I don’t know how I got the reputation for being a sarcastic SOB probably it is because I earned it. I say that because I realized the title of my recent post about Montevideo being a “civilized place” has probably been misconstrued by at least ten or so people who know me well. I did not mean that to be taken that I thought it would not be a civilized place, but that there are many things about it that I no longer expect to see in our current experience of civilization. I have been pleasantly surprised.

The large number of bookstores is one of those things. Bookstores have really gotten out of fashion in the US. Here there are so many it is impossible to keep track. Some of the multi-story buildings are quite old and possess a elegant ambiance.

Although the majority of titles are Spanish there are large sections of books in other languages as well. And usually there is a cafe with a good selection of dishes.

We also encounter numerous newspaper kiosks that national and international editions plus periodicals and books. I read that Uruguay has the highest literacy rate in Latin America (something like 97.6 percent) and a highly educated population. It appears the written word is valued here to a degree I do not see at home.

Here is a page from yesterday’s news.

I can’t find a way to rotate this photo in the app I’m using (I’m doing this on my phone, you know). This entire section was devoted to the unfolding situation in Venezuela, a topic that might get four inches on page 3 in the ABQ Journal. Perhaps folks here think what happens in other countries is relevant to themselves. How quaint.

Another thing I like, though it is a tad inconvenient today, is that many retail businesses close on weekends, particularly Sunday. Today we found it very difficult to find a place for lunch, and restaurants open late.

We spent the last two days walking through the city, appreciating the buildings, parks, statuary, cafes, bookstores, and the many tree lined streets.

There was a fountain in the old city that appears to be one of those places you see where couples put locks on the fence to symbolize their eternal love.

At least one couple was unclear on the concept.

We have limited our tours of churches to the Metropolitan Cathedral. It is an incredibly beautiful building that is impossible to capture in photographs. Here are a few attempts.

We had to bring out the long sleeves yesterday. It was overcast and very windy. The air temperature was really comfortable, but the wind coming off the Rio de la Plata was downright freezing. Today we had the same amount of wind, but the Sun was shining brightly while we made a long walk to the beach in an adjacent neighborhood.

Paula tried her best to be angelic but was really pretty crusty.

OK, I’ll be required to explain that last remark to you know who since it is not readily apparent in this photo. Paula is crusted with sand after rolling her wet body on the sand. This is also a good time to answer the riddle: thong bikinis. If you don’t know know the riddle, it is in a previous post. If you find it you will have the satisfaction of knowing you found it.

We also toured a couple of street markets this weekend. They were crowded. The markets had everything from fresh produce to electrical hardware. Yesterday we were in a market in the old city when we noticed a significant part of the crowd were Asian tourists who had no compunction to stop the crowd from moving while they took photographs of themselves in front of one of the stands. We noticed that there were two cruise ships docked at port, and I’m sure they belonged to one of them.

This is our last night in Uruguay. Tomorrow morning we catch the ferry back to Buenos Aires and then we take a night bus to Mendoza. The ferry takes two hours, and the bus will take thirteen to fourteen hours. We spent the money for a first class suite with “full cama” which means the seat back will lean back to horizontal, making it easier to sleep. We get the extra money back by not needing a hotel for the night. We’ll find out soon how much of that is wishful thinking.

Since it will be a long day of sitting we have decided to walk to the ferry terminal, which is about 2.5 miles from our apartment. We are giving ourselves a bit extra time for the walk, since we are not quite sure of how traffic will affect us.

I am impressed by the ability of drivers to miss pedestrians. When you cross a street it is wise to not change your pace since it is likely someone about to make a right turn has made a very precise estimate where you will be when he passes by six inches or so in front or behind you. We have seen more than a few brave souls walking confidently into the street, against the light, expecting drivers to adjust their trajectories.

We have opted to shorten our stay in Mendoza in favor of more time in Chile, and are arranging our trip to Santiago this evening. We met a couple in a cafe who were visiting from Santiago and they convinced us that the four days we were planning to be there was woefully inadequate. It is possible we will look them up while we are there.

The internet has made travel very convenient though at some cost, I fear. It is more predictable, of course, but also somewhat more homogenized. About thirty years ago I went to Berlin and Prague and had to figure it out on the go with only my flights arranged. For everything else I had to rely on my own abilities and the good faith of others. Now we can check out bus schedules and buy tickets through internet sites with instant translation without needing to negotiate language barriers. We get money from ATMs or use credit cards without having to shop for currency exchange rates. Don’t get me wrong. I really like how it is now but also miss the mystery and challenge that international travel used to present.

