It is Sunday. Taking the turista bus a second time, our first stop is the Tristan Street flea market. It is set up on a narrow street, tree lined, packed with vendors and customers on a sunny day in November.
As shoppers and browsers move through the flea market they scoop up books, tools, food, pets, cosmetics, clothes, spices, vegetables and fruits, meats and cheeses. There are Arabs selling nuts and dates and olives. There are Uruguayans selling produce and still other vendors talking, sitting in chairs,standing and moving in for the kill only when a sale seems imminent.
This market has purses, clothes, a table stacked with bras, tools and books, tourist stuff, laundry soap and toilet paper. It has antiques, homemade arts and crafts, women selling crocheted caps, original art, and even a table of hourglasses. At that table a young boy shows great interest in the ancient timepieces, a prescient knowledge that time moves from the top of the glass to the bottom and when sand isn’t left in the top your time is up.
Where time goes when it is used up would have been a warm up exercise for Albert Einstein.
I keep my hands in my pockets because I don’t want to buy and don’t want to carry purchases the rest of the day.
The Tristan Street market is a good weekend stocking stuffer but there are bigger gifts I still want to open on this tourist ride.
There is much more to see in Montevideo this Sunday than fleas.
It is mentioned in guide books that there is petty crime in Montevideo.
The young woman in a next door boutique, who speaks English and tells me about Montevideo when I have my expresso, is standing and talking to motorcycle cops as I come out my apartment door onto the street. There are three cops and two motorcycles and one of the officers is sitting on concrete steps leading into the boutique, writing his report.
I go around the corner and enter the back door of the shop, order a coffee in the cafe part of the business. When my friend comes back inside she tells me her whole story, from beginning to end.
“We had a shoplifter,” she begins, “the same one who did it before. We called the police and they took her away. She was putting things in her dress.”
“How do you say the past tense of steal,” she asks me?
“The past tense is stolen, someone has stolen our stuff,” I reply.
Petty crime sticks with us. This petty thief will spend a few nights in jail but won’t learn any lesson except not to get caught.
if there wasn’t crime these cops would be out of work.
The best thief is the one that steals from someone else.
When you travel you don’t take much with you. You have clothes, personal items, electronics, a book or two, some travel guides, a Passport and umbrella, and hope.
You hope you end up in safe, clean lodgings. You hope you see and do enough to justify the expense of the trip. You hope you don’t get sick. You hope you enjoy your time on the road in a different country where you don’t speak the language and move like a turtle trying to figure out when to safely stick out your head.
The studio apartment at Piedras 271, Apartment 104, Ciudad Vieja, Montevideo, Uruguay is feeling like home.
In a new place, I try unfamiliar appliances, find the linens, get hot water, operate latches, locks and switches. Then i move outdoors and learn the new neighborhood. There are sandwiches in the frig. I have extra bottled water. The candle on the dining room table hasn’t been lit, but will. The bed behind the couch is a new room addition, added for my stay. Street noises are tolerable but people talk as they walk below, and, in the middle of the night, cats fight. Buses, a block and a half away, can take me anywhere in Montevideo I wish to go.
My apartment and I don’t have a long term commitment but we are getting along well thus far, like a new couple not upset by sleepwalking, dirty dishes in the sink, toilet seats left up.
Home starts to become home when you start to call it so.
The keys to my studio apartment are old fashioned.
One key opens the front door to the building. One key opens a security gate after you enter the front door. One key opens the front door of my unit 104 at 271 Piedras Street. The last key opens a door I don’t know about and don’t want to know about.
The key issue is that four keys look the same, four fit into my apartment front door lock, but only one opens the door.
Looking for something to mark the key that works for my apartment door lock, a tie for a bread bag looks it will work. It is white, easy to bend, sturdy enough to hold up to use. With a few twists, the key I need,for entry to my front door, is now recognizable and I don’t need to stand at my door bumbling like a burglar.
These days, keys are becoming obsolete.
Now doors are opened with cell phones, plastic cards, lifting your palm to a screen, having your face screened by a camera. Some doors require passwords punched out on a keypad. Some doors take several people with different codes to open.
One thing is certain.
Thieves will always be able to get in your home if they want too bad enough.
Making entry harder only saves you from the lazy ones.
The Urban Heritage group are Old City real estate developers.
Jesper and his wife Olenka, partners in the Group,host an art exposition on the evening of November 7th, 2014 to promote their vision for the area to investors and business people and lovers of the arts.
At seven, art lovers, friends, associates, clients, friends of the band, hired help arrive to celebrate art, business,and throw a grand party. In addition to art by local artist Roberto Ybarra, there are posters of Urban Heritage properties prominently displayed that show what can be done to change abandoned industrial properties into good looking functional living and business spaces.
