From Bmore to BA

Los Diarios de la motocicleta, Part II

¨Heehee. Look at this country. ´You are gay.´ ¨ - Homer Simpson, pointing to Uruguay on a map´

As one of the smallest countries in South America - and, being sandwiched between Brazil and Argentina - Uruguay just seems to get nooo respect. To me it least, it seems like the differences between Uruguay and Argentina are like those between Canada and the US - slight differences in accent, less crime, nicer people, cleaner, high vulnerability to the economic situation of its much larger neighbor, etc… However, upon closer inspection, it becomes quite evident that the country once referred to as ¨the Switzerland of South America¨(alot of companies are headquartered there because of tax and banking laws) has much more to it than it may seem.

After I caught the boat from Buenos Aires to Colonia (which is just across the River), it was onto a bus for another 3 hour ride across the country to Montevideo. Driving across the interior of Uruguay is liking driving across the midwest - it´s very flat, and there´s a whole lot of nothing (with the glaring exception of cattle grazing). The real asset in Uruguay lies is its coast, where most of the cities are located.

Anyway, enough with the geography lesson…here are the details.

I got into Montevideo, the southernmost capital in South America (OK fine, now I´ll really stop) on Saturday afternoon. Coming from BA, it´s really a nice place to lay low and enjoy yourself. It´s got big buildings, nice restaurants, concerts, and all of the amenities of a big city…but it´s just not that big. Also, Montevideo is basically on a peninsula that just out into the sea, so the beach wraps around the entire city. The weather was pretty crappy for most of my stay, but on the 2nd last day the sun came out so I made it to one of the beaches with a Brazilian guy…suffice it to say he had a good laugh, but I really enjoyed it.

Anyway, some pros and cons.

Cons
Well, I guess depending on how you look at it, this could go either way:
- Aside from the usual dish of Black Eyed Peas, the clubs in this city for some reason found it necessary to play Pump Up the Jam at least 5 times a night. I can´t remember the other songs, but for a minute there I felt like I was at Orchard Skateland, circa 1993. Damn kids we are getting old.
- Also, the clubs here and in Mendoza really need to chill with the strobelight - on more than one occasion I felt an epilectic seizure coming on.

Pros
- Drinks and covers were absurdly cheap. $2 for a whisky and coca-cola with 3/4 whisky and 1/4 coke? Shyeaah
- The old city. It´s mad ¨tranquilo.¨Being an old port town, there´s a really cool area of the city that is basically a bunch of crumbling buildings from back in the day…of course it gets shady at night, so it´s always a fun time.
- The hostel I stayed at was actually clean, had comfortable beds, and had a really good group of people from all over. As always, hostels are the way to go…its just such a good way to meet people and find out whats going down. One night I actually made it out to a jazz concert at this tiny little bar, because on the guys staying at the hostel is taking lessons from the sax player in the band.
- The Sunday Feria. Spanning 7 blocks of city streets, one artist informed me that this was the ¨biggest fair in South America on Sundays…¨ But, as Casey Cohen said to me in Barcelona, after being told for the xth time that some telephone pole was the biggest one in Europe - I don´t believe anything these people say. Anyway, the fair was fantastic - much better, in my opinion, than the fairs that I´ve seen in BA (in Palermo and San Telmo). I couldn´t resist so bought a bunch of stuff, including a beautiful painting for the equivalent of$16. I also bought a children´s book there that is supposed to be for 9 year olds (thinking that perhaps I could read at a 9 year old level). I´m struggling…
- Seinfeld. I caught the episode with¨Man Hands¨ where Kramer gets a job and Elaine starts hanging out with Kevin, Gene, and Feldman…what a classic, no?
- Just kicking it. To be honest, I was really beat when I got to the city, the weather sucked, and I was there on a Sunday and Monday so alot stuff was closed - so I really didn´t do too much other than hang out and walk around and soak up the ambience. There´s a ¨rambla¨ - which is basically a walkway - next to the water, all around the city, so it was fun just hanging out by there.

Yesterday I left Montevideo early and took the bus back to Colonia. After I arrived in Colonia, I saw that there were so many places advertising motor scooter and golf cart rentals. Hmmm…I thought to myself, sounds fun, but how much does it cost? $4 US an hour for a scooter rental - I´m sold. So for the next 3 hours I drove around the cobblestoned streets in the city…and, what was even more fun, drove a few KM or so outside of the city to some remote beaches. I´d never ridden a motor scooter before, but this thing booked. Flying down the road, right next to the beach…man it was a good time. I seriously want to go back to Colonia just to do the rental again.

Colonia is a gorgeous city. It´s from the 1600´s, so its all just a bunch of old colonial buildings and streets, but its surrounded by water. Apparently it´s a huge daytrip destination for Argentines, because almost everyone I met was from BA.

So everything is going well…I return the scooter and head down to the port, nice and early, just to make sure I make the boat back to Buenos Aires tonight. I´m waiting in line to buy my ticket, but then I realize that my back feels a little light. Oh yeh, I left my travel backpack (not my daypack) at the bus station. Oops. That´s only 10 minutes away, so run up there to get it, with about 20 minutes to spare. Phew…I made it. I pay for my ticket, check in, then get up to customs. It seems when the guy who checked my passport after I arrived in Uruguay 4 days earlier assured me, ¨nooooo señor, you don´t NEED a stamp,¨ he was clearly mistaken (bastard). After 5 minutes of arguing with customs - who insisted I was now an illegal alien - they said I could either pay the fine or be stuck in Uruguay. The fine was $16 bucks, so I chalked it up as just another trip expense. The thing is, I had spent all of my Uruguayan pesos because I was leaving and had no use for them, and I didn´t have any argentine pesos or US dollars either. Of course, my old handy trick of paying with the good ´ol credit card failed me here as well…So, with 10 minutes left before the boat left, I had to find this money. I drop my bags off with customs and hightail back to bus station, draw 400 Uruguayan pesos (16 US), run back to the boat terminal, pay the fine, drag my two bags onto the boat, and then pass out for a good hour.
It´s funny no matter how conscious I try be about time, I swear I come perilously close to almost missing my boat/bus/train/plane every single time I go somewhere.