The last few years the Uruguay government determined that a good method to stimulate tourism is to reduce taxes on the tourist economy. There is no IVA on hotel accomodations, and if you pay in restaurants with an international credit card, the IVA is subtracted from the bill. It’s an 18% tax rate, so it makes a lot of sense to use a credit card. Since we have a couple of cards that do not charge fees for international transactions and also give cash rebates for purchases traveling here is a bargain. I’m somewhat concerned that the Uruguayan people are subsidizing the tourist industry since they end up paying the entire tax burden. I guess it’s not that much different than states in the US giving large tax abatements to corporations.

Today we returned to Montevideo where we will be situated in a very modern and comfortable aparment in the Parque Rodo neigborhood. It is an excellent location, near markets, restaurants, cervezerias, and, of course, a park.

Since it is a four hour bus ride we decided to walk to the bus station in Punta del Diablo and then walk to our apartment in Montevideo. Altogether that is about three miles, which is not that much in the scheme of things, but seems like a major ordeal in the heat and humidity. I mention that in a cheap ploy to gather sympathy, but I know it is a vain gesture, since mostly people will say “you are so fortunate to have your experience, why do you complain about the weather?” Of course you are right. It was actually something a a cake walk. It was hot, of course, but it beats the hell out of being somewhere where it is 50 degrees colder than the inside of a refrigerator (thanks for the reference, Margo).

After settling in to the apartment we decided to walk to the coast and watch the sunset. Along the way we passed through the park, which is really quite nice.

And then to the Ramblas Franklin Roosevelt, which is a major thouroughfare on the coast of the Rio de Plata that is still the widest river in the world.

Off in the distance you still can’t see Argentina.

As the sun set we headed to a bookstore that our host told us about that serves a good dinner. Our guide book says it only serves coffee, tea and light food, but we thought we’d check it out anyway. When we got there we found the bookstore’s cafe had a night menu and decided to stay there. We both had rib eye steaks with a green salad. The steaks were excellent, grilled to perfection The service was very professional and attentive. I ordered a beer before dinner and it came in an ice bucket to keep it cold. I’ve never ever seen that. Paula capped off her meal with a dulce de leche flan, and I had a serving of Cuban rum, neat. It was really one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time.

I didn’t get any good photos of the bookstore/restaurant. I can show you the floor.

We were done for the day and headed back to the apartment, but along the way found we were not really done. We heard some rhythmic drumming and walked up the street to check it out. We ended up dancing in the street with some really friendly and excited locals who invited us (particularly Paula) to join in .

I took a video that I will try to post here, but I’ve had intermittent success. Let’s see how it does.

Well that was our day today. We have more to say about our stays in Buenos Aires and Punta de Diablo, but that will have to wait. Right now we are looking forward to a night in an air conditioned aparment that we are not sharing with mosquitos and flies.

Later.

Charlie

the vacation destination that has unreliable internet service? We have been unable to successfully upload many photos at the moment. We will be returning to Montevideo on Friday and will most likely have better success there. Meanwhile we will continue the struggle, brothers and sisters…..

We woke this morning to rain. It started as a slight drizzle before dawn and by the time we were admitting that we were awake it was a heavy downpour. It was raining harder than I have seen it since…… well, last week. As I lay in bed imagining what a day of rain would be like I remembered that I had hung my beach clothes to dry on the patio last night. I jumped up to check on them and saw they were gone. I wondered if we had been hit by the bandits we’d been warned about or if the wind had blown them into the mud. It was the later, of course.

About the time we finished coffee the rain had stopped, so I retrieved my clothes from the mud, washed them and put them out to dry. The sun came out and baked the clothes long enough to dry before the light clouds came in and gave us a wonderful day for the beach.

One of the amenities in our cabana is a set of beach chairs and an umbrella. We had a five minute walk to the beach and hung out there listening to the waves, people watching. Paula had a number of dips into the waves and had an unfortunate encounter with a jelly fish resulting in an uncomfortable rash on the back of her leg. It will not keep her out of the water for a second.

The beach was not at all crowded. We understand that this is high tourist season but it seems the capacities are seriously underutilized. Perhaps it is because it is mid week. It was really nice to miss the turmoil on crowded beaches. There were no jet skis, motorboats, para-sailing, loud music and endless buskers that we associate with beaches in Mexico and California. We enjoyed watching the surfers. We saw a lot of that invention that can cause both envy and despair.

We returned to the cabana for showers and headed out for an early dinner. Likely story, you say, since there are no such thing as an early dinner is Punta de Diablo. We had scoped out a restaurant last night that has a good view of the ocean and appeared to be upscale but not swanky. The restaurant was scheduled to open at 8:00. It was only 6:45, so we headed off for a drink and a snack while we waited for “Cero Stress” to open.

