The Port reminds me of a toy box in a giant’s kid’s room.
It is walled off from the public with a tall iron fence and each of its entrances is protected by security guards who don’t want people entering without proper credentials. Along the fence’s length you watch big forklifts, big trucks, big containers, big projects, big ships. I am looking for a ferry that can take me to Buenos Aires in a week, doing investigative work before things actually happen. When you don’t speak even grammar school Spanish you need all the time you can to get your passport in order, get your times and tickets, get where you are supposed to be figured out.
The Port is full of shipping containers that are lifted out of massive ships, one at a time, with huge cranes and huge magnets. A crane operator swings his crane into position, lowers a magnet, lifts a container out of its ships hold and gently swings it back over tarmac into a receiving area where men with pencils and notepads keep count.
Separate from the Port ( where you can’t go without authorization), is a ferry called the Burquebus. This is where cars and people catch a boat ride going twice a day to Argentina.
When I get to the front desk at Burguebus I ask about the trip and a lady points to one of her co-workers and says “Ingles.” That means he is the one that takes care of Americans and other non-Spanish speakers.
“Do you have your Argentina Visa?” the bearded young man with wire rim glasses asks?
It turns out, that to enter Argentina, Americans have to buy a 10 year special Argentinian VISA for $200.00 U.S. You can go on line and complete the application and pay for it, then print it out as proof before you board.
At this moment I know this is more trouble and money than I want to endure. It is going to cost more to visit Argentina for a day than it is for a bus to Punta Del Este and a hotel room for a week.
I call and cancel my bed and breakfast in Buenos Aires.
It is hard to run a business when politics runs off your customers.
One evening, as the sun is falling, it makes sense to stroll down to the water’s edge, follow a concrete pier that juts into the water like the end of a fishing pole left discarded by a disgruntled fisherman.
The pier is edged with giant stones and this is where fishermen and fisherwomen stand and cast out bait to try their luck.
There is a slight wind, the sky is clear, and the water of the Rio de la Plata is light brown. You cast as far as your heavy weight, heavy line, a twelve foot pole and open faced reel will let you go. There are cars parked with open trunks as men unload tackle boxes, plastic bags of bait shrimp, coolers with beer and soft drinks. At the very tip of the pier, young men crawl over rocks to cast out where it is deepest. The water is deep here and, not far away, cargo ships come into port to unload containers full of a cities needs.
Walking the course way, one sees poles bend and fishermen keep lines taut as they turn their reels, shorten line, and beach their pescado. When the hooked fish gets close to the rocks, it is lifted into the air and swung, like cargo , further up onto the rocks where it is pinned with work boots and then put on a stringer or into a plastic bag, or cut up for bait. The fish are mostly light skinned catfish. They have two long whiskers, broad mouths, and the soft looking white belly of bottom feeders.
Several of us strollers go all the way to the pier’s end and sit, feel the wind and watch the sun drop.
Colors appear on the city that make it seem less harsh. After a half hour, it is time to head home and leave anglers to their mission. They won’t be out long. They either catch their fill and pack up early, or get bored and go home.
Fishing is where rubber tires meet the road, where hopes and dreams meet hooks and sinkers.
There aren’t many bargains for the traveler but one is sightseeing buses you find in large South American cities.
These double deck buses run routes through the city like a regular bus but they stop at multiple tourist destinations where you can exit and sight see, then catch the bus home on its next return.
This big pink bus is parked a half block from my front door and with ticket in hand I follow a bunch of school kids aboard. To the very top deck most of us go and put on headphones that let us listen to guided commentary in our home language.
The kid’s teacher is a short slender young woman wearing sunglasses and a ball cap, a scarf thrown around her neck, pink tennis shoes and a large carry all bag. She has had to monitor her brood the entire ride, especially the boys. There are always high maintenance students. Without them, a teacher’s job would be a walk in the park.
This sightseeing bus is like riding on the broad back of an elephant as natives scamper out of your way, as clouds drift above like laundry caught by the wind.
