The influence of the Catholic church is everywhere in South America.
There is a church near most squares and church bells can be seen and heard from most anywhere in most cities,towns or villages. Huge wooden doors open in the morning and stay open until dark. People come and go, take off their hats, kneel in the pews, say prayers for themselves and people they don’t know.
The normal thing I do when I travel is not to look in guide books before I leave the house. My norm is to start walking, discover,then research. Chance creates the possibility for surprise , and, when I strike out without a destination in mind, I find things of interest that aren’t in the guide books.
It is quite by chance that I find the Cathedral San Fernando in Maldonado.
Turning a corner, I have to say this church is the most renovated and pristine church I have seen in Uruguay. The pinkish color of these exterior walls stands in contrast to the blue sky, and the statue holding the cross at the top of the building looking down at me, as I come closer, has the same effect on me that statues of Zeus had for the Greeks. The cathedral, I learn inside, has an interesting history.
It was begun in 1801 and inaugurated in 1895 by a local man – Montevideo archbishop Mariano Soler, who was born in nearby San Carlos.
The Cathedral features the Virgin Del Carmen salvaged from a sunken ship off the nearby Isla de Lobos in 1829. It also has a dying Christ figure inside that washed ashore from unknown sources and found a home here.
The interior of the church gives a sense of what churches should convey – how small we are and how big the world is,how this universe was created by something much greater than us. As guests, in someone else’s house – we shouldn’t dirty the linens.
I sit in a pew and listen to silence.
I leave feeling better, and worse.
Jose Artigas is to Uruguay what George Washington is to the United States.
You see enough statues in enough places and finally you wonder about the men behind them. You do a little research and discover that Jose Artigas is a real person with a real history. Some of his history has been romanticized, but he played a huge part in Uruguay achieving its independence from Spain. Born in Buenos Aires, he spent the last years of his life exiled in Paraguay, but he is the man that people of Uruguay salute as their national hero.
As a boy from a wealthy family ,who settled in Uruguay, Artigas was sent to church to learn religious studies but refused to accept the discipline and dropped out of the school. At 12, he was sent to work on family farms and became close to the gaucho way of life.That stuck with him through his life and when, at 86, he felt he was going to die, he asked to be placed in the saddle of a horse so he could die there, which he did.
In his early days he had a price on his head for cattle smuggling and got a pardon in exchange for joining the military. He escaped capture several times, and made life and death decisions in his role as a military General fighting for Independence.
This compound, in Maldonado, occupies a city block and holds remnants of what used to house Artigas and his troops, men who were loyal to him to the end.
What is odd is that the kid who didn’t like discipline turned into a man who lived discipline, made rules, and had them enforced.
Men of substance often do things they don’t want to do, and live by rules they don’t like.
Discipline and success are not strangers.
The beach at Piriapolis is paralleled by a walkway for pedestrians and sightseers, as well as locals taking a lunch break in their vehicles with the doors open to give the breezes a better chance to cool them.
A point of interest on the Rambla is a long row of white lion statues. They look out of place, at first, but they grow on me.There are not many new statues being built these days. Stalin and Mao had their pictures on schoolroom walls, but, these days, statues speak of antiquity and people seem far too eager to tear down their old history.
On the waterfront by the beach stands the huge Argentine Hotel that dates back decades.
On a trip inside to reconnoiter the hotel casino, and use the rest room, I am greeted by a great swimming pool, immense dining halls, hundreds of rooms on multiple floors. Reviews on Trip Adviser are mixed. Some say the hotel is old, moldy, and smells. Others say it is a nostalgic trip back to the early part of last century. Some say the rooms aren’t clean. Others say the staff is attentive. After perusing a few dozen reviews, the accepted three star rating seems to be the opinion held by the majority. I like to remember that I can have a great time in a place no one likes, and be bored to death in a place everyone loves.
Piriapolis is an older, more genteel version of Punta Del Este – a seaside resort town waiting for Christmas visitors to make it bloom again, as it used too.
It appears to be a destination for middle class travelers on a middle class budget.
These days, it is hard too say, we are too enlightened for statues of lions and old hotels.
We would rather wear our culture on our T shirts and use our cell phones.
