Author: doug

Big Boss

Big Boss dog food

Our vet suggested a different dog food, one with less fat. She says less fat has solved skin problems of many dogs she knows, and ours is having issues.

The guy who sells the dog food displays it outside his house, fading bags in the full sun—who would buy that, knowing full well everything inside would be rancid? Turns out to be just a display. He gets a fresh bag from inside. Then gives me a refrigerator magnet, and say to call next time: he delivers for free, like many merchants here. I like that. I tell him my name’s Douglas, and there aren’t many of us in Uruguay.

He tells me his gardener’s name is Douglas.

Well, then.

No había nada.

cat

Usually I walk the beach too late to the road repairs in action, but with today’s balmy weather I went early, and paused a while to watch the surprisingly quick maneuvering of the huge backhoe. The operator was really efficient. Of course, I also saw two guys sitting nearby, doing absolutely nothing.

I asked one of them what lay at the other end of the big pipes they had installed. Una cámara. An underground storage reservoir. Where did the water come from? I wasn’t too satisfied with the answer, since I still didn’t see how water would get into it.

¿No había nada? I asked, guessing there had been no drainage before, which is why the road kept getting washed out.

Nada, he replied with a smile, as if to say, can you believe this?

Der deutsche Angriffsfahrzeug

German touring vehicle in Uruguay

Whenever you see a vehicle like this, even without looking at the tags you can tell what language its occupants speak. Not French. Not Italian. Not Spanish (maybe), maybe English mit einem Akzent. They may be from Switzerland, but they will definitely speak German.

These things always make me think “assault vehicle” (hence the blog title). At the very least, the concept of “blending in with the locals” apparently doesn’t figure prominently in some people’s weltanschauung.

 

Tourist season past; time to repair the big attraction

roadwork

Well, now, looks like they’re getting serious about fixing the collapsed Rambla. Instead of just dumping dirt in the hole where the road had been, as before, some serious drain work is in progress.

As I walked down to take a look, my unofficial dog Huma (silent H, remember) went tearing ahead, and when I could see over the ledge, I didn’t see her. But not for long: didit, DiDit, DIDIT and she launched out of one of the tubes like a projectile, veered around and went flying into another. I tried to catch her emerging again, but she was too fast: you can see her if you look very closely in front of the nearest tube.

She stayed in “crazed mode” the whole time we were on the beach, running back and forth, in and out of the water at full speed. Something in the air, I guess.

Price of meat in Uruguay

USD prices per pound:

Cativelli Sausage: 4.58

Panceta—bacon: 5.20

Chicken legs:1.51

Picada—lean ground beef: 2.28

Chicken Milanesa: 3.58

Nalga—top/bottom roast: 3.90

After ordering at our favorite carniceria (butcher shop), I realized I had no money. No problem, the owner said, taking my name and writing the amount on a strip of paper. The next day, I saw he had a stack of these slips over an inch high. Mine was someone near the middle, so obviously this is a common thing. Interesting.

How do these prices compare with current prices elsewhere?

Give me a (small) k!

Last Friday, our fiber optic service crapped out. I called AntelData to file a reclamo, a complaint, and learned that service was down for an entire zone. Not much to do but wait.

Saturday I learned that our neighbors had their service back. Sunday we spent a delightful afternoon with a couple of friends with whom we explored northern Argentina a few years back, at our favorite restaurant. Got home: still no internet.

Monday morning, a computer-illiterate Uruguayan friend mentioned entering usario and contraseña, and suddenly it clicked: Antel insisted the correct modem lights were lit. Then I remembered that on my first call, they’d had me enter user name and password, which I did—obviously incorrectly?

So I wondered if what I took as a capital A at the beginning of the handwritten password the tech left months ago, was instead a 4. The passwords are all upper case. LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES LOVE ALL CAPS.

No, not 4.

Then I looked at out ambiguously written handwritten user name, one letter and 5 numbers @adsl… and wondered: was K supposed to be k?

antel-user

Bingo! In a trice we were back to wasting huge amounts of time glued to the screen.

(Fortunately there were no 9s.)

Se terminó.

Sunset during an asado in Uruguay
Photo: Wayne Ready

Yes, it’s been a while since my last post. Shortly after it, I commiserated with an older neighbor whose bicycle had bogged down in the mud I’ve never seen before. We got onto the strange rain and weather, and he told me summer was over (se terminó el verano).

I didn’t believe him. But I think it’s true: by the equivalent of mid-August in the northern hemisphere, and summer was gone. One of our neighbors in the campo told me he‘d seen swallows flocking to migrate north to Brazil or Ecuador. And I have gotten nothing—absolutely nothing—from the garden. Lettuce in the supermarket costs 3-4 times (factoring quantity) as much as we’d expect.

But we had a lovely day for our neighbor’s hangi-style pig roast, complete with tranquilo sunset that reminded me why I enjoy being in the country (all of 10 km away!).