Author: doug

On the walk

I’ve walked by this many times, but this day it caught my attention: burned-out (from the fire that deforested our dog-walk area) trunk of a pine tree. Charred outer bark, and inside the wood is disintegrating in rectilinear chunks. Huh?

Then, a snake. OK, just a snake – but no, the air was quite cool; the sun was quite hot, and the sky was blue dotted with puffy clouds, and it was lying still, almost into the sandy trail. We tried to keep the dogs from noticing it – and they didn’t – but because Syd and I stopped to look at it, three dogs came back, curious about the unusual human behavior. One almost danced on top of it, but amazingly none stepped on it. And still it didn’t move.

My best guess is it got to the side of the trail in lovely radiant heat from the sun, but when a cloud blocked the sun the cool air took over, its energy went away. I am not a biologist, much less a herpetologist. If you know more, I’d be interested to hear if I’ve got a handle on this.

It appears to be Lystrophis dorbignyi, or South American hognose snake.

From one day to another … to another

irresponsible trash dumping, Uruguay

A few days ago, arriving at the dogs’ favorite watering hole, we found that some troglodytes had made an extraordinary effort to ruin it. Plenty of places to dump stuff nearby, but they put it here: from one day to another.

But another day, and it wasn’t there anymore. Note arrow indicating sand road said troglodytes use to carry other trash to the middle of nowhere, and tend to their bees, cow fencing, etc. (of course none of this is actually their property). Maybe they dumped it where they did so they wouldn’t have to look at it?

And, being card-carrying troglodytes, they had to include plate glass in the load, positioned so that it would shatter when they dumped it. What would have been a 5-minute cleanup job became a 20-minute job because of that glass…

… now prominently on display across their “road.”

Will they get a message from this? I’d be very surprised. But if it causes a couple of obviously-unused synapses in their brains to fire for a nanosecond or two, well hey, mission accomplished.

 

 

Had to chuckle…

…when I saw this in the road.

string in street

Because I knew exactly what it was for.

string in street

Do you? Scroll down for the answer….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bicycle seat with string

In case you’re still wondering, that’s how I store what I tie around my right ankle when bicycling in long pants, to keep them out of the chain.

I don’t think I ever documented my USD 140 bike. It started falling apart as soon as it got out of the shop. It’s gone from 18 speeds to one, long since lost headlight and chain guard. Between that and the 26″ wheels – too big for most Uruguayans to ride comfortably – I never worry locking it up when I ride into town. And if someone does want to steal it, what can I say? For under USD 16 per year, it’s been a good investment.

 

Finally, a major Mercado Libre success story!

Three months ago, I told about our original kitchen stove and attempt to buy a new one on Mercado Libre. That experience was so ridiculous that I abandoned the idea for a while. Yesterday I looked online again, found one I liked, asked if they actually had it (yes), ordered. Their confirmation included instructions on picking it up, which I didn’t want to do. So I sent an email yesterday evening after office hours with no expectation of a reply, but pretty quickly got a reply with delivery cost (USD 17). I replied saying yes please, here’s my delivery and contact info. This morning found a message from the seller from 8:00 last night: OK, we’ll deliver it tomorrow afternoon.

At 3:40 this afternoon, a phone call from the driver; he’s in El Pinar and will be here in 20 minutes. I try to explain how to get here, but he doesn’t seem particularly interested. Though easy to find, our house somehow eludes many delivery people, so I tell him I’ll stand out in front. Couple minutes before 4:00, I stand at the end of the driveway, and almost immediately a little nondescript truck appears from the opposite direction I expect, but no matter. Driver gives me a thumbs-up, I reply, very pleasant guy unloads the stove and delivers it to our kitchen on a hand truck. Beautiful!

kitchen stove Uruguay

It would be lovely to say I just connected gas and electric and ¡ta! But no. I decided to replace the plastic gas tubing, so rode a few blocks on my bike to the closest ferretería for that. Then discovered that the gas line nipple on the stove was slightly smaller than that of the garafa (13 kg propane tank), and the previous stove. The screw clamp wouldn’t tighten enough to seal it. Dug around in my collection of plumbing detritus, and found a clamp marginally smaller that, fully opened, barely fit over the tubing. Slathered a little silicon adhesive on the nipple por las dudas (just in case: “for the doubts”) and plugged in the electric …

… oh shit. The electric cord has a Shuko plug. I don’t have an adaptor, and don’t want to replace the plug because of warranty concerns. Oh but wait! Digging around in my electrical detritus, I find an Argentine Shuko socket to match our house installations! Find appropriate circuit breaker, pull out components, only to discover that the plastic frame that holds the plugs is broken beyond hope. Go to the nearby electrical shop, ask for a 3-socket frame plus one Shuko socket (which takes up two) and a filler cap, and the kid brings out a complete unit with one Shuko socket. Brilliant!

