Dog ventures into flooded field. Bright specks are from sunlight.
Flooded field
Category: Uruguay
Attack of the Ուրուգվայի ձեռագիր
Since it’s been a while, I’ll give you a little cheatsheet: review the various Uruguayan handwriting numeric reversals and inversions.
Now, quickly, read this:
Did you immediately say, Thursday, August 29th at 10 AM?
Of course you did – congratulations!
Enchufar redux
It’s been a long time since I introduced the subject of electrical outlets in Uruguay. A visit to the hospital reminded me of their wonderful weirdness here.
Shuko is common in Europe; “Inclinado” the standard in neighboring Argentina, and “Tres en linea,” my favorite, apparently the standard in Uruguay. But when your whole country is 3-1/2 million people, who – meaning people manufacturing electrical appliances for worldwide sales – particularly cares?
And of course, if you’re installing signs in Uruguay, who particularly cares that you glue the capital B to the wall upside and backwards?
Which perhaps has you thinking, I want to visit your wonderful little country. What should I do about my electrical needs?
The obvious answer is to throw your hands up in despair, and leave all your damned gadgets at home.
Or just stop by our place.
I probably have your needs covered.
Oot and aboot
The weather forecast – pronóstico – called for two glorious sunny days. Inspired by the first, I proposed a country drive the second. A vague goal was to explore the abandoned ‘gringo palace’ in Pueblo Eden. Long story, but short for now, as we never got there.
In Uruguay, topography = interesting, and we headed into the hills toward Minas, gaining serious altitude, with little more in mind than enjoying the scenery.
However, as we whizzed past Parque Salus (about where the arrow ends above), we remembered there was supposed to be a good restaurant there. It had been ten years and three months (perhaps to the day) since we’d been there last, and we still felt a little foolish that we had completely missed the restaurant, since expounded by a certain person who shall remain nameless – though with whom I walk dogs, and whose nationality inspires the title, in case you’re curious.
We reversed course, and headed in, ending a few dusty, rutty kilometers up the road (as in 2009) at the Fuente del Puma, the magical source of the wonderful water that results in discarded plastic bottles throughout the country.
As before, no restaurant. Time to pull out the guidebooks.
The Lonely Planet guide to Uruguay (2008) offered no help, but Bradt Uruguay, hot off the press in 2010 when my sister brought it, revealed that the restaurant was located after a promenade of palm trees – which we recognized: the entrance to the Patricia brewery, back on the highway! We retraced our steps to find … nothing.
Lo and behold, after a few minutes a couple of guard-type people appeared. I asked about the restaurant and hotel.
Closed.
Permanently?
Yes.
A long time?
At least ten years.
Approaching Minas, and thinking it time for lunch, we stopped at a busy but probably nothing-special restaurant.
None of the cars in the parking lot was from Montevideo or Punta del Este. There were families with kids. We were the only non-natives. Not entirely promising. Yet, far from being the typical boring fare, the meal was fabulous.
My photo, an afterthought, doesn’t do it justice. Suffice to say, if a convenient restaurant of this quality existed anywhere near Atlántida, we would be regulars. In fact, we would actually look forward to going out to eat.
From Minas, we headed south, over twisty, hilly, and mostly empty Ruta 12, a fun contrast to the flat, straight, boring roads that plague the rest of the country. Alas, the gas gauge lit up, and not knowing our remaining range, we headed straight to the nearest gasolinera in San Carlos before backtracking home, where we saw the first clouds of the day, painting a gorgeous sunset.
So, no shun-piking in Pueblo Edén – where the abandoned gringo palace awaits a future adventure….
Yes, we’re celebrating
For a country that considers itself non-religious, Semana Santa – oh, sorry, Semana de Turismo – is a big deal. That’s Easter Week in case you’re still not up to speed 😉
Duly noted, of course, in my calendar:
Fortunately we had nothing of particular importance to accomplish this week. Our friends Sandy and Don, whom we just left at the airport for their move back north, were kicking themselves that they didn’t factor Semana de Turismo into their planning, but almost everything that needed doing got done regardless.
Where there’s a will there’s a way.
It’s that day
When you see chairs lined up either side of the road, it means tonight is the Carnaval parade in Atlántida. But they’re not there just as a nice gesture. If you want to sit, you have to pay.
I went out to see part of the parade one year, and haven’t felt compelled to do so again. You can find more in the Wikipedia article on Uruguayan Carnival (which apparently doesn’t meet Wikipedia’s high editorial standards, oh my!) and find videos of our local desfile here.
Christmas Eve
Our first Uruguayan passports, good for five years, were expiring. Arranging to renew them turned out to be relatively easy; done and paid online. When we got to the passport office, though, we lacked our credenciales civicas, which after a trip to the Corte Electoral, turned out to be big pieces of paper we got with our citizenship.
