In a La Quinta hotel room in Coral Springs, Florida I am distracted with television, something I haven’t been distracted by in over a month on the road.
On TV is a show called “The Basement Tapes,” about long lost recordings by Bob Dylan and friends shortly after Woodstock.
A music legend, Bob Dylan has entertained for decades with a distinctive and recognizable voice.” The Basement Tapes ” are an early experiment by 60’s musicians to break away from record companies. They are home recordings of jam sessions live from a friend’s basement when that idea was becoming technically possible and affordable.
One is surprised when returning to the U.S.
Streets are wide, neighborhoods are affluent, trash is picked up. landscaping is immaculate.
You can find any kind of food you want and it is fresh and affordable.
The U.S., that many of us Baby Boomers grew up in, is like living in a house where all the plumbing works, the refrigerator is full, riff raff don’t camp out on your front lawn, bills get paid.
When you come back home you see all the things you like about our U.S.
When you leave, you only see the bad.
The Temple of Music belongs in a different time and place.
This edifice is in a downtown San Jose, Costa Rica city park where music is performed and people congregate. This afternoon there is a group of young gymnasts practicing handstands under the temple dome, entertaining those who are passing through.
A young man with tattoos seems to be the leader, and, while I am watching, he is instructing another young man who is practicing handstands with wooden blocks set on the ground directly in front of him.
While doing a handstand, the student lifts his right hand off the right block and supports himself with his left hand. Then, he drops his right hand back to the right block, supports himself, and lifts his left hand in the air, off the left block.
It takes practice to learn to stand on one hand.
Passersby take pictures and one girl says she only wishes she could do half the things these gymnasts are practicing.
Pigeons, roosting on the outside edge of the dome, an upside down bowl, are nonchalant.
They don’t have to work on their balance and keep people below them on their toes.
Even though airline food is made for a small eater, in a miniature container with small utensils,it is appreciated.
The passenger seated next to me feels like talking, listening costs me nothing, and, at 30,000 feet up, since I’m not going anywhere except where this plane goes, I listen to my fellow traveler.
One pleasure of travel is meeting other people who are travelling too. Some people travel for business and have little choice about their trips. Other people travel because they like thrills and can pick their destinations. Some lucky people manage to combine both business and thrills.
Luis confides to me, as I peel back my lunch container’s cover, that he immigrated to the U.S. from Uruguay thirty years ago, and became an American. He self finances trips to Central and South America to take medical supplies to small towns and country folks who don’t have access to medical care. He runs medical training sessions for leaders, in little remote villages, so poor people learn to take care of their health crisis themselves.
When our plane reaches Lima, Luis transfers planes to make connections to San Salvador and New York.
On the runway, waiting for passengers to leave and others to board, I close my travel book on Uruguay and open the next Scotttreks chapter which will be Costa Rica.
Why, still stuck in this plane’s belly, waiting to lift into the air again, do I sometimes consider giving up a perfectly good life in my own country to be an outsider living in someone else’s country? Is there really a country better than the one I always return to?
After talking with Luis, another question, I ask myself, is why do some people feel such a heartwarming need to give back, while others just obsess on taking?
Tourist days come in all kinds of packages.
You are sleeping in strange rooms, surrounded by people you don’t know, eating food on the go that your stomach doesn’t recognize. There is television in a different language, obsessing with schedules, making connections, keeping up a big river ride on a little inner tube.
Your tourist day is as free as you want to make it, but limited. You don’t have friends here.You don’t work or have responsibilities. You are passing through. How involved you want to get depends on your mindset.
Standing at the hotel desk listening to three hotel employees talk is an education.They know enough English for me to understand what they are saying and I want to hear what they have to say.
Patricia is a hotel maid who lived in the U.S. but came back to Montevideo to be with family. Veronica is one step away from becoming a Doctor and is studying to re-take a final board oral exam that has to be passed before she can practice her passion. Virginia, another maid, speaks very little English but nods her head when she agrees. As a tourist, you don’t always have a chance to know people in a country you visit. People in the tourist industry are unappreciated Ambassadors for their country.
” It is hard, ” all agree. ” My paycheck, ” Patricia says, “doesn’t even pay my rent. Without family, it is really difficult. ”
Glowing reports about other countries often fall short. For people who hold Uruguay together by their daily work, economics is a daily rope climb in a daily obstacle course.
Even in Socialist countries, you still see people sleeping in the streets.
There is a security blanket here, but it has some holes.
To achieve what they want, people, around the world, still have to work hard, no matter what kind of government they have.
It always feels right to return to familiar places and people on a trip. This day I revisit Jesper and Olenthe, Maria, and Gabrielle at the Urban Heritage offices, and the girls at Punta Ballena Coffee Cup who have fixed me coffee every morning and tolerated my mangled Spanish.
The shutters to my former upstairs studio apartment are open and new tenants have moved in. Fires are stoked at the Mercado.There is a tango lesson in progress and people, some off cruise ships, some not, are grouped in the square. Rain has stopped and it is sunny.
This trip is like living in a big house with a lot of rooms. You move from one room to the next, but you never get out of the house.
I would never tell anyone to pass Uruguay up.
This trip is like trips most of us have taken, long days in transit with scattered, small, personal moments that bring truths when you polish them enough.
As one of my brothers likes to say, ” going on a trip makes coming home all the better. ”
Another brother’s favorite is, ” don’t let the door hit you when you leave. ”
Another brother likes to say, ” did you have fun? ”
If I had a sister, she would most likely, give me a sister kiss and hug and say, ” Welcome Home. ”
It would have been nice to have a little sister.
Hugs and kisses cure a lot of aches and pains.
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.
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.
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.
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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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