This day is spent in a small town that offers beach, shopping, a boardwalk,surrounded by hills and wooded areas, somewhat off well trod tourist tracks.
To get here we pull off Route 1 out of Punta Del Este and cut through gorgeous hills and grasslands with cows, fields of yellow flowers, a few white puffs of clouds on an otherwise blue sky tablecloth, small farm homes set back from the road.
Piriapolis is a destination where you can relax and put away pretensions.
There are peculiar houses in Piriapolis. There are homes with thatched roofs, sculptured walls, A frames, California bungalows, ranch homes, and even hippie hangouts with VW buses in the drive. One lady has a black winding staircase in her front yard that lets her go up to her roof to hang her clothes out to dry.
Dogs greet me as I walk through their neighborhoods and only half of the hounds are energetic enough to bark.
It is comfortable here,a hint of California in the middle of Dorothy’s Kansas.
I look for Toto and spot him asleep on a cushion in a front porch rocking chair. His head leans against a small pillow and a blanket knitted just for the length of his body lets me know that he is loved.
Piriapolis is a good shoe for the person it fits.
I haven’t been to Greek islands but they must be similar to this place.
Following the Rambla past the port, past expensive homes, you reach the end of the Punta Del Este peninsula. At the end is a parking lot with exercise equipment, two mermaids, a flagpole with a Uruguayan flag flying, and an old man standing perilously close to incoming waves as he tries to fish rough waters while a friend watches.
These two mermaids are made from a concrete mix but they have been damaged. The tail of one has been severed from her body. There are limbs missing from both .
The statues look alive from a distance and you have to watch to make sure they aren’t moving to realize they are just sculptures. You can walk up to them and that is their problem. It doesn’t take much alcohol for someone to get carried away and vent frustration on two Goddesses who can’t fight back because a workman has anchored their tails in concrete.
The two old men fishing are being bold. Wind is kicking up waves and the one who is fishing is very close to being caught in one and becoming whisked out to sea.
At the end of land, I look for Neptune to rise out of the water with his seaweed fouled trident and demand to know what offerings I am making.
I haven’t been to Greek islands but it is easy to see how they came to have Gods and Goddesses.
There are forces in this universe we don’t control.
Building temples and worshiping God’s is not a bad precaution.
A picture is worth a thousand words, some say, so here are fifteen thousand words.
Colonia Del Sacramento, new and old, is quiet, peaceful, scenic, and makes for rambling, sightseeing, day dreaming. There are many Europeans who come here to live and the entire city population is under 30,000. Here, on one small boulevard, is an Apple store so you know that new has conquered old.
This town dates back to the 1600’s and some of its original still standing buildings are churches and whorehouses which speaks volumes about human motivations and needs.
This old town, full of history, is like old people sitting on the front porch watching people passing by and with-holding judgment.
There is enough history here that eccentricity can be tolerated.
This jewel is how Montevideo used to be before it got too big for its britches.
The first two or three antique cars I see here seem like anomalies.
After four or five, though, I wonder if this place attracts people who love old cars, or just turns them that way?
Walking around stone paved streets of this old city, one sees old cars parked under carports, in driveways, along alleys, abandoned on curb sides, even acting as giant flower pots in vacant lots. Some of these transports appear to be running while others have long ago given up their ghost.
One flashy vehicle in a residential driveway features a couple of fish who could be right out of the book “Wind in the Willows” except that there are no fish in that whimsy, just a loony amphibian. A red 60’s VW is parked in front of an office building. Around town, still driving, I see rust buckets that spit out dirty exhaust but still get their un-self conscious drivers from point A to point B.
Old cars in this older town are excessively big, heavy, generous with big metal bumpers and shiny chrome. When you turn on their radios you hear big bands, early Elvis, Hank Williams. These bad boys are big lumbering dinosaurs that wear their hearts on their sleeves and I especially love it when their engines growl, pop open their hood and see real distributor caps. These antique cars were made when Detroit was King and are still licensed and ready to roll.
Old cars and old cities go well together.
I’ve never been in a hurry to erase the past but these old cars suggest that the hands on the town clock are moving in the wrong direction.
Going back to the past, I am continually reminded, in Colonia Del Sacramento, that looking backwards doesn’t always have to be painful.