So, the next day we returned with those. No, they were supposed to be renewed after three years. Though an Uruguayan friend told me the credencia civica is nothing more than a voting card, it was indeed required for a passport (which she doesn’t have). The clerk this time had a printed paper we could take to the Corte Electoral, where the same friendly person said no, that’s not here, that’s a block away. So we went a block away, got numbers, and started the process until we got to the address part. We don’t have/can’t invent an address in Montevideo? Then we’ll have to go to the office in our departamento, Canelones. After a nice lunch in a new restaurant (rated #1 in Montevideo), we found the office, and got everything done – until my wife’s fingerprints. They just weren’t sufficient on four or five fingers. So: make appointment with dermatologist, come back with doctor’s note if this can’t be fixed, and we’ll proceed from there.
Booking a doctor appointment online with Asociación Española is also quite easy, but the soonest we could get to a dermatologist was a month away, in Montevideo.
Which is how we ended up there on Christmas Eve. Would there be such a thing as a routine doctor’s appointment on Christmas Eve up north? It somehow strikes me as unlikely.
Anyway, it was a snap. We returned the way we came, which involved me making a left turn at a traffic light which invoked a chorus of blaring horns: yeah, OK, don’t turn left in Montevideo.
Nice lunch at Lo de Mónica, near Géant and Macro Mercado supermarkets, where we spotted this.
I’ve posted many times about Uruguayan handwriting, how 9s look like Ps or lollipops, but this a first: a Y written as a 7.
OK, that’s anticlimactic. So here’s a cool Dodge Power Wagon we then saw in the Géant parking lot.
50-peso surprise
I got change at the butcher today and thought I had been handed a bill from another country. But no – even though it was released three months ago, this is the first one I’ve seen
The polymer note is a welcome change from the tatty paper ones, though I’m not so sure the 50th anniversary of yet another Rothschild-controlled central bank is something exactly worth commemorating.
And it is light-years better than the coin nobody wants.
Blueberries!
Though a week ago Saturday was the first public blueberry harvest, we didn’t get notice in time. I went yesterday. The number of bushes is down radically from a year ago, but fruit is abundant and I managed to pick 2.5 kilos fairly efficiently.
The price has gone from (pesos) $180 to $250 per kilo, or +39%. One dollar buys about 14% more pesos than a year ago, so in dollar terms the price has increased 22%, double the rate of inflation (that I assume). So, bottom line, USD 3.44 per pound. Most places in the US I found online are under $3 per pound. So, like most things in Uruguay other than property tax and medical coverage, not cheap.
But delicious!
And then, consider what they cost at the supermarket. Over USD 2 for a small fraction of a kilo. These plastic containers are about 3 x 3 inches. I eat that many when I pass by the bowl on the kitchen counter!
If you’re in the area and want instructions to get there, let me know. I’m guessing this will be on for three more weekends.
A little background: blueberries (arandanos, the same word used for cranberries, which are not available here) seemed to become trendy around the time we got here (late 2009). But unlike other kinds of fruits, blueberries are only good for a very short period of time. They can be frozen, but when thawed these have a mushy texture and much less taste. Given the short time window, commercial buyers can basically pay whatever they want. Or worse. The first year Pilar (the owner) had a harvest, an Argentine buyer took the whole crop. Literally. Didn’t pay a dime.
The nest
I’ve been walking with Syd in the VillAr wilderness* for a few years now, and know my way around. But I don’t have the paths mapped in my head the way he does, partly because he’s been walking there so much longer, and (muchly) because he’s the “Cruise Director” so that, like a passenger in a car (my wife marvels at my ability to navigate Montevideo!), I don’t have to pay particular attention: just along for the ride/walk.
Syd and Gundy have been in Buenos Aires for a couple weeks. Their house/pet sitters apparently saw little benefit in my accompanying them on dog walks (which shocks me; I find my company scintillating — but alas, perhaps therein lies the problem), and adopted no apparent (or at least shared) schedule. So today I took Mocha at 1:00 PM, (an unheard-of hour) so as not to run into them, and we wandered here and there for well over an hour. Several times I walked 50+ meters “the wrong way” down a trail, to see if I was where I thought I was: mapping. Sometimes I was right; sometimes wrong.
Philosophical outtake: when I was 14, I didn’t really perceive my evident cluelessness; things just sometimes worked, and sometimes didn’t. 50 years later, I find my cluelessness amusing – or at least, interesting. Sometimes I know where I am; sometimes not. It’s all good.
Along the way noticed details I might not have otherwise, like this:
The top hole is obviously a birds’ nest. What kind? Owl? Active? Not? I approached, but it was above eye level. Do owls burrow into tree stumps? What other bird might? In late October (equivalent of late April northern hemisphere), would this be an active nest?
Were I a National Geographic photographer, I might camp out here six hours – or six days, or six weeks – for answers. As it was, when Mocha crunched nearby returning from a thorough sniff-sniff of the area, we moved on. I will try to remember when we pass by again.
* about 150 hectares/370 acres of mostly no-man’s land in Vila Argentina Norte