On a Montevideo city bus headed back to Ciudad Vieja, Christmas decorations catch my eye. I take a detour off the city bus to enjoy them closer.
This Plaza is not far from Independence Plaza. Today, there are spectators lounging on park benches, not in any hurry to move down to Independence Plaza and face the huge imposing statue of General Artigas surrounded by government offices and fancy hotels.
This little intimate plaza belongs in Alice in Wonderland.
There is a funny looking Christmas tree that is so perfect it is not perfect. There are three pink flamingos in a pond that has nothing to do with Christmas but adds the right color. There is a balloon astronaut five feet above the ground. There is an airplane and little butterflies. A fountain that was dormant has been filled with water for the Holiday Season.
The most satisfying Christmas depiction I witness is three wise men on camels. There are some who doubt there is even one wise man in this world, but, that is too harsh. There may be as many as ten.
I sit on a bench like the others this morning and wait patiently for the wise men to say something profound.
They don’t say a word, and that, to me, is as profound a statement as you can not make.
The Theatro Solis is a renovated landmark in Montevideo dedicated to the performing arts, fine arts, and community awareness of the arts.
It was restored completely in the 1950s and looks now like it did in the 1800s. When you walk inside you are greeted by ushers and today is good to visit because an English speaking tour is beginning and I am hustled along to join it. There is no charge and the two young ladies who take myself and a young man from New Zealand under their wings answer our most boring questions.
Located near Independence Square in Montevideo, in the shadow of the Artigas statue and mausoleum, this theater is not majestic. It looks to me like a Roman 7-11.
My tour begins in a reception area just outside the theater’s Presidential boxes that are reserved for the President, his wife, and important guests.
From the reception room, we are taken into the theater itself.
From the main theater we go next downstairs to a much smaller performing space suited to smaller kinds of performances. A trio comes on stage and sings for us, dances, and acts out a specialty skit.
I’m glad ,when we are done, to have had a chance to see a piece of Uruguay’s culture. Even the old rough pioneer American West had Shakespeare mixed with opera and can can girls. I can’t say I have arrived in Montevideo without seeing a few guide book places. Going to the Big Apple without going up in the Empire State building, for instance, would be a major faux pas.
Next time down to Montevideo, I’ll come back and take in a real play here.
I bet there is gum stuck under the theater seats, and my guess is that it wasn’t put there only by kids.
One might think getting peanut butter in Uruguay is easy.
When your taste buds get the best of you though, it becomes a scavenger hunt to satisfy your suddenly craving taste buds.
The only place I have found peanut butter in Montevideo has been at the Frog, a small mini-grocery you find in small Montevideo neighborhoods where Americans hang out.You guess the Frog carries peanut butter because tourists want it, but I want to shake the purchasing agent’s hand, or give her a kiss, for having it on the shelf.
I know I am ready to go home when I am thinking of a salad bar, a great American hamburger, barbecue ribs, a plate of green enchiladas with salsa and chips, a Chinese buffet with General Tao’s chicken and great green beans.
The peanut butter jar goes into my suitcase to go to Costa Rica tomorrow.
I am especially looking forward to the fantastic breakfast buffet at the Hotel Aranjuez in San Jose.
Waking up to a fresh cup of Costa Rican coffee, a made to order omelet, fresh fruit and pastries you always
like, is long overdue.
I can’t move to a country that doesn’t feed me right, or have peanut butter in more than one grocery store..
Pocitos doesn’t awake until ten in the morning.
My first time past the little diner on the corner, a block from the beach, the sign in the window says Cerrado. Doubling back, Albierto is now in its place.
A plaque on the exterior says this establishment, in one form or another, has been open since 1910. A lot can go wrong in a century and surviving progress is not for sissies.
Seated, I do a leisurely check of my E-mails, send a couple of text messages.
My bill for a coffee and a small glass of water is seventy eight pesos. With a tip, the total is a hundred pesos, or somewhere south of five U.S. dollars. My bill is speared on a little nail, and, for a moment, seems to nail down Uruguay accurately.
What we all want is 1950’s prices to come back.
Many accommodations I have stayed in here have had a bidet. You see them in other countries, but I never remember seeing as many as there are in Uruguay.
There have been issues.
In bathrooms, bidets occupy the spot closest to the shower. The toilet is shoved in a corner so when you open the door to enter or leave the bathroom the door gets in the way of you getting to the toilet. The bidet is not something I use so its position of authority in the bathroom is questionable.
In the Ramon Massini Suites in Pocitos, I take a moment to see how one of these contraptions works. Unthinking, I pull up a little handle and get a geyser shot of water spray into my chest.
After my experience with the bidet, I resolve to leave them alone.
Now, I enter the bathroom, close the door, sit on my throne with as much dignity as I can compose.
When you see bidets and realize that half the humans in the world are significantly different from you, it gives a new meaning to the words ” foreign relations.”
City buses in Uruguay feature a team.
There is a driver who keeps the bus on the road, makes stops, stays out of accidents, and gets people on and off the transport safely. There is a conductor who collects fares, checks passes, smooths feelings, answers questions, and moves up and down the aisle like a stewardess/steward who doesn’t pass out pillows or drinks.