Sorry, no pics as of yet. The internet cafe I´m in doesnt have a USB connection, but I´m staying at my friends place now so hopefully I can get on his comp. and upload some stuff. My plan now is to stay in BA and to hang out in BA for a half week, catch up with some people and tie up some loose ends, go to the Boca Juniors game on Saturday (one of the most famous futbol teams in the world), catch the Ravens-Steelers game on MNF (like it matters anyway, what the HELL happened to all of my sports teams this year), then move back to Cordoba on Tuesday and settle down for a little while.

Cheers,

Adam

This has been quite a week. I´ve been hanging out primarily with a group of Irish guys and an Aussie, so suffice it say the debauchery has been in full effect. My poor aching body…Anyway, I´m heading out of Mendoza tonight, with the eventual destination of Montevideo - the capital of Uruguay. The tentative travel plan is this: 14 hour bus to Buenos Aires, 1 hour high-speed boat to Colonia, Uruguay (which is just across the river from Buenos Aires), followed by a 3 hour bus ride to Montevideo. I´m pretty excited to make it out there because aside from the fact that Montevideo is supposedly a nice, chill city, it is right by the beach, boyyyy! Officially, I need to pop over to Uruguay to renew my tourist visa for Argentina for another 3 months, but I envision this trip being more pleasure than business.

So here´s the gamplan: get to Uruguay, renew my visa, spend a few days there, make it back to Buenos Aires in time to catch the Ravens play the Steelers, then take off for Córdoba and finally settle down and try to find some damn work!

My second day in Mendoza (Tuesday) I switched hostels. When your living on a budget from one dive to the next, any minimal level of luxury starts to make you feel uncomfortable…so I had to get back into the game and go to a more ¨budget oriented¨ place. No, seriously, it was nice to be at the first place for a night and actually be able to take a shower where the hotwater doesn´t stop after 2 minutes - and where they have this exotic substance known as ¨soap¨- but it was just plain boring because their were no young people or Argentines around.

So I went to this other hostel on Tuesday, and then the real fun began. 5 minutes after I get there I sign up for ¨parapente¨ (paragliding). The funniest part of this whole excursion - where you basically run off a cliff with a parachute strapped to you back - was that the paragliding part actually turned out to be by far the safest activity of the day. The near head-on collision on our way up to the foot of the mountain provided the first taste of danger…while the ride up the mountain - on a 4×4 vehicle the size of a jeep, stocked with 10 people and as many parachutes - was made even more dramatic considering the ¨path¨ for the vehicle was nothing more than a gravelly footpath, maybe 6 feet wide, carved directly into the side of the mountain. Guardrails? Ha, laughable, man. The sheer drop off the side made for a pretty dramatic ride up (especially when the jeep stalled out and started drifting backwards). It´s funny the whole time the Irish guys and I actually agreed that the ride down in the parachute would very likely prove much less scary. I have pitcures of all of this, but unfortunately I don´t have my link so I won´t be able to post them until I get back to Buenos Aires.

So my instructor and I, Nito, finally jump off the mountain after the wind catches the parachute. We go hurtling up about 100 feet in 5 seconds - it was really a thrill. There are beautiful views all around of Mendoza and the valley…so we´re floating around, taking it all in. And then, surprise surprise, something comes up - I start getting that feeling in my stomache that usually occurs while your plane is rocketing through a thunderstorm. I´m about to lose my lunch, that is. I inform my instructor of this and he immediately hands me a plastic bag, although it´s a bit difficult to spread out the bag when you´re moving 50 miles an hour through the wind. The bag winds up sitting over my face like a film of saran wrap. Anyway, it turns out not to be too bad (and nobody´s clothes are ruined), so after a little while we go to swoop down for a landing. It´s really amazing how well these guys can control the parachute - we landed exactly where they intended, a mile or so away off the launching site at the base camp.

In other news, I´m considering selling my consulting services as matchmaker/love translator. Two nights ago I coached one of my Irish friends through a night at the club, with the end result of him returning back to the hostal sometime around breakfast the following day. Previously, his approach with women consisted of going up to a girl and reading from a phrasebook right in front of her. In fact, the whole group of Irish guys had me write down a quick cheat sheet of critical phrases (i.e. ¨sus ojos son mas bonitas en todo el mundo¨ - I learned that one in Spain, look it up) before they took off yesterday for northern Argentina. They really were a great bunch of guys. However, I regret to inform you that despite their best efforts to persuade me that the old Irish stereotypes really were just stereotypes, when they arrived at the hostel their first night with a dozen or so beers, their arguments lost a bit of steam. I feel like the past week has been one big running joke: So a Jew, an Aussie, and 4 Irish guys go to a bar…

Anyway, in terms of my own love life, there´s nothing much to note. But, I did have a ¨date¨ last night with a nice Mendocina I met a few days ago. Basically we just BS´d for a few hours, but it was a great way to practice my spanish and I´m seriously getting leaps and bounds better than I´ve ever been.

That´s all for now…gonna head out and enjoy the weather. Since I´ve left Buenos Aires it´s been cloudy for one day…Let´s hope it continues.

Ciao,

Adam

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