The first stop on our day trip is a farm and museum off Route 1 that takes you from Montevideo to Colonia Del Sacramento through some of the best vineyards and cattle country in Uruguay. The Museo and farm are the creation of Emilio Arenas who not only has a world record pencil collection but sells cheeses, jams and jellies, in his little country store.
People collect anything. It can be ashtrays, matchbook covers, ceramic animals, music, books.The list is endless. Most collections,though,never end up in world record territory.They end up on shelves in the living room, or occupy a garage or shop where no one but the addict can be affected by his compulsion. In his case, Emilio’s pencil collection is the world’s biggest and brings customers to buy in his gift shop.
Out in the yard, not far from our tour bus, I sit in a chair under a shade tree and let the world zip by.
It is comforting to be in the countryside and dream about staying in a little house surrounded by chickens and goats and a milk cow. At night a window will be open and the stars will look like little pencil pricks of light, white sparkling dots on a black canvas.
Next time back, Emilio will get a pencil from New Mexico from me.
He will always find a place for one more.
The lighthouse on the tip of the peninsula offers the best view of the town .It is one of the sights I came to see by joining a tour group at a local Montevideo hotel.
The lighthouse stairs are almost straight up and a two hundred and fifty pound man has trouble getting all the way to the top because of the narrowness of the spiraling passage. You keep winding up and up and up, holding to a thick piece of insulated wire threaded through eye bolts anchored in the lighthouse’s interior concrete walls.
At the first landing, you can get out onto a deck and walk around the perimeter of the lighthouse, but I keep moving to where stairs end and the dormant cyclops light sleeps this morning.
There is a 360 degree view of Colonia Del Sacramento with a different vista through each of the windows of the lighthouse.
There is a harbor on one side of the light. Fishing boats are moored there and a long wooden pier juts out into the waters of the Rio Plata river.
Another view from the lighthouse is the city of Colonia Del Sacramento This old city was founded in the late 1600’s by the Portuguese and they and the Spanish fought for several hundred years to see who would control the area and its waters. There is, according to Pat, a World War 2 German ship sunk in the harbor by a Captain who didn’t want to surrender his ship.
It must look like this from the crows nest on pirate ships where a half rum addled pirate with a knife in his belt scanned the seas for big fat merchant ships carrying gold. It had to have been a hard dangerous life to risk yourself for uncertain wages, a bottle of rum and a civilization that only had a curse and hangman’s noose for you when your feet touched dry land.
Our tour operators give us a few hours before we head back to Montevideo, so I go back down the stairway, much faster than I ascended.
This is a World Heritage city that lives up to its press.
There are still sun drenched places in this world untouched by terror and conflict, places where the past and present hold hands and dance into their future.
Colonia Del Sacramento is a place where the best of Europe and Latin America got married and are happy as a bride and groom cutting cake and sipping champagne.
The Palacio is, by the map, located in the heart of the Old City.
If you look at a map of Montevideo you see at least thirty points of interest in Ciudad Vieja and fewer as you move outward towards other barrios; Centro, Barrio Sur, Palermo, Aguada, Punta Carretas, Tres Cruces, Pocitos.
The dividing lines between the barrios are clearly defined but neighborhoods change as people move into them, establish themselves, then sell out and move to even more exclusive neighborhoods. Still, the Old City is a place to be if you are a lover of museums, architecture, and bustle.
The Palacio Taranco was created in the early 1900’s for a wealthy commercial businessman who came to Uruguay from Spain.
Designed by a well known architect of his day, Mr. Taranco’s Palace has high ceilings, fireplaces in every room, large windows that let in light when shutters are open, European tapestries, art, and hand crafted furnishings. These palaces always have libraries and pianos, sitting rooms and gardens. To walk in them you would think the owners were artists instead of businessmen.
A young lady at the information desk explains that this Palace was a family home and has been donated to the city. There are no charges to browse.
Going up a marble staircase to the second floor, I am moved back to an era when Montevideo was moving from horses and carriages to automobiles, and music was moving from ragtime to big band swing.
The Palacio is a step back in time and though the family that made this place a home has moved on to a more ethereal neighborhood, it appears they lived a comfortable life.
Living rich and being rich are not always two sides of the same coin.
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