The kid’s class photo, taken after touring, is cute, and, for some of these kids, this outing will be remembered fondly at school reunions where previous winners look like losers and losers have morphed into knockouts.
This twenty dollar scouting ride gives me hope that Montevideo will be a smooth, exciting, stimulating, enlightening city worth visiting.
Tomorrow I ride this same pink bus to Punta Carrera, the National Museo of Futball and the Botanical Gardens.
We all like bargains.
For two days, hot water has not been working.
The landlord has been attentive, sent someone by who thought it might be something it wasn’t, then sends his maintenance man to troubleshoot.
Hugo comes prepared with a tape measure, apartment keys, an electrical voltage tester, screwdrivers, and instructions that if he can’t get it fixed it will require an electrician or plumber and no hot water for several more days.
Hugo, a short man, stands on a chair and tests power to the electrical box into which the electric hot water heater is plugged. It is getting juice to the box, but no juice through the switch to the hot water heater. He shows me the switch after he pulls it out of the electrical box.
“No bueno,” he says.
“Puede repairo?” I ask.
Hugo says he will be back in 15 minutes, takes the dead switch and leaves to a neighborhood ferreteria, comes back in thirty minutes and completes his job.
A green light comes on at the bottom of the hot water heater when he is done and indicates all systems are functioning properly.
I check the hot water fifteen minutes after he leaves to make sure I have hot water, and I do.
In this world, it is Hugo’s who keep wheels turning.
Cold showers, any time of the day, aren’t hot.
Blues chords aren’t complex, the rhythms and melodies aren’t sophisticated, the harmony is a step down from folk music but several steps below jazz.
Stevie Ray Vaughn isn’t the only white blues man to make it big and suffer an untimely end. He has been gone a while but the songs this group are playing, on Sarandi Street, are straight from his Real Book.
This street band features a bass guitar and a lead guitarist who handles vocals. Percussion is supplied by a kid sitting on a drum box. They have microphones positioned so I hear them from blocks away.
The bass guitar player asks where I am from during a break, and, when I answer, in English, he points me to the lead singer who speaks the best English.
Uruguayans are friendly and helpful people and unfailingly good with gringos trying to speak their language. It is sweet the way they always talk about their bad English, but never mention my abysmal Spanish.
The guys jam, hit notes, stick with the beat – one, two, three, four, one, two,three, four beats to a bar.
I sit on a wide stone window ledge in front of a men’s clothing store and listen to an entire set and make sure I leave them money in an open guitar case.
Texas blues sound good anywhere.
In old Montevideo. I call the band ” Men in Black. ”
Stevie would be pleased.
Walking towards Constitution Plaza from Independence Plaza, there are bronze Generals on horseback every block, as well as little plaza’s and parks.
There is something sad about memorializing heroes in bronze and then placing them outside where pigeons squat on their pointed military hats and defecate on their medals. It is an unfitting end for men who have contributed so much to their country.
There are plenty of fountains on this boulevard too, mostly in the center of plazas with water pouring from jars held by Roman Goddesses or shooting from the pursed lips of cherubs. These fountains sometimes have no water, waiting for maintenance men to hook up lines, clean the pond, paint the walls of the pool. Occasionally, in front of well financed government buildings, you find ponds with water lilies and colorful fish.
In Constitution Park the fountain is generic and empty of water and I am startled because it appears one of the statues from this fountain has been moved by delinquents in front of my McDonalds.
There is a small jar filled with money at the statues feet.
Stepping back and watching, I watch the statue lips move and I see her breathe.
The makeup on her face is thick and her hair is perfect. She remains still and doesn’t make eye contact until I drop a bill into her jar. Then she bows and smiles, reaches into a pocket and hands me my personal fortune written in Spanish, which I have since lost, but am sure it wished me a long and prosperous life with a wife that loves me and seven or eight children who get good grades in school and go to bed on time.
I wave at her, she smiles at me, her palms opening and closing as she clicks two wood castanets. She finishes with a bow, to me, and returns to her statue position.
