Travel, Photography, Life.
Uruguay
My travels through the world superpower of Uruguay.
Time To Get Out Of Here
Apr 25th
April 22, 2006
Day 206
Today ended my short stint in Uruguay as I headed back to Buenos Aires. First I had to take a bus to Colonia, then a ferry back to Tigre in Argentina, then another bus to Buenos Aires. Just like the trip into Uruguay, it was long and boring. I did get to see a nice sunset from the boat, though.
I got into town at 10:00 PM with hopes of going to a Couchsurfing party that was going to start in a few hours. I was able to find a hostel that had space somewhat near where I got dropped off, although I was told that it was booked out already for tomorrow night. I threw my stuff in my room, bought some liquor for the party, and got the party’s location off the Internet. Everything seemed to be working out as planned.
Back at the hostel, I asked how to get to the party, which was on Tronador St. I knew there was trouble when the guy working at the desk didn’t know where that street was. It turned out that it was far from the center of town. In fact it wasn’t even on my map of the city. The hostel employee did some research for me, though, and told me that I could take the subway there. All I had to do was ride to the end of the line and walk about 13 blocks. It sounded easy enough to me, so I walked toward the nearest subway stop confident that I’d find the party without any trouble, despite the fact that I didn’t have a map of its location.
When I approached the staircase leading to the subway, I noticed that it was rather dark. Then I noticed the locked gate at the entrance. I thought it was strange that the hostel employee would send me off to the subway if it was closed, so I figured maybe just the one station wasn’t operational. (I later found out that the guy didn’t realize I wanted to go there at night. Hmmm, it was Saturday night, I had a bottle of liquor in my hand, I told him I was going to a party, and handed him the address of its location. Yeah, I guess I could’ve meant that I was going to a party tomorrow afternoon. I’ll try to be more specific next time.) Not knowing what to do, I walked six blocks to the next station, but it was closed too. I looked at the giant map of the city posted outside the subway station, found Tronador St, and estimated that it was at least 70 blocks from my present location. That’s way too far to walk, even for me. A taxi was out of the question, too, because I didn’t have enough small bills with me and it’s impossible to pay for a taxi with a 100 peso bill, unless you feel like telling the driver to keep the change. I could have asked a local which bus to take, but they usually only know the routes of the buses that they take regularly to and from their homes, so it was unlikely that I could find anyone who could help. I appeared to be totally screwed.
Suddenly, I got an idea. I walked a few blocks to Cordoba St, a main street that cuts through town and has lots of bus stops. I got on the first bus I saw and told the driver that I was going to Tronador. As expected, he shook his finger at me. “This bus doesn’t go there, you need to take bus 140.” He then proceeded to drop me off at a stop for bus 140 free of charge. I patted myself on the back for finding out how to get there in a roundabout way. Maybe I’ll use that technique every time I don’t know where I’m going from now on.
The bus dropped me off on Tronador a few blocks from the party. The neighborhood looked incredible with mansions, nice cars, and private security galore. It suddenly became almost certain that nobody other than a bus driver would have known which bus to take to get there. Rich people generally don’t ride city buses, after all. I walked into the party at 12:30 AM, just as it was getting going.
The photo album for this entry is here.
Punta del Este
Apr 25th
April 21, 2006
Day 205
It was nice and sunny today, so I decided to go to Punta del Este as planned. My day started off really nicely when I was on a city bus on my way to the bus station in Montevideo. A guy got on the bus with a guitar. There’s nothing unusual about that in itself, I guess. In fact, it’s hard to ride on a city bus for more than two minutes without somebody trying to sell you something. However, this guy played really well and I actually enjoyed his music. After two songs, he paid his fare with the money he collected from the people on the bus and got off. It’s an interesting way to go about life: Play music to make enough money for whatever it is that you need at the time, then carry the guitar around with you until you need money again.
After an inconsequential bus ride out of town, I arrived in Punta del Este. I decided that I wanted to see the beach that the upper class of Uruguay and Argentina vacations in. The center of town was somewhat windy, but as I got closer to the beach, the wind began picking up. When I was almost there, I got hit in the face with flying sand. I could barely even walk close enough to see the shore there was so much debris flying around. The water was really rough and not one sole was brave enough to attempt swimming. I questioned why anyone would ever want to go to such a place. Of course it’s fall here, so maybe the weather is more pleasant during the summer.
I got some tourism information at the beach, but everything was shutting down soon. All I had time to do was take another city bus to see “The Hand,” a permanent art exhibit in part of the beach of a hand reaching up through the sand. It is probably the most famous landmark in all of Uruguay, and I was impressed by the simple-yet-unique concept of it.
Later in the night, I took a bus back to Montevideo. I’m definitely ready to get out of Uruguay now. Maybe it’s because I’m traveling alone, but Montevideo seems dangerous to me. There’s a lot more beggars in the streets here than in Argentina, and they are much more aggressive than any I’ve ever encountered. For example, on the way to a bus stop tonight, three teenagers asked me for a cigarette. I told them that I don’t smoke, and they moved on. But two minutes later they returned demanding that I give them money. I told them no, but they persisted. It took about ten stern “no’s” to get them to leave me alone. I happily paid the guy with the guitar this morning because he entertained me, but I’ll never willingly pay people like the ones I encountered tonight. What have they done to earn my money?
The photo album for this entry is here.
Rainy Day
Apr 25th
April 20, 2006
Day 204
Today I wanted to head off to Punta del Este, a beach resort a few hours from Montevideo. On my way to the bus station, however, it started to drizzle. Drizzle turned into rain, which turned into a torrential downpour. By the time I got to the bus station, I was soaking wet and the rain didn’t show any sign of letting up, so I didn’t think it would be worthwhile to go anywhere today. Instead, I ended up surfing the web for a long time and taking it easy. I’ll try for Punta del Este again tomorrow.
