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.
Even during the day, when trekking, this window stays open.
In Punta Del Este, there is always the sound of crashing waves in my hotel room.
Each morning a salt smelling breeze wakes me up.
Every evening, exterior lights of taller and more sumptuous places light up the street outside, but these fine hotels ,apartments and condos don’t have any better view of the ocean than I do from this modest second floor crow’s nest.
There are objects, people and experiences you see every day on a trip that become anchors, holding you steady, keeping you from drifting.
This open window, by the sea, has become, quickly, one of my favorite anchors.
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.
Piriapolis is a small Uruguayan town an hour bus ride from Punta Del Este.
A one way ticket on the bus lines COT, or COPSA, runs ten dollars. This is one of those side trips that gives a bigger vision of the country.The beaches at Punta Del Este are well spoken of but the beaches in Piriapolis are smaller, more accessible, with calmer waves.
Walking a wide boardwalk that runs parallel to the beach, I look down and see, peeking out of the sand, the head of a young woman. Her body is completely buried. I don’t know if she is asleep or her partner covered her while she was awake? I don’t know if she protested?
He is about to pounce when he looks up and sees me. I point at my camera. He kneels down and gives me a thumbs up.
It is a beautiful day and this couple has time to do whatever they choose. He chooses to cover her up like a kid playing in the sandbox and she chooses to let herself be covered up because it means he is paying her the attention she wants.
They have the beach to themselves.
Precious moments whiz past our heads all day, like bullets. A few hit us hard enough to be remembered,and, even fewer, get written down.
Right across from the bus terminal in Punta Del Este at Parada 1, Bravo Beach, is ” The Hand.”
It is difficult not to see the outside beach sculpture if you are anywhere near it. The” Hand” is only the tips of three fingers and a thumb rising out of the sand, but the fingers motion to you to come closer.
This sculpture was created in 1982 by a Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrazabel as part of an art competition and it wasn’t, at first, his most favored project.
It has remained here, since then, intact.
The fingers rise out of the sand higher than most people stand.
The art work has been called “Men Emerging to Life,” “Monument of the Fingers,” “Monument to the Drowned,” “The Hand.” The artist didn’t like the third title much, according to Wikipedia, but once your works are on their own you can’t say much about how they are received and what is done to them.
This afternoon visitors pose, touch the fingers and hang out.
One morning, the Hand might rise from the sand a bit more, exposing its massive wrist.
We would then need a ladder to climb up to pose for our picture sitting in the huge open palm. .
From any angle I look, I can see that the ” Hand ” will always be a manicurist’s dream job.
Artists always make us pay attention when we start to drift into numbing routine.
The noise draws you. With stands visible, and walls keeping people out, this spectacle is a city road race. There are cameras and cameramen strategically placed and, in retrospect, the best way to see the race is to see it on television.
Despite what Juan Carlos says, the cars are loud and there is the smell of burning fuel. I get a General pass in the nosebleed section, way around on the opposite end of the track from where I buy my ticket, and show the little blue band wrapped around my wrist to a gate guard in the D section.The stands are full and a warm up car is leading all competitors around the track in a get to know you lap.
Fans are ready for action, standing at the rail, lounging in chairs in grass areas near the grandstands. There are portable toilets, a food concession, parking, and if you want shade you can find it under the grandstands. It is a long oval track and sheet metal walls containing it are tall enough that you can’t see the race unless you are looking down from a second story balcony of one of the hotels across the street.
My ticket calls the race the Grand Prix of Punta Del Este .
Beautiful models get out of a van. They are gorgeous. All made up and dressed in official racing outfits, they are walking to the finish line till a winner is declared and then they will get their pictures taken for the newspapers and honor the winner with multiple hugs and kisses.
Kisses are powerful motivators.
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.
The Rambla is a good place to walk.
On this morning’s jaunt, I come across a table and chairs out in the surf. The narrow path out to a concrete table and concrete chairs, in the midst of waves, turns into temptation.
Making sure my Passport is buttoned up, my cell phone is buttoned up, the keys to my hotel room are in my front shirt pocket, buttoned up, I take a side trip. The table looks inviting, surrounded by water, waves crashing to make a sound that drains out all other sounds.
It is shaky walking over metal planks that make the first part of the path. Water moves underneath, triggering thoughts of pirates walking the plank and knowing, as they walk off with a pistol pointed at their back, that being able to swim ain’t going to save their life.
Once over the iron barnacle encrusted planks, the going is easy, just climbing a few stone algae covered stone steps and finishing by taking a seat at the little concrete table out in the water.
It is relaxing being in the eye of a hurricane.
This is what a conductor must hear in front of an orchestra.
I am way down Alice’s rabbit hole.
This young man cleans shellfish he harvested earlier this morning.
The shellfish are on the bottom of the bay and he uses a net to bring them up, a net weighted heavy that he casts out by hand, lets sink to the bottom, then wrestles up and into his small boat with shellfish captured in it.
He cleans his catch in a homemade sifter made from two by fours with a screen mesh nailed to the underside. On the concrete steps this morning he pours sea water over his catch and moves shells around in the bottom of the sifter with his hand to make mud stuck to the shellfish dissolve. It takes him three different pours before he scoops clean shells out of his sifter and puts them into a five gallon plastic paint bucket to sell to his customers.
While he works, seals swim to the edge of the walkway and bark. They are begging, but getting no response, from either of us, they take a breath of air and disappear back into their murky water.
There are plenty of steps one has to go through to get shellfish from the sea onto your plate.
These shell fish will end up on a local restaurant menu, part of a lunch special for visitors wearing diamond earrings and Rolex watches.
For some people, time and money mean the same thing and you don’t want to waste either.
The sun is barely awake.
After a hotel continental breakfast, it is time for me to hit the road.
The beaches on this marina side of the peninsula are non existent. The shores here are lined with rocks that create tide pools where multi-colored birds are hunting critters caught in the shallow water. Some of the docked boats are big, sleek, expensive and geared up for long ocean voyages. Others are less well taken care of and are used for transport, fishing, or other work by working class owners. It is early, but, on a few yachts, deck hands are bustling about while their Captain is below deck nursing his hangover with a bloody Mary.
Near the biggest pier in the city, fishermen lock their cars in a big parking lot and line up to board charter fishing trips.
The fishing grounds here are, according to multiple guidebooks, some of the best in the world.
Walking wears better than fishing this morning.
My experience with fishing is that it is hard to get the smell of cut bait off your fingers and you don’t always come home with fish.
All the fishermen I pass are smiling though, leaving terra firma for a peaceful ocean with nothing but sky, blue deep waters, a pole and tackle box, and great hopes.
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