Search This Blog

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Two Pesos


I reached into my pocket today, to pay for something and found a brand new coin- 2011. In the few years I have been here, I have never seen a new coin minted. So when I pulled the brand new, shiny 2 peso coin from my pocket, I was intrigued.

As I turned it over, I noticed that the coin featured an engraving of a carpincho. Before moving here, I had no idea what a carpincho was, nor would I have recognized it, but last year I attended a party, where it was cooked on the parrilla and served, and it was delicious. I just found it interesting that the new coin features a rodent (very large indeed) and I am wondering what other new coins I will find and what images they will bear. I actually can't remember all of the U.S. coins, but I am pretty sure they don't picture any rodents, so Uruguay stands alone in it's choice.

3 comments:

Geraldo said...

Hello Wally!
We call it “capivara” in Brazil, and it is simply the largest rodent in the world.
There is a place in Western Brazil, called PANTANAL, which is the main home for those animals. PANTANAL comes from “pântano”, meaning swamp. But actually the area is an alluvial plain, belongs to the World Heritage Site and occupies about 150,000 km2 (almost the size of Uruguay).
The wildlife there includes the Brazilian jaguar (the third largest feline after the tiger and the lion), alligators (35 million are believed to live there), 650 species of birds, marsh deer, giant anteater, giant otter and of course the famous “capivaras”… they are everywhere and are hunted by the jaguars.

Alfonso said...

Those coins have a new design of typical animals of the country. There was already the new 1 peso coin with the image of the mulita, but I didn't know that there was already launched the 2 pesos coin.

Eddie said...

http://www.uruguaydailynews.com/news/business/1245-new-coinage-released-by-bcu