A View Of The City
Apr 23rd
April 19, 2006
Day 203
This morning I went to the tourism office to find out what to do in Montevideo. When I was here during my cruise, I basically just walked up and down the shore for a few hours, so today I wanted to do some more touristic things. I was given a nice map of the city and shown a few museums to check out. I also found out that there was a building somewhere in town with a panoramic view of the whole area.
The first museum I went to had a collection of ancient art. There were lots of Egyptian burial masks and mummies, Greek statues, clothed Roman statues, and even a few relics from the ancient cultures of the Americas. I was really impressed at first by the scope and importance of the artifacts on display. However, I later found out that most of what I saw were mere replicas. The caption for almost every exhibit said something like “Replica of a Greek statue. The original is on display at the Louvre, of course.” Still, I think the mummy was original, and seeing the rest of the stuff sparked an interest in seeing the originals, at least the ones I haven’t seen yet.
This afternoon, I figured out where the building with the view was. Asking locals for directions to such a thing is always frustrating because they have never actually been to the place themselves. I would state everything I knew about the place: “It’s a big, modern, blue building somewhere in the city that has an observation deck,” but I would get nothing but puzzled looks. Eventually, I asked someone who seemed to know what I was talking about and pointed me in the general direction of the building.
From about six blocks away, I could tell that I was on the right path. Although the building was only about thirty stories tall, it dwarfed everything else around it. In this city, it’s not only A modern building; it’s THE modern building. It was shaped like a sail, had several other smaller buildings and an amphitheater attached to it, and lots of people in business suits working in it. When I walked in, I was pointed to an elevator that took me to the top floor. The view of the city was nice, although I wasn’t thoroughly impressed. To me, Montevideo is yet another big South American city. The model of the complex, lightning rods, and nearby structures like the old train station were nice to see, though.
While at the viewpoint, I was told that the building was used for telecommunications in Montevideo and that there was a museum in the complex that I should check out. After going back to the ground, I walked over to the museum. It had lots of key figures in the telecom industry like Morse and Bell. There were also phones from various times and places including some “Zach Morris” cell phones from the early 1990′s. I was impressed by the whole setup.
Tonight I went to a restaurant to try some Uruguayan steak. I ran into the same problem I frequently had hit in Argentina: How to order my steak to be cooked. In the US, we have a 5-point system for cooking steaks (well, medium-well, medium, medium-rare, and rare), but in Argentina and Uruguay, there are only 3 levels (I’m not sure because I’ve never asked for “well,” “a punto” or medium, and “jugoso” or juicy). I like my steaks a little rare, but not so rare that they could get up and walk right off my plate. Unfortunately, there’s no way to order such a thing here. I’ve found that they usually overcook steaks here, so in the past, when I have ordered a steak rare, it’s come back medium, which works for me. Not so this time. I got a two-inch-thick cut of beef that was bright red in the middle. It couldn’t have been on the grill for more than two minutes. I thought about sending it back, but I convinced myself that it probably wasn’t so bad. Having a liter of beer in front of me helped to wash it down, but I think from now on I’ll stick with the medium setting with my orders. I’m assuming that charcoal tastes better than salmonella.
The photo albums for this entry is here.
Finally In Uruguay
Apr 23rd
April 18, 2006
Day 202
The day of going to Uruguay had finally come. I had to get up really early this morning to start out my trip with a bus ride to Tigre. I know, you’re thinking, “Not there again!” but that’s just where the ferry left from. The bus dropped me off, I went through a laughable backpack search at the Customs office where the officer put his hand in one of the pockets for five seconds before declaring my backpack “fully searched.”
The ride across the channel to Uruguay was on a catamaran that seated about 100 passengers. It probably wasn’t even half full, so I guess it was just a fluke that yesterday’s ferry was sold out. The ride was uneventful for me because I slept the whole way.
After getting off the ferry, I had to go through Customs again in Uruguay. My backpack got “searched” again. This time, the guy unzipped my sleeping bag compartment, saw that I had some clothes stuffed in front of my sleeping bag, and closed it. Wow, that was tough. I got a 90-day tourist visa in my passport and wondered if, in the history of Uruguay, any tourists had actually used more than 14 of those 90 alloted days to visit the country.
I was in Uruguay, but I still had to get to Montevideo. The last leg of the trip was done on a bus. It was really hot on the bus, so I passed out as soon as I sat down. Between bouts of unconsciousness, I saw that there wasn’t anything to see except a bunch of fields and a random house here and there. At one point when I looked around, I seriously couldn’t see one person who was awake on the entire bus. In case you’re wondering, the driver was partitioned from the rest of the bus, so I assume he was awake.
When I got to Montevideo, the first thing that I noticed was that seven hours had passed since I left Buenos Aires this morning. I wasn’t expecting it to take nearly that long. I guess that’s what made the company I went with the cheaper one. I opted to stay in a hotel as it would cost half as much as a hostel here. Apparently, there aren’t a lot of hostels to choose from, so capitalism has driven the prices up. I walked around town a bit but didn’t get to see much before the day ended.
The one thing I did notice was that people here take mate consumption to a whole new level. Mate is popular in Argentina, but it’s mainly a social thing done in parks and peoples’ homes. However, in Uruguay, almost everyone seems to carry their own thermos and mate container with them wherever they go. They even sip it while walking down the street by themselves! It must be the official national addiction of Uruguay.