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 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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Punta Del Este, moving into its tourist season, is a movie set waiting for a movie crew.
It is hard to find fault with beach towns full of light, openness, a relaxed attitude and water in every direction, at the end of every street. This morning a few souls are on a little beach at the end of the street from Hotel Playa. The beach is named Emir Playa after a local family.
In Montevideo, streets are narrow and buildings tower like giants looking down shaking their fingers at those of us who dare to move without the proper password. Here, I can breath.
Going from the big city to the beach feels like ditching a heavy jacket and changing into a pair of swim trunks.
This is a reputed playground for the rich and well connected but the season hasn’t started yet and I’m one of the few out walking today.
Whether I will be viewed by others on the street, as rich and famous, is unlikely, but how exactly do you tell a person is rich by looking at them in just their swimming trunks? When you strip away all their jewelry, clothes, cars, perfumes, makeup, how do you really know that who you think you see is really how they are?
I expect to be seen as a senior tourista, healthy enough to walk, not on a schedule, with enough time and money, in the correct proportions, to see the world, going where the winds blow me.
How people see us, strangely enough, is quite often how we actually are.
Reading between the lines is, apparently, not as difficult as it first seems.
A picture is worth a thousand words, some say, so here are fifteen thousand words.
Colonia Del Sacramento, new and old, is quiet, peaceful, scenic, and makes for rambling, sightseeing, day dreaming. There are many Europeans who come here to live and the entire city population is under 30,000. Here, on one small boulevard, is an Apple store so you know that new has conquered old.
This town dates back to the 1600’s and some of its original still standing buildings are churches and whorehouses which speaks volumes about human motivations and needs.
This old town, full of history, is like old people sitting on the front porch watching people passing by and with-holding judgment.
There is enough history here that eccentricity can be tolerated.
This jewel is how Montevideo used to be before it got too big for its britches.
The first stop on our day trip is a farm and museum off Route 1 that takes you from Montevideo to Colonia Del Sacramento through some of the best vineyards and cattle country in Uruguay. The Museo and farm are the creation of Emilio Arenas who not only has a world record pencil collection but sells cheeses, jams and jellies, in his little country store.
People collect anything. It can be ashtrays, matchbook covers, ceramic animals, music, books.The list is endless. Most collections,though,never end up in world record territory.They end up on shelves in the living room, or occupy a garage or shop where no one but the addict can be affected by his compulsion. In his case, Emilio’s pencil collection is the world’s biggest and brings customers to buy in his gift shop.
Out in the yard, not far from our tour bus, I sit in a chair under a shade tree and let the world zip by.
It is comforting to be in the countryside and dream about staying in a little house surrounded by chickens and goats and a milk cow. At night a window will be open and the stars will look like little pencil pricks of light, white sparkling dots on a black canvas.
Next time back, Emilio will get a pencil from New Mexico from me.
He will always find a place for one more.
The lighthouse on the tip of the peninsula offers the best view of the town .It is one of the sights I came to see by joining a tour group at a local Montevideo hotel.
The lighthouse stairs are almost straight up and a two hundred and fifty pound man has trouble getting all the way to the top because of the narrowness of the spiraling passage. You keep winding up and up and up, holding to a thick piece of insulated wire threaded through eye bolts anchored in the lighthouse’s interior concrete walls.
At the first landing, you can get out onto a deck and walk around the perimeter of the lighthouse, but I keep moving to where stairs end and the dormant cyclops light sleeps this morning.
There is a 360 degree view of Colonia Del Sacramento with a different vista through each of the windows of the lighthouse.
There is a harbor on one side of the light. Fishing boats are moored there and a long wooden pier juts out into the waters of the Rio Plata river.
Another view from the lighthouse is the city of Colonia Del Sacramento This old city was founded in the late 1600’s by the Portuguese and they and the Spanish fought for several hundred years to see who would control the area and its waters. There is, according to Pat, a World War 2 German ship sunk in the harbor by a Captain who didn’t want to surrender his ship.
It must look like this from the crows nest on pirate ships where a half rum addled pirate with a knife in his belt scanned the seas for big fat merchant ships carrying gold. It had to have been a hard dangerous life to risk yourself for uncertain wages, a bottle of rum and a civilization that only had a curse and hangman’s noose for you when your feet touched dry land.
Our tour operators give us a few hours before we head back to Montevideo, so I go back down the stairway, much faster than I ascended.
This is a World Heritage city that lives up to its press.
There are still sun drenched places in this world untouched by terror and conflict, places where the past and present hold hands and dance into their future.
Colonia Del Sacramento is a place where the best of Europe and Latin America got married and are happy as a bride and groom cutting cake and sipping champagne.
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.
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.
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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