Presently, I have gas and electric up and running – uh, no. There’s no gas. Thinking the gas tank is low, I change it. Then, thinking my repair of the switch pin of the regulator (involving a small rusty nail) didn’t cut the muster, I replace it with one from our defunct barbecue grill – which, having being exposed to the weather for a while, exudes rusty water and doesn’t work any better. Ack! Now past 6:00 PM, I race to the hardware store again to buy a new regulator. Happily, they’re open until 6:30.

New regulator installed, nada.

Then the “D’oh!” moment. What if you had the on/off positions of the little cryptic plastic garafa-regulator switch reversed in your mind?

TL;DR (LOL): time to take dinner out of the oven.

Home is where you hang your shoes

shoes on coat rack

Especially if you have a puppy, not quite one year old, who will happily tear into Vasque hiking boots that you spent an hour getting fitted for in Asheville, North Carolina 15 years ago, and cost USD 150. I bought those at the end of few years of hiking and camping with kids, after realizing how idiotic I had been the first day of a five-day hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail, with backpack – racing a 15 year old boy, wearing cheap-ass Walmart-purchased hiking boots and very nearly twisting my ankle. I upgraded to the Vasques – and, oh yeah,  then essentiality stopped hiking.

Turns out their construction is not essentially different – in terms of puppy teeth – to the last pair of middle-aged-man ankle-length “hikers” I bought at JC Penney last year for what – USD 30? Or Walmart? Alas, that was in Murka: nothing like that exists here: size 12 feet find little welcome. So they hang out of range of puppy teeth.

The Hiking Boot Thing is similar my Mountain Bike Thing: going “endo” over the handlebars of my mountain bike, tearing up and bloodying my shirt and cracking my helmet, riding down a root-addled trail in North Carolina, faster than I would otherwise, trying to keep up with two 13 year olds, one my adopted son. They were considerably shorter than me, so of course had a much lower center of gravity, as our bikes were more or less the same length,

Ah, the adopted son: he was brilliant at destroying things, and soon needed a new bike. Shopping, I was appalled at prices. Again, this is fifteen years ago, but look at this – who would pay USD 1,200 for a mountain bike? The clerk explained that Gary Fisher was a couple inches taller than me, and designed bikes with “cockpits” – distance from seat to handlebars – to effectively lower the relative height overall. In other words, make it harder to go “endo.”

He offered that I could ride it around the parking lot, and after “busting” a curb or two, I knew who would pay $1,200 for a mountain bike. Me.

And then, of course, we moved to Spokane. I rode a couple trails. We moved to Mexico. Eventually I left it with my several-years Myspace friend Hektor Dangus to sell in Austin, Texas.

And the fake Crocs? Well, yeah, they are fake Crocs – but left at floor level, simply chew toys.

Behold the beady eyes

Hearing the dogs stir shortly after sunrise this morning, I got up to let them out. Almost immediately Mocha started barking at the closer avocado tree (for the record, not the one I put fence around). Aha!

comadreja - possum - in avocado tree
Hmmm …. trying to remember – can dogs climb trees?

The first year we had avocados, there were 32 of them. So when a possum got one, it was a big deal. This year, both trees have been producing since March. At 6:45 AM, standing naked in the back yard watching a four-legged looter getting ready to steal an avocado, my best course of action quickly became clear: go back to bed.

Later we saw that the critter had indeed had a heart-healthy breakfast. Mocha wonders if it is still in the tree.

Meanwhile, a few feet away, our little orange tree whose first harvest (three oranges?) happened this year, looks primed to do considerably better next. Which would be wonderful. But I have to wonder if it will be as “dumb” as our lemon tree, and grow so much fruit that a branch breaks. Time will tell.

 

More than a little ironic

Just shy of six months ago I totaled our Chevy Meriva. The driver of the delivery truck that hit me (the whole thing was entirely my fault) had no insurance, and I assured him I would help him with repairs. He spoke great English, and we had quite an interesting and unrelated discussion as we waved away the ambulance crew, who couldn’t quite believe there were no injuries.

