Category: Uruguay

What’s going on here?

A year ago, I posted these photos of a most wretched and entirely shoddy little house being built. It is still unoccupied, but more money has apparently been found.

First they added a strange brick structure on the left (gray) with no way to enter it from the house (maybe changed?). Now they’re enclosing the thing with ticholo, which has better insulation properties than brick. So what will happen to the previously exposed pine boards now hidden behind the ticholo? Dry rot? Black mold? Termites? Other critters?

It will be fun to monitor. Throwing good money after bad….

Fires

On New Year’s Day 2009 a huge fire deforested much of the area in which we walk dogs.

Almost 12 years later, in October 2020, another fire raged through.

Fortunately, many of the trees survived this time.

Satellite view of burned woods, Villa Argentina, Uruguay, April 2021

14 months after the last fire, last week, another big fire.

And yesterday on the dog walk we see this:

Wind from east northeast. The others came from the southwest. No sign of any activity. Around an hour later, Syd heard a helicopter (we leave from his house to walk), and this morning it appears to be out.

Satellite view showing path of probable-arson wildfires near Atlántida, Canelones, Uruguay

Almost 12 years between fires, then 14 months, then just over a week. Following that progression, we could have expected the next fire in 3-½ hours. Glad it didn’t happen.

Industrial chic

Construction update: the neighbors on the corner have almost completed their [whatever] with parking for 3-4 cars. And painted everything gray.

This is what it looks like from our bedroom porch. Note the three flagpoles in the upper right. Obviously a business proposition of some sort, but what?

The neighbors on the other side have erected a fence around the front yard that can only be described as industrial.

From our upstairs patio, we can see the front yard has enough pavers—the workers told me they were for the Jacuzzi—to pave most of the yard.

Here is the warehouse-like addition. Look closely: they’re…

…painting it gray.

And here’s their lovely industrial stovepipe, obscuring the view of the neighbors’ weather vane.

The Elusive Mexican Restaurant

It should have been fairly straightforward: after my wife’s eye appointment, head down Blvd. Artigas, left, right, left, and ta!

After that first left, Google clearly shows a one-way street. No problem. However, here’s the view inside that rectangle:

It is quite clear that you are not to make a right turn here. We did go a couple streets further and found some guys who seemed to know exactly how to find the restaurant. But the maze of one-way Montevideo streets seems designed to prevent you from getting back to where you started, and in the dark of night it only took us a couple blocks to give up and head home.

I suspect anyone who has attempted to find things in Montevideo, especially at night, has a similar tale.