On any route, there might be a few stops, or dozens of stops. This Termas bus is well marked and though the bus is loud and smells like exhaust there aren’t chickens or sheep and the passengers are like me – wanting to get where they need to go cheaply and safely.
When you think of teams you think of Pancho and Cisco, Tarzan and Jane, Crosby and Hope, Siskel and Ebert, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.
I don’t know these bus guys names but they take time to ask where I am going and get me off at the right corner, two walking blocks from my hotel.
Riding the bus in Uruguay is not unpleasant.
I would ride them just to be going somewhere, and have.
It is sweet that these working men take the time to get me off at my right stop.
Good happens in the world, but mostly goes unappreciated and under reported.
The early bird gets the worm, and, the early fisherman gets the fish.
One of the activities popular around Salto, according to TripAdvisor, is Dorado fishing.
One of the guides that receives the best write ups is Gianni Juncal, who speaks English and maybe writes it too.
All the reviews I’m seeing on my computer praise the Captain, who, reviewers say, works hard to give everyone a chance to catch fish. That is all you can do with fishing. Fish bite when they feel like it and they just don’t care about you standing all day in a boat showing them what you think they will like.
The best fishing grounds on the Rio Uruguay are up north, towards a huge hydroelectric dam that provides over 80% of Uruguay’s electricity. These world class fishing grounds also reach into Argentina which means special permits to wet a hook are needed to fish there. Gianni refers to La Zona in his E-mail reply to my fishing inquiry.
Because I leave Salto tomorrow, I send a declining thank you e mail back to the Captain.
The only way this fishing trip would have happened is if I had shown foresight and arranged it before I got to Uruguay.
Planning has never been one of my strong suits so I compensate by spending inordinate amounts of time and energy pondering things that have already happened and writing prose about it.
An opportunity that gets away is never as bad as an opportunity seized that doesn’t get its own write up.
Saturdays start slow in Salto. Even hound dogs sleep in this morning, worn out from chasing girls all night.
On the Rio Uruguay, small boat Captains are pushing their fishing boats hard, taking two, three, four paying customers further up the river where dorado’s are waiting to be reeled in at ” La Zona” where fishing is excellent and many travelers like to go in their quest of trophy fish.
On the pier this morning, early, there is a photo shoot in progress with three young girls dancing, modeling swimsuits, posing for sexy photos and getting direction from an old, bald impressario wearing sunglasses. When the teens change costumes a matronly attendant holds up a coat for them that becomes their changing room.
Clowning around, their big boss balances on the back of one of the benches on the pier and dances while a film crew snaps shots and gives him appreciation.
The girls love it.
I don’t know what they are trying to sell so early in the day, but youth and sex sells most anything anytime.
Behind news, business and politics is always old men with lots of money and lots of connections.
.
One of the first things I pick up in a new place is a local map.
I find main streets, find plazas, find the river, find the bus terminal or airport, a good place to eat, the farmacia, and someone who knows a little English if I get in a jam. The map the hotel gives me is called the “Plano Urbano de Salto.” One of the things to see close to where I’m staying is the Museo of Bella Arts.
This museum was once a huge home belonging to the woman whose portrait is on the wall when you first enter. The pink colored house is on Uruguay street and is open, free of charge, to anyone who wishes to see inside. Entering the museum, you see that the lady collected art, and, when she passed, left the house and art as her memorial.
One of the smaller, and maybe least ostentatious paintings, is of a gaucho.
In this oil painting, a solitary gaucho poses for his portrait while his horse looks back at him and waits for marching orders.
ThIs cowpoke travels light, has his bedroll and jerky and saddlebags, wears loose fitting and comfortable clothes, and looks ready for anything. Out in the wilderness, alone, he has to solve problems and is reliant on his wits, his experience, and horse to get him through dangerous times.
Being a gaucho must be a little like being a soldier in war. You have days and days of boredom and waiting punctuated with brief episodes of stark terror when bullets fly past your head, and any one of them could send you where you don’t want to go.
Gauchos and cowboys are something that Uruguay and the United States used to have in common.
However, it is hard to see how two countries who admire self reliance and the pioneer spirit have done so much to stamp it out.
The only place we see wild spirits now Is on television and in movies.
As in Montevideo, there are antiquated homes in Salto too.
This old casa, on a street off the main thoroughfare, is one that needs more care than it will ever get. While it waits for someone with a dream to fall in love with it, it is a garden shop – El Nuevo Vivero. Inside, plants and trees for sale are placed in empty rooms and since there is no roof on much of the building, rain waters them right where they stand.
The sign in front says the business is open on Saturdays and Mondays. This morning the front door is open and someone rustles inside. It is Wednesday.
A young man comes to the front door to see what I want and invites me to come inside to look at his business even though he is closed officially.
Guillermo is having mate first thing this morning and shows me some of his plants. He is wearing a Brazil soccer shirt and we laugh about that. People take soccer serious on this continent. How can you be a good Uruguay citizen and not wear a Uruguayan soccer shirt?
In the U.S., this place would be closed for code violations. Here, there is no harm, thus no foul.
When I leave the nursery, the ” Closed ” sign, in the front door, still hasn’t been replaced.
A business, it seems to me, that won’t open its doors for a customer, even when the closed sign is in their window, isn’t much of a business.
Guillermo, owner and caretaker of El Nuevo Vivero, has his finger on the pulses of both plants, and business.
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