Roberto works with wood, string, metal, paper, leather, and found objects. He is an older man but does young art, Roberto’s show blurs differences between reality and art.
When does an object belong in a museum? When does art become just a bed you can’t sleep on? Is art more than materials that make it? Is art a way of looking, or a way of living? Is art what we see or what goes on in our own head when we look at it, or both?
” Violinista”, a small work I buy, is now hung on my dining room room wall at home and brings back memories. I swear sometimes that the violinists bow moves and makes a trill so soft it would make a conductor cry.
When I see my violinist and remember Montevideo, I start to hum a slow sultry tango.
In Uruguay you are reminded often that you must use their local currency.
At the airport there are signs that direct you to a currency exchange booth where you trade American money for comparable pesos. There is a transaction charge and it brings new appreciation for the term “money changers.” Around Montevideo there are hundreds of shops with the sign Cambio in bold letters.
The value of money changes daily. Your hundred dollars might be worth a hundred and five tomorrow or ninety dollars the day after. What a dollar buys today is not what a dollar bought yesterday, or tomorrow. There are moments in time when your buying potential goes up, others when it goes down.
The conversion rate today in Uruguay is 23.75 pesos for every U.S. dollar. In Uruguay, twenty pesos to a dollar makes figuring money workable. A 20 peso bill equals a U.S. dollar. A 100 peso bill equals $5.00 U.S. A thousand peso bill equals $50 U.S. dollars.
Bills look much the same in most countries. Their size is the same, the historical faces on the bills are proper and dignified, identifying numbers are a mix of numbers and letters, the texture is the same, and they fit easily into a wallet or purse. The artwork is detailed and fastidious and there are things done to protect against counterfeits.. Money is easy to fold, light to carry, everyone knows what it is and takes it in exchange for products and services.
People have written erudite books on money but when it is not worth the paper it is printed on, revolution is nipping at our heels.
Sometimes travel Gods give you good outcomes.
You don’t have a plan, just strike out and do what seems to be interesting and they take you to places and events you didn’t know existed.
When I started this morning I was going to go to the Centro to check out the Museo of Modern Art, but when I saw a Pocitos bus pull up things changed. I didn’t deserve to find the farmers market in Pocitos, but I did. I could have gotten off my bus anywhere, left the beach at any street. Instead, I ended up on the exact street I needed and ran into a local farmers market in the middle of Pocitos on the right day of the week, at the right time.
Every Friday in this upscale community, at the intersection of Jose Marti and Chucarro streets, close to Avenida Brazil, there is a street closed off that becomes a marketplace. Some vendors sell out of custom made trucks, others have tents that shield them from the sun. Others have wares displayed on tables as people mill around looking for what they love. The produce looks great with vibrant color. There is lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, condiments, apples, cucumbers, nuts and spices, and most anything else a chef would need. There is beef and chicken, cheese and fish, sausage and eggs. Vendors sell to an upscale audience that pays well for fresh.
This event is commerce, the meeting of people who need things with people who have things to sell. This is one of the nicer areas of Montevideo I have seen, where old meets new and people with money and connections shop in old ways.
Trade is one of the world’s oldest religions.
At an open air feria in Pocitos,Uruguay there are plenty of people out shopping this morning but only a few horses. While I wait for my empanada from a street vendor, a lady spoils a horse that has been halted near me till an intersection clears of shoppers and traffic can move forward.
It is a joyful morning and the horse is congruent with this event.
This stud takes his snack gently from the woman’s open hand, careful not to miss anything. She talks soothingly to him. He licks her hand to clean up, a perfect gentleman.
Kindness is appreciated wherever and whenever it occurs, and to whomever it is extended.
The Rambla is a paved course way that runs from Ciudad Vieja to Pocitos and beyond.
It runs along the sea where humans go to walk and talk, show themselves off to the world, build sand castles on the beach. There are animals, bike riders, skateboarders, old couples, young families, and tourists strolling and playing here this morning.
Buildings along the beach in Pocitos are unimaginative as if beaches all over the world have been given up to developers who see things only in cost per square foot and know instinctively that boxes are the cheapest and quickest geometric forms to build.
A dog chases a Frisbee thrown for him onto the incoming waves.
When he comes out of the sea, he brings his Frisbee back to his human companion and refuses to let go of it, shaking his head and keeping the toy from an outstretched hand.
His human wrestles the Frisbee out of his dog’s mouth and then throws it back into the surf. to keep the game going. The dog chases it again, happy as a clam.
Dogs have a good handle on what they need.
Getting your master to love you is their ultimate prize and catching and bringing back a frisbee seems a small price to pay for love.
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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