It turns out I had no insurance, either, since the company never sent a bill, and lied that they had called me ten days before they cancelled it for non-payment – just a couple of weeks before the accident. And though I sent a couple of text messages to Jorge, the other driver, I heard nothing back. Was it possible I got his number wrong and he got my number wrong?

Yesterday my cell phone rang. That in itself is unusual, because it’s almost always in airplane mode, serving primarily as a camera.  It’s Jorge, wondering if I remember him (of course) and was still willing to help (of course). He said the repairs would be around USD 2,000,1 and I agreed to meet him today at the gas station near the accident, as he would be on his way to Montevideo.

Let the ironies roll: traffic was crawling on the highway, and I saw police cars and an ambulance, so guessing I couldn’t cross the most direct way, went over the bridge and through the awkward back streets to get there. I was early, and curious what the fuss was about.

Irony #1: it was about a car broadsided. Though I have heard there are many accidents in this crossing, before and since my car being broadsided I have never seen another.

car crash site
The closest point of grass in this photo is where the Meriva and I ended up, spun 180%.

Irony #2: I thought I had gotten a picture of the crashed car (silver, to the left of the police truck), but with shutter lag instead have it obscured by a black car.

Irony #3: that black car is exactly at the point of impact of my crash.

crash site diagram

Irony #4: the black car in my photo is in the exact position of the black car in the Google Earth screen shot I used to illustrate my accident back in March.2

Feeling little chills yet?

Anyway, our meeting was rather emotional and ended with a big hug, and Jorge telling me if I ever need something delivered from Montevideo, let him know and he’d do it for free.

1 I asked if I could see the estimate, and it was closer to USD 3,000
2 wrong lane, but hey….

Ya gotta love Fedex [not]

I was informed yesterday that I needed to sign and deliver a power of attorney letter pronto! regarding a Swiss-based investment in Panama that turned out to be a scam. Issue #1: it absolutely had to be delivered on legal-size stationery (8-1/2 x 14″). I do have legal-size documents from Uruguay. Alas, they date from the 1980s. “Legal size” hasn’t been here for a long time.

So how on earth to create a document that size? Visit a papelería and ask them to cut down an A3 sheet to size? Actually, turns out the solution is much simpler – shoot an email to our Canadian neighbors Janet and Wayne, and minutes later retrieve a ream of legal-size stationary from atop the wall that separates our properties.

Issue #2: OK, I am used to this; it has existed for the couple decades I’ve sent shipments internationally with “Federal” Express – but this is just total insanity:

Fedex - ridiculous pricing

If you have any insight into this, please let me know. Is it just a scam for people who don’t pursue details?

Before and after

Mexico – January 1, 2009 (southern hemisphere summer): I read Syd’s post about a forest fire which started on the beach side, jumped the Ruta Interbalnearia (main coast road), and did extensive damage to wooded areas on the north side (fortunately not homes, which here are generally not combustible). Three months later we visited, met Syd and Gundy; three more months visited again to check it out in the worst weather; three months later moved. (By the way, Uruguay has been my longest stay in one place since I turned 16 and got my driver’s license!)

Informal loggers moved in, using the excuse of dead trees to remove more than a few perfectly healthy ones. I don’t include in-between imagery because it’s not that good, but clearly shows large areas of dead trees.

Over seven years later, when Benji and I joined Syd and dogs for walks, occasional charred stumps were the only indication that something devastating had occurred. Syd was – and still is – frequently pointing out grown-over paths that used to be a “road,” mostly for horse-drawn carts. And he has frequently told me of areas that used to be forest. I didn’t exactly not believe him, but I was amazed to consult Google/CIA Earth historical satellite imagery and see how vastly the area has changed. The wooded image is from 2006; the barren from 2014. The trees have thickened a bit since then. When stuff grows here, it tends to grow like crazy, but unfortunately the “loggers” of firewood here now do their best to prevent any trees from growing to maturity. We have no idea who the land belongs to.

Uruguay: Villa Argentina norte, before and after fire

It’s a lovely area to walk dogs – though not without issues: cows, bees (we were inexplicably attacked near hives we know about yesterday), horses which Mocha hasn’t yet learned to “live and let live,” motorbikes and quads, which happily Mocha ignores, unlike Benji, who went crazy chasing them.

But it’s also for the most part brush. Not particularly interesting. I look at how it was, and can only think it must have been almost magical, compared to now.

Don’t it always seem to go ….