Un trabalenguas muy conocido en español: Tres tristes tigres comen trigo en un trigal. ¡Intenta decirlo rápidamente!

Uruguayan Carnival (Part One) I bet you have already heard about the vibrant and colorful Brazilian Carnival, but have you ever heard about its Uruguayan counterpart? If you haven't, I would like to introduce it to you and explain what makes Uruguay's carnival so unique. 1.140 miles south of Rio lies Uruguay's capital and biggest city (big by Uruguayan standards because of its population of about 1.3 million, in China that would be a small city). Montevideo began its life as a walled outpost in 1724, due to the threat that belligerent Native Americans tribes and Portuguese "Bandeirantes" (they were organized militias whose duty was to explore and claim territory for Portugal) posed to it. At that time Spain and Portugal had ardent disputes over who should rule over the territory of modern day Uruguay, which was known as "Banda Oriental" (Eastern Bank) at that time. Hence why we call each other "Orientales" among ourselves rather than Uruguayans. The Spanish Empire, like many other colonial powers around the world at that time, was no stranger to slavery and slave trade. Spaniards brought slaves to places where they could not enslave the natives, that was the case with Uruguay. Besides their few numbers and scattered settlements, the Charrúas (the name of the major Native American tribe in Uruguay, now extinct) where deemed too agressive to enslave, so at some point in history the colonial government of Montevideo decided to bring in slaves to do domestic labor. This were the humble origns of Uruguayan carnival.