One thing I wasn’t quite prepared for is the process of doing laundry in Uruguay. You can’t just decide one afternoon that you need to wash a pair of jeans and have them clean in an hour or two.
Why you ask? Well, you won’t find many clothes dryers in Uruguay apartments. They just aren’t that common. All of the clothes drying is done on clotheslines, either on balconies or even out of the window! We have several clotheslines on the balcony off the master bedroom.
That’s because we, like many people, do have a lavarropa (washing machine) in our apartment. It’s in our kitchen… strange place, I know. But that’s a common location for it in Uruguay apartments. The only problem is that our lavarropa takes about 1.5 hours just to wash a small load.
So, I try to do one load of laundry at night and then hang it to dry in the morning. If I’m diligent about it, I’m able to keep up with our laundry. However, I often fall behind (it’s easy when it’s raining and you can’t hang the clothes out to dry) and that’s where the lavaderos come into play.
A lavadero is basically a full service Laundromat, which is your second option for doing laundry is Uruguay. All you have to do is drop your laundry off and they wash, dry, press and fold everything for you. It’s really quite convenient, and they typically have everything ready in two days.
And, like most services in Uruguay, it’s reasonably priced. We had about seven loads of laundry (small loads) done for $500 Uruguayan pesos (which is U$S 21.58). Not bad. Here are the prices from the Lavadero across the street (just click on the image and you’ll be able to see a larger view). Remember, the prices are in UY pesos.
Dry cleaning is readily available in Uruguay as well. In fact we have a tintorería (dry cleaner) right next door to our apartment building that even does one-hour dry cleaning. I used them once to dry clean three shirts and it was just under U$S 3.00 per shirt.
So, while doing your laundry in Uruguay can be a process, it’s just another part of the culture that we’ve adjusted to.