. I was the same age of my kids now.

Yeah.

But the big difference between then and now, I believe is that at that point we had the book. We know the story, but my dad didn't talk openly about it. So it was. We had a question. We had always mom to ask, but it was something that we will walk around. It's not easy to talk about my kids. It's very different. My daughter, my eldest daughter, she already went to the site of the accident with me and my dad a few years ago and they saw a lot of documentaries, they read books. My dad told the story to them in first person. So I believe they will have a lot of more resources than I did. But it will be a shock always because one thing is what you imagine on your head, another thing is seeing. So I'm very expectant for tomorrow, but also a little bit nervous.

Yeah. Well, good luck with the viewing and thanks for sharing that. I can't wait to see it when I'm able to. So thank you.

Thank you.

Well, as we start to wind down a little bit, we have some more lighter questions for you. So obviously you're an advanced English speaker, but English is your second language and I'm curious if you have any favorite English words or English phrases that come to mind?

Okay. Yes, of course. I love English first. And I love that you can say a lot with fewer words. You need a lot more words.

True, true.

So I love that about the English. And for example, I love the word excited or this is. It's so hard to translate it sometimes. A lot of words say the same. It's like it means a lot. It's like it's a lot in just one word. Right?

Yeah, Yeah.

I would needed some advance of this question.

Yeah. Well, that's a great place to start. We were very excited to have you today, so thank you. How about for those that we talked all about the food in Uruguay, but how about if you're visiting Uruguay and you and someone has $50 to spend on something besides food, is there anything that you may Recommend that is notable or an interesting thing to purchase there.

Oh my God. My husband is saying dulce de leche.

That's a good answer. It's food, but we'll let it count. We'll let it count. That's okay. That's okay.

Here very similar things with Argentina and here is very similar. But I don't know if you could buy actually something for $50 in leather because so expensive everything here. Yeah, that's true.

And I also wanted to ask you because we talk a lot, a lot about doing business here, doing business in Latin America now more than ever, people are curious about it and they're interested in hiring talent, setting up businesses wherever. If someone in the States had their eye on Uruguay or Uruguayan talent, what would be your best recommendations so that they're successful and that venture?

I would say that starting a company here in Uruguay is very easy. And we have some zones here that are called, I call free tax zones. So we have a lot of companies that are establishing their companies here, taking advantage of the good talent that we have and selling to other places in North America or the world. Because it is. They are like this special zones for people that want to do business in, in other countries. Right. If you want to do business in Uruguay, I would say the market is too small. You have to. To look into other countries too in Latin America. But I would say that if you want to start like we have very good software development agencies here in Uruguay doing great work working with US companies. So I for sure would say that that's a great place to start. If you want to start working with some at some point with Uruguay, contact some company in the software development agency. Not only staff orientation, but actually building the end to end. We have companies that are doing really good job in the US with great companies over there.

Amazing.

I can recommend Margarita clients actually.

Yeah, we, we may, maybe even in the, in the show notes, we may, we may drop, drop a few names there. But I just wanted to do, to thank you again, Margarita. Such a pleasure to have you on the show today. I learned a ton and you also made me very hungry for Uruguayan food.

Of course. Let me know when you are back here. And I would love to make you a tour. Have so much fun too. And it's. I love this podcast that they're doing across Latin America.

Thank you. Well, final thank you to our sponsor as well. That's nearshore direct, goniershoredirect.com, great way to find talent all over Latin America for US Companies. Until next time. Thanks for listening to the Nearshore Cafe Podcast. Take care.

Thanks for joining us at the Nearshore Cafe Podcast. Tune in next week for a new episode featuring another special guest with exciting stories. Sa.