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.
Montevideo Rambla, Ciudad Vieja. When we arrived here, late 2009, it was rare to see even a single vehicle parked along this stretch of road.
Consumer credit comes to Uruguay! At least that’s one explanation.
Car prices have fallen recently. This may involve poor budgeting by people new to credit, buying cars for only *so much* a month. Perhaps they don’t think about fuel (2.5 times the cost in the USA), maintenance, and insurance. Then enough of them figure out they really can’t afford a car, and try to sell it.
At any rate, it’s distinctly more difficult to find a parking place in Montevideo than a few years ago, to the point that I usually don’t even try, and head to a parking garage instead.
We got on well with Charles and Linda, the photographers from my last post, so I suggested we do the free walking tour of Montevideo, which I’d never done. The weather was forecast yesterday to be lovely, and it was.
The tour begins in Plaza Independencia, site of the fabulously overwrought Palacio Salvo, apparently once the tallest building in South America. Our tour guide, however, told us there’s Palacio Barolo in Buenos Aires, built a few years earlier to the slightly lesser height by the same architect.
I won’t bore you with a blow-by-blow, but here were a few noteworthy sightings.
Under “STOP,” someone has stenciled “de comer animales.” Stop eating animals. Optimistic soul: Uruguay has the highest per-capita annual beef consumption in the world.
In the Plaza Matriz or Plaza Constitución (take your pick, as you are welcome to do with Uruguay’s year of independence – maybe 1830 or maybe 1824 or…), street vendors have interesting historical items for sale.
But for North Carolinians Charles and Linda, it was the NC Highway Patrol patch that caught their eye. Is there really a market for this stuff in Montevideo? Apparently.
And then this: Happy arrival in Montevideo, showing a couple falling down marble stairs.
Is there a story behind this, or an inside joke?
Oh yes, and the interesting fence design in Plaza Zabala….
It took us three consecutive day trips to Montevideo to get our Uruguayan passports renewed (actually to get our Credenciales Cívicas updated, a process gratuitously complexified by various functionaries in different government offices) – but we’re now good for ten years, yay! The latter two days involved lunch at new places: Lisandro, offering a variety of sandwiches and salads, but better yet, a peaceful location in crazy Carrasco, and Estrecho, similar fare but better, on Sarandí, the busy walking street in Ciudad Vieja. (Fun to note that Lisandro’s web site offers the address of their other location in Zonamerica as “Driving Rage,” which could, in this country, well be a Freudian slip.)
Yesterday, in Estrecho, the waitress gave us tourist map.
At first glance, it seemed promising.
But then I looked closer.
I guess the idea is you find a bike and make your way, maze-like, through this circuit that just kinda looks like it was laid out to accommodate the sponsoring restaurants and stores. Since we were recently in the area, I looked closer and quickly found a couple that gave addresses nowhere near their Carrasco locations.
On the flip side, this:
Postage-stamp sized listings of exactly 100 businesses, with details in 6-point type.
In terms of design, it’s attractive, and not particularly informative. It might be interesting to follow some of these routes, but I find nothing compelling about them. Nor would I settle on any of the sponsoring restaurants without learning more about them.
In the end, though, it’s got maps. And I love maps!
Running errands in Montevideo the other day, I saw a building that seemed to share my sentiments about the weather.
Then, on Av. Italia, something I probably should have seen at some point but never have.
But then, I note it wasn’t there in October 2015. And it’s not as though I’m on Avenida 18 de Julio driving, seeing as it’s one of my least favorite streets to drive on in Montevideo. Narrow lanes and lots of buses and pedestrians.
We normally don’t spend a lot of time in art galleries.
Yesterday was an exception.
The current show features five contemporary ceramic artists,
each with a unique “voice,” as the introduction states.
The gallery has a skylight, which casts dramatic shadows.
The setting, an old building with exposed brick and very old beams, is quite lovely. Not a bad place to spend an hour when you have no choice.
And we had no choice. We were waiting for legal papers. Specifically, a power of attorney to sell some property in Mexico.
What’s that got to do with an art gallery?
All the pictures above are from the ground floor of the Mexican Embassy in Montevideo. When we arrived, the receptionist remember who we were, and why we were there. The consul was gracious and welcoming.
The Mexican Embassy in Montevideo: warm and welcoming.
Now, I have nothing bad to say about the US Embassy personnel in Montevideo. They were in fact surprisingly accommodating when I recently renewed my passport.
US Embassy in Montevideo. Not warm and welcoming.
But one can’t help but notice the contrast, even without surrendering all personal possessions and passing through several bomb-proof doors for the privilege of entering.
Construction symbolically started on July 4, 1966. US Independence day. At that time, the diplomatic pouch from Washington, DC, sometimes included fine wires that could be inserted between teeth, in order to apply an electrical charge to the gums. No, it wasn’t for oral hygiene.
For anyone who has dealt with driving in Uruguay, there is nothing here particularly unusual: a pedestrian wandering into a highway, curious interpretations of the meanings of those lines in the road, red lights that don’t apply to city buses.
Espacio Ciencia is an interactive science museum next to the Portones shopping center in Montevideo. I had never noticed it before yesterday, when we made one of our “OK,we really need to go” trips to Montevideo. Because driving to and in Montevideo is not something I think anyone likes. But going by bus is worse.
Long ago I dreamed of making giant ants, and placing them in the trees of our property in North Carolina. Warms my heart to see someone else went through with it!
There is a reported case of Dengue Fever in Pocitos, one of the most upscale and populous regions of Montevideo. And a couple dozen more suspected cases.
So, what’s a government to do?
Why, the obvious: freak out and poison every living thing in the vicinity, assuredly killing every bee, butterfly, and ladybug, and probably severely impacting the health of small pets and children as well. Oh, yeah, and I guess it kind of wipes out any songbirds too
But you can be sure it’s perfectly safe, and that the HAZMAT suits are just a fashion statement. Some politico went on TV to say that rather than shut themselves inside, residents should open all their windows to allow the lovely curative chemical vapors to permeate everything in their living space.
Reminiscent of the USA in the 1950s: running behind the DDT truck…
Just another day in Yesterguay.
Pocitos photos courtesy of Lee Nelson. DDT photo shamelessly kited from somewhere.