It is easy to get mentally lazy.
She has made this day spicy, and, for that, she is a real Goddess.
This live concert is next to the Mercado, about lunchtime. There are posters advertising it on phone poles but their music grabs me by the ear through my open studio window and drags me to come watch and listen.
This band calls themselves ,” Murga Don Timoteo”, a local group sponsored by a local paint company.
They perform with style, sporting costumes that look more African and Brazilian than Uruguayan, and, despite their visual cornucopia, they sing with precision, clipping notes that need to be clipped and holding notes that need holding with dynamics and vibrato.
Good singing is good to find and this free concert is good luck for a music lover like myself.
If this chorus line wasn’t dressed up like Las Vegas dancers, would their music sound as good as it does?
The answer, of course, is ,Yes.
Big cities should be a worker’s paradise with good wages because there is too much construction and maintenance needed to match equally with people who will work a long hard day for little pay and no recognition.
Walking near Constitution Plaza, on Sarandi street, Gustavo, a fellow painter, is working in a doorway. He has applied paint remover and is scraping softened varnish off a door jamb with a scraper that won’t damage the wood.
Gustavo’s next step will be to take sandpaper and smooth the wood surfaces. Then, after cleaning, he will apply a thinned down undercoat of polyurethane, lightly sand and wipe everything down with a tack cloth, and finish the project with two full strength coats of exterior polyurethane with a flourish of his three inch sash brush.
Painting is not without honor but, at the end of the day, it was, for me, always a relief to clean my brushes, fold drop cloths, seal up paint cans and load the van.
New doesn’t last long in a city of several million and paint makes glamour girls out of a lot of plain Jane buildings, offices, kitchens,bathrooms and bedrooms.
Working men keep this world operating.
It takes an even bigger crew of painters to keep the stars sparkling.
Next to the farmacia is a door that leads to an upstairs apartment that leads to a family that leads to a mom and dad that leads to a warm place for kids to grow up. When you look at a street of closed doors, faded or chipped or cobbled together, one never knows what is behind them. It is hard to guess what this schoolboy will see when the door to his home opens and he walks into his family bosom.
Kids don’t ask for a lot but they need a home, kind words and behaviors towards them, security, love, and a sense of belonging. These youngsters are brothers and sisters and they are, this afternoon, busy turning back into kids after school has spent all day trying to civilize them.
This afternoon this little boy knocks, peeps into a little slot where mail is dropped, yells out if anyone can open the door and let him inside?
He is excited and ready to dump his school stuff on his bed, then go out into the streets to play soccer with friends.
School isn’t for little boys anymore, but they still have to go.
When visitors get off cruise ships at the Port of Montevideo, one of the first places they visit is the Mercado Del Puerto, a collection of steakhouses, gift shops, and art galleries under one big tin roof.
Uruguay is famous for wine and steaks and inside the Mercado you have multiple choices in a meat lover’s paradise. Early in the morning, around nine, chefs load firewood into their ovens and by lunch the smell of cooking meat says to ” come on in.”
This afternoon chefs are grilling, a girl markets wine from Uruguay to tourists, waiters scribble orders on small pieces of paper. Talk fills the place with large and small groups enjoying the Mercado’s savory ambiance.
From the Mercado a visitor can fan out into commercial and residential side streets and find boutiques, art galleries, neighborhood restaurants and local stores that depend on residents more than tourists. This port area, neglected, is slowly being reclaimed by a new generation of entrepreneurs.
Later in the day, I too enjoy an enormous steak with fries and a beer, for dinner. Sailors at the next table talk loud in German and drink prodigious amounts of beer with their brauts.
Food, eating, and drinking are some of man’s fondest activities.
Uruguay steaks don’t have to apologize to any chef and I recommend the Mercado as a good place to meet a steak in person, cooked any way you want.
Living just down the block, I would be negligent not to eat here as often as possible.
One of the joys of travel is meeting foods you have never tried before, and enjoy foods you love cooked better than you can cook them yourself.
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