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.
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.
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.
South Beach is like beaches in the Caribbean.
The sand is white and grainy and blue beach umbrellas blow in the wind like the tops of stir sticks in one’s Pina Colada.
Some brave souls wade in the water even though it is cold this time of year. Bodies are spread under the sun trying to become a different color than they were born. This Saturday afternoon there is plenty of beach to occupy and lifeguards are so nonchalant that one has his feet up in the window of the lifeguard shack, his eyes looking at the plywood ceiling instead of the ocean.
A walk on the beach hooks me up with couples, kids, turistas, gawkers, and local vendors like Dave the water guy making a living off strangers who have washed up on shore and have credit cards and cash stowed away in their socks and bras.
It is a festive scene, and, as a small plane pulls an advertisement in the sky behind it, I trek up and down the beach in levis and a pair of hiking boots – feeling a little overdressed.
There are photo op’s galore.
The one, not taken advantage of, is a Latina sprawled on the beach, topless, tanned, not at all worried about nipple burn. She is bold and is probably one of the few to have a good enough physique to get away with wanting the world to see all of her. Her girlfriend, tanning next to her, looks mean enough to scare the junkyard dog.
Walking this afternoon, I have come, have seen, and have been conquered by narcissism bleeding like a cut finger.
I am a tourist with no responsibilities, no ambitions, and no agenda except blending in like the ingredients of your favorite margarita.
Catching a taxi to the beach is the quickest way to get there from the Hotel Element.
For thirty bucks each way, I get a local taxi drivers music, pictures of his familia swinging from the rear view mirror, a few questions in Spanish to see if i speak his language, a driving style that saves time for phone calls, deciding which horse race to bet, or checking in with Baby Mama.
“Ocean Drive is over there.” Raul says as he turns a corner and pulls into a parking pullout not far from the Atlantic ocean.There is a green belt parallel to the ocean with sand paths leading through palm trees to the beach. The green belt also has walkways for casual strolling, roller blades and bicycles.
“If you go one block that way you hit Collins Street, ” Raul instructs me. “The food is cheaper there , because, you know, it isn’t close to the ocean.”
Raul taps his finger in the air as he talks, like he is conducting a salsa symphony.
Leaving the cab, I hike down Ocean Drive, immersed in Art Deco architecture that you find in Miami Beach, Havana, Los Angeles, all warm places on an ocean’s edge.
According to Wikipedia, Art Deco is famous for eyebrows, rounded corners, flat roofs, themes in threes, banding or racing stripes, columns, glass blocks, etched glass and portholes.
Enjoying a place I never planned to be, on someone else’s dime, is looking like more than traveler’s luck.
Why I am here, and not somewhere else, is always an enigma wrapped in a conundrum?
It isn’t fifteen minutes until my toes are in the ocean.
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