We found a little cafe overlooking the beach and away from traffic, where we watched the colors of the setting sun. We had been asking ourselves to explain why we travel. This interlude was the answer, and moments like it.

The proprietor selects music for his customers, not his staff, and the selections were perfect for the evening. As it got closer to eight we noticed there were hardly any customers remaining since the cafe was closing for dinner. Here is a view from the cafe.

We returned to Cero Stress and got a table facing the ocean. The restaurant specializes in local seafood prepared in the tradition of northern Uruguay. I had a seafood mix prepared in a sauce with coconut milk and palm oil. It was fabulous. We are considering returning there tonight.

I neglected to get photos our the restaurant, but here are some from the nearby coast.

I cannot tell if these photos uploaded properly. If not I’ll repost then when we get to Montevideo tomorrow evening.

I found this textless title in the drafts folder.  I don’t know how it got there.  Perhaps I started to write something, but maybe not.  In any event, I can not let a title like this go to waste.

We’ll fill you in later on our day at the beach.

I think it has been a while since either of us posted about our travels or our whereabouts.

We are in Punta del Diablo in Uruguay, having arrived in mid afternoon yesterday. We left Buenos Aires on Monday afternoon, taking the direct ferry to Montevideo where we spent the night in a hotel near the ferry terminal. We caught a morning bus to Punta del Diablo and four hours later arrived in this small beach community on the Atlantic coast.

We are housed in a cabana with a view of the ocean. I would classify the accommodations as sub-optimal, but it is only for a few days, so we’ll make the most of it. Here is a view from the deck in front of the unit.

The bus station is about a mile from where we are staying, and since there were no taxis waiting, we decided to walk. Our camino experience last year has permanently changed our definition of walking distance. We headed out in the bright sun oblivious to the fact that Airbnb gave us the wrong direction in a town that has no street signs and house numbers. We also found that google maps directions do not account for the roads that had been reclaimed by the environment and no longer passable.

To make a long story shorter, by the time we got to our unit it was much more than a mile, and we were hot. Really hot. I was particularly hot in my short tempered way, angry with Airbnb, the property owner, the sun, the air, and anything else that exposed itself to my conciousness. Paula put on her swimming gear and went to the beach while I fumed.

In particular I was put off by our host’s insistance that we barricade ourselves inside at night, raising the spector of roaming bands of crimnals breaking into cabanas while people slept and stealing their valuables. Even at that they assured us the town is safe for walking, so we should just carry everyting we value with us if we left the cabin.

I don’t know. Maybe they’ve been burglarized and are just telling us that as a precaution, but since it was at least 90 degrees inside the unit and no breeze to speak of, I could only imagine laying in a pool of perspiration all night wile we fought off home invaders like it was the onset of the zombie apocalypse.

Paula returned from the beach with a couple liters of beer and a cheerful attittude, and I took a shower to cool off and things began to look a bit better to me. As sunset approached we went for a walk to the playa de pescadors. The beach was alive and vibrant, with families strolling through the area, shopping, eating, drinking, and watching street entertainers of various sorts: clowns, jugglers, magicians, and story tellers.

After a night of rain we are setting out for our first full day in this town. Paula hs been to the beach, and I have been relaxing on the porch, guarding our property and wondering what sort of insect has been chewing on my extemities since I’ve been here.

I’ll be catching up on our last two days in BsAs later.

We made a day trip to San Isidro yesterday, expecting to meet our friend Elena for the day, but her work schedule changed and she could not make it. She let us know of the conflict about the time we arrived there, and we made arrangements to meet her today at 2:30. We left this morning open for laundry, writing, reading, and just lazing about, which ended up being perfect, since the 0% chance of rain on the Weather Channel was only 100% wrong. We had steady rain the likes of which we do not experience often in Albuquerque, so we kept to our plan and enjoyed the cool breeze through the window and being dry on a mostly raining day.

It was a contrast to yesterday, which was hot and sunny. Yesterday was the kind of summer day I remember from my childhood in Missouri, the kind where your clothes stick to your skin and a slight breeze in the shade is as refreshing as lemonade or ice cream. We walked through some really nice neighborhoods where the folks with the means hire security guards to watch their walls and monitor the comings and goings. We were neither comers nor goers in a few areas since guards or gates prohibited entry.

We walked to the coast to look at the river and searched for the mirador that was shown on the map. There was a bar at the spot where the mirador was supposed to be, that had an outside covered deck overlooking the river. We stopped there and had a leisurely liquid lunch. That is a particular turn of phrase that we could not repeat after lunch for some reason.

