Tag: motorcycles

The electrician’s ladder

Time to replace the ceiling fan in our bedroom, a job I was not going to do myself — too high. The electrician brought a four-part folding ladder that wasn’t tall enough, and neither would my extension ladder work. By itself.

improvised ladder, Uruguay

Since I had just started a massage in the next room when he arrived shortly after 2 PM (having said he’d be there at 10 AM), he poked around in my workshop, found rope and wire, and assembled this. My ladder is on the left; his is folded over it. Rope, many pieces of wire….

Hey, it worked!

But how did he transport a ladder on a motorbike?

carrying a ladder on a motorbike, Uruguay

Easy! Notice the tool box balanced in front of him as well.

 

The whine of organ donors

cool summer eve
but holidays
and traffic
and motorcycles
up the coast highway
and the two-lane beach road
many thousand RPM

no police but once
i did hear a siren
and many thousand RPM
went to zero
for a while

(their noise annoys
perhaps more than the neighbors
who cut their lawn
with a weedeater)

but gratitude is key in life
and for healthy young organs
more likely to be shared
at many thousand RPM
i suppose we should say
thank you
in advance

Motard?

motard

Doesn’t play well to my ear, even (or especially) knowing (which I didn’t) its Urban Dictionary definition: an obnoxiously enthusiastic US Marine. Another definition: Un motard, ou motocycliste, est un conducteur de motocyclette. Les conducteurs de side-car, de trike et les pilotes de compétition peuvent également porter ce nom. The funny thing about that definition is that I got to the end of the second sentence before I realized it was in French. Up until then it’s just a couple of letter-changes away from Spanish.

 

 

Una Harley para papá

If there’s one thing I’d care to win less than a trip to Brazil for the UY-UK match, it’s probably a noisy, rattling and dangerous (especially given Uruguayan drivers) pile of outdated technology. Not that I stand a chance of winning (oh, such stinkin’ thinkin’!) but fortunately cupones (coupons) were only offered upon purchase of certain Father’s Day (today in Uruguay) items, and we’ve only bumbled into a couple of those the last few weeks.

harley

Around $9,000 new in the land of the Untied Snakes, prolly $19-20,000 here. I found the local web site, but under precios it has no prices. It does have an enticing shot of snow-capped mountains, though …

harley-mountains

… amusing because Uruguay has neither snow nor mountains. Oh, details.

How things work (officially) in Uruguay

confiscated motorbikes, Atlántida, Uruguay
Confiscated motorbikes behind the Intendencia.
Judging by the tree growing, they’ve been there a while.

How things work (officially) in Uruguay is seldom the same as how they work in reality.

When I realized, in 2012, that I’d forgotten to renew my driver’s license (doing the homologación from a foreign license is easy, but they only gave me two years), I researched and discovered that 1) if you miss renewal by under two weeks, no problem, 2) between two weeks and two years, you have to take the written and driving test, and 3) after two years you have to take driving school.

In my case, the two weeks had passed, and the two years would come next October, but my foreign license—from Mexico—expires two days from now.

Today was my appointment. I was a little nervous about taking a test in Spanish, though I had studied the Manual de Aspirantes and found nothing daunting. I figured the driving part was no problem. I’ve gone 40 years without an accident (other than bozos running into me).

The whole process took over and hour and a half: present required paperwork. Wait. Name called. Take paperwork to cashier, pay $1,000 (USD 45). Get in line. Give receipt. Wait. Name called. Photo taken. Wait. Name called. Sign here; here’s your license.

But officially ….

Have tajamar, seek water

Insatllation of septic system, rural Uruguay

After yesterday’s pozo negro, our friendly backhoe (retroexcavadora) operator started in on the tajamar, or pond (background) in the local lingo, which we hope will fill with runoff water, for which here he’s digging a diversion channel from the road. ‘Tis an experiment; I’m not sure rainewater will be enough, but we always have the windmill, and by now a considerable length of hose, since I planted out fruit trees far from the house.

Backhoe carrying motorbike, rural Uruguay

Last night he parked his backhoe at our neighbor’s, because someone lives there. He left on his moto, and I was wondering about the logistics of that.

Lo me encanta, I said as I watched him strap the moto into the bucket as he prepared to leave. I love it.

Uruguayo, he replied, beaming, of course pronouncing it ur-u-GUA-zho.

¡Cinco!

After almost four years here, I finally saw it: five people on a motorbike, an entire family.

Configuration: kDkM&i — kid in front, Dad driving, kid between, and Mom clutching an infant behind.

No helmets, of course. (To their credit, they weren’t on a fast/busy street, unlike the ones I showed here and here.)

Remember, here you often see cars like this. And if you want to see for yourself how ridiculous the prices for used cars can be, spend a few minutes rummaging around Mercado Libre…U$S means US dollars, simply $ means Uruguayan pesos, currently 20/USD. When we moved here in 2007, I sold my used Toyota 4Runner which, at best, might have fetched USD 7,500 in the US. Here, I found the equivalent listed for USD 32,500.

Helps put into perspective the otherwise insane thought of a young family of five on a motorbike, especially when you reflect on the difficulty of earning a living.