Montevideo
Monday, August 10th, 2009The typical route north out of BA is to follow on up to recoleta before heading to the falls of iguazu. Its a route I was interested in but one which Marilyn was not, I was happy enough to go along with her ideas as she spoke of a fishing village along the north eastern coast of Uruguay which sounded a little bit like paradise. So we took the ferry across from BA to Colonia. Now this is where the tourist conspiracies kick in, there were two ferries which we could have gotten, the first would have gotten us to Montevideo in time for a bus that would drop us off in the town of Punta Del Diablo.
Of course we slept in and didn’t make it on time to catch the quick one, so we ended up on the slow one and were left with the prospect of a late night arrival in a strange town. Thinking caps on, I sat on the boat and the mind started to wander, I couldn’t help but be distracted by the number of soccer jerseys being sported around the place. Now I know that south America is a soccer mad place but this was disproportionate especially considering that most of the jerseys were the same. Finally it clicked, Copa Liberadetores!! The team that shocked Boca Juniors a couple of weeks back were from Montevideo, it figures that the team they were playing were juan Sebastian verons Estudiantes!!
I nudged Marilyn and suggested that a night in Montevideo might not be a bad idea after all. Montevideo is a run down city, there doesn’t seem to be alot to the place. Now to be honest we only spent 1 night there and that was spent exclusively between the area the governs the route from the football stadium that hosted the first ever world cup final to the hostel to the bus station. All tourist guides point to a completely separate part of town said to contain all manner of cultural attractions but given our timescale we did have the chance to visit the place properly. More important things were afoot. From the bus station the football stadium is about a 20 minute walk, set in the middle of a city park you don’t have to get too close to see that its a dilapidated wreck of a place. I attempted to make the process of ticket purchase as quick as possible as there were a few shady characters about asking for pesos and what not. As a result I ended up getting the cheapest tickets going which after a few minutes occurred to me that I had bought tickets right in with the ultras, i.e. the hard core set of fans. Oops, oh well. We ventured off, tickets in hand to find some accommodation before tucking into some chow and returning for the game itself.
We missed most of the preamble, well when I say most I mean we missed the entire thing. Arriving just in time for kick off the back of the goals was a flood of ticker tape and confetti, fireworks and chanting. The stand was grossly oversold so a view point took a while to find. While walking along looking for such a place a guy fell from the top of an exit tunnel to the ground below, a good 12 feet to concrete, it had to hurt. Eventually we got a spot to watch the game, the atmosphere was electric. The home team was up against it from the start and despite the phenomenal home support they succumbed to a 2-1 defeat. But even in defeat they sang louder than you could imagine, it truely felt like an amazing experience. Copa liberadetores right in the heart of south America.
Phil Gill