Along the way we stopped into the city Cathedral. I find it amazing that we seldom pass up a cathedral, church or chapel when we travel to other countries, but we don’t even notice their existence when we are at home.

As we walked back to the train station we happened upon a museum which was the home of General Pueyrredon, who was a leader in the struggle for independence against Spain.

Since we were not meeting Elena, we caught an early train back to Buenos Aires and took in a tango performance at the Borges Cultural Center. We had gone there a couple days before (where we reported on the exhibit of photographs from North Korea) and discovered the tickets were quite reasonable. Ticket prices were a fraction of what is charged for the dinner shows. The performance is in a very comfortable theater, has a live “orchestra” with piano, accordion and bass, a passionate baritone singer, and very talented dancers. The songs and musical interludes created a seamless performance as the dancers undertook costume changes including tawdry denizens of a bordello, elegant gentlemen and ladies, gauchos and country women. The costumes were really well done and the dancers were quite athletic. I was beginning to suspect in some of the performance that tango is a substitute for having sex in public. Photography was prohibited and I am unable to share any of the wonderful visual experience.

Afterwards we walked through BsAs on our way to Palacio Barolo. When we toured that building we learned that the search light was operated from 10:00 to 10:30 every night, so we went to check it out. We could not get photos of the light, but along the way I got this shot of the Obelisk on Avenida 25 de Julio at Corrientes.

Well, that was yesterday, and the heading of this post is about a day of rain, so I should say a bit about today.

It rained. I checked the weather forecast at 10 AM and it said it was dry. I checked at 11 and it said the rain would stop at 11:15. At 12 it said 12:15. When we left the apartment at 2 it was still raining, though not heavily. We met Elena at the Retiro station at 2:30 and boarded the train to San Isidro, arriving at 3:10 and it was raining. We walked to the one place we intended tour, arriving about 4 and it was still raining.

Let me point out that I am not complaining about the rain. I stayed mostly dry since I had my one time miracle umbrella. I just bring it up because every hour prior to any specific time that day the weather forecast was for 0% chance of rain. I remembered how my old mentor Tito Montano would always say when I would mention the weather forecast, “Charlie, you can’t believe those Gringos.” Even in this country, which is the beating heart of Latin America, you really can’t believe those Gringos.

Our tour today, Villa Ocampo, was the estate of Victoria Ocompo, who was a benefactor and philanthropist, magazine editor, and champion for diversity and women’s rights in the early twentieth century. The estate was originally about 10 hectares, and is much reduced in size now. It is an interesting building and well maintained grounds. I find that after a career working in many facility management organizations that I look at buildings with a critical eye, and find it hard not to focus on the water damaged parquet tiles below the obviously water damaged ceilings, the broken door hardware, and other signs of entropy at work. On the other hand, if I look as good as this building, when I’m 200 years old, I certainly won’t complain.

Upon returning to Buenos Aires we decided to go to a nearby craft brew place that had up to a few years ago been a neighborhood pharmacy.

We have two days left in BsAs before heading off to Uruguay for a week and then to western Argentina and Chile. We’ve done most of what we had planned to do, though there are still areas we want to explore. We have made no specific plans, but probably should start looking at where we will be staying in Uruguay.

Until later.

Charlie

We decided to have a light day today, get home early and catch up on our rea\nding/writing.

When coming back from Tigre on Sunday we met a woman and her son who were on vacation from Brazil. They recommended we tour the Palacio Barolo, which was built in the early twentieth century by an immigrant from Italy. The building was the tallest building in Latin America when it was built, at 100 meters in height. It was designed to be a monument to Dante’s Divine Comedy, and contains many architectural features incorporating arcane references to the seven deadly sins and the many levels of purgatory and paradise. The young lady giving the tour switched between Spanish, English and French to ensure all of the people on the tour could understand. There were lots of references to freemasonry and hermetic philosophy. I could understand the words, but the little I remembered from reading Dante over forty years ago did not help me understand the more esoteric points. It was an interesting tour, none the less.

A highlight of the tour was the view from the fourteenth floor and the dome of the beacon lamp on the roof top.

Paula has pointed out to me that folks in Uruguay are at risk of sustaining cumulative trauma injuries that are perhaps unique to the culture here. Throughout our day trip to Colonia del Sacramento we saw scores of men and women exhibiting the same behaviors. The left arm is bent at the elbow, and the forearm is pressing sideways, holding a thermos bottle against the chest, and the left hand encircles a “bomba”, which is a special cup for drinking mate (my keyboard will not type diacriticals so I’ll need to explain that is pronounced “mahtay”). Mate is a caffeinated herbal drink that appears to be an essential aspect of daily life, and the accoutrement for making and drinking is a critical fashion accessory.

We searched on-line for instructions to prepare Mate, hoping we could try it out in our apartment instead of coffee. However, the process appears to be so complex and subject to error we decided to leave it to professionals.

We started our day trip to Uruguay by walking about twenty blocks to the ferry terminal, weaving through construction detours and crossing wide streets filled with rush hour traffic. The ferry was scheduled to leave at 9 AM and we had to be there an hour early, which was a bit of a challenge since we had forgotten to go to bed at a reasonable hour the night before. We ended up getting to the station a bit late, but there were no crowds and we were able to clear immigration and customs quite quickly. They have it set up so you can get your exit stamp from Argentina at one booth and then the entry stamp for Uruguay at the next one.

The ferry crosses the Rio de la Plata in about an hour. There were a few clouds to break the direct sunlight, and the shadows cast on the brown water made interesting patterns on the surface. We watched the skyline of Buenos Aires sink slowly below the horizon as we moved closer to Uruguay. By the time we arrived we could only see the tops of some of the taller buildings.

Colonia had not come fully to life for the day by the time the ferry arrived. Although some of the restaurants were open, very few of he shops were ready for business. We hd noticed a light house near the shore when we arrived and headed in that direction.

As we approached we saw that many tourists were already on the observation decks and determined we should do that sooner rather than later and paid the 60 peso admission (about 1.8 USD) for the two of us. The view from the top gave us a good orientation to the municipality.

We then began our search for breakfast, ultimately settling on a small cafe near the water. We were unaware when we ordered that Uruguay has a 22% IVA, which is refunded if you pay with an international credit card. We chose a cafe that did not take credit cards. Apparently the Uruguay government is trying to remove obstacles to tourism, and has implemented a number of processes to lower the taxes tourists pay. I guess use of an international credit card is a fairly straightforward way to distinguish visitors from residents. In a way, it seems unfair to their citizens, unless they have a way of discounting prices to relieve some of the extra tax burden for supporting the recreation of relatively wealthy foreigners.

Following breakfast, which we supplemented with a good IPA, we went for a walk to a nearby cultural center where we immediately fell asleep on the grass. That was really refreshing. I could really get into siestas.

The cultural center was in the ruins of an ancient bastion.

We then took a long walk to a park that showed up on Google Maps, and when we got there we found it to be a forest that was not really a park. The cobblestones on some of the streets had been replaced by random sized and shaped rocks, some of which were clearly petrified wood.

We returned to the old part of the city and searched for a plaza we had seen earlier in the day. It has a fountain, and so far is the only fountain we have seen on our journey. That is really strange. Given the large numbers of Italian immigrants to South America in the 19th and 20th centuries we’d expect to see fountains every couple blocks. (Yes, that’s an ethnic joke. Please don’t get offended.)

Here are a few random photos of Colonia

We had hoped to watch the sunset from the beach, but needed to get to the ferry terminal for our return trip and ended up in the terminal as the sun set. We could see it was very colorful, but our view was blocked by the departure ramps.

During the crossing back to Buenos Aires we watched a lightning storm over Argentina. Each flash of lighting illuminated the cloud on the horizon with a reddish glow.

After arriving in BsAs we found a fairly direct walk back to our neighborhood. As we passed under a highway overpass, we saw an open excavation behind a fence that we had figured was a construction site but then noticed it was something of a memorial. It apparently was the excavation of a mass grave and a memorial to the “desaparecidos” from the dirty war. The monument contained photographs of the persons whose bodies were recovered there, a stark reminder of the ugly past of the dictatorship.

Seeing the mass grave was something of a “buzz kill”.

We stopped in a neighborhood restaurant for dinner and was treated to some excellent Salsa music.

I need to walk back a couple statements from earlier. There are insects in Buenos Aires after all. We walked through a cloud of dragon flies in the park a couple days ago.

It is also hot and humid, though still not as hot as a summer day in Albuquerque. When there is shade and breeze it feels like a balmy tropical day, even though we are not in the tropics. I’ll trade an Albuquerque winter day for this any time I have the chance.

A few days ago Paula and I spent a better part of an hour trying to decide whether to spend an extra hundred dollars to take the direct ferry to Montevideo, rather than the ferry/bus combination that takes three hours longer. Since we were having problems booking the trip on line we went to the ferry company and purchased the direct service. Afterwards we were heading to the subway station for an afternoon of touring a park. As we walked we passed a young couple sleeping on the sidewalk while their toddler aged child amused himself in between them. I was reminded how fortunate we are to be middle class retirees from the US.