I went to Uruguay, but it was closed

20070826_Colonia

Yesterday was the worst day for weather since I arrived here in early July. That day was the first day of snow in Buenos Aires since 1918. What better way to enjoy miserable weather than taking a ferry boat ride to another country?

Colonia del Sacramento is the oldest town in Uruguay, a World Heritage site, and only one hour away across the Rio de la Plata, so it was high on our list of must-sees.

As I walked through the cold, dark, wet streets yesterday morning, my half-broken umbrella flapping in the wind, I did wonder if this was a good idea.
However, I didn't want to disappoint my colleagues by staying home. Perhaps it would get better later.

The ferry terminal was only a few minutes walk away, and we arrived in plenty of time (for any normal ferry terminal). I failed to allow for the comic opera of life in Argentina.

First, we couldn't pre-purchase the tickets because they had to see our passports. Then we had to take the vouchers to the cashier's desk to pay. Then we got our tickets. At this point we queued for security, got through the x-ray and found out we also needed boarding passes. Boarding passes obtained, we were directed out of the building and back onto the street. Why? Because that was where the courtesy bus was parked. This is the first ferry terminal I have ever seen where you drive off somewhere else once you have checked-in.

The ferry ride was uneventful - so uneventful that my colleagues (who had been up late the night before), dozed off as we cast off and didn't move until we docked at Colonia at about 10:00.

Any hope that the weather would be better on the eastern side of the Rio del Plata was swiftly dashed. It was worse. Rain, wind and gloom. No mud, but plenty of slippery cobblestones. We called a taxi for the short ride to the centre of Colonia and got out to enjoy the World Heritage site.

No question Colonia is very pretty. I could easily imagine the happy porteños crowding the cobbled streets and beaches in the summer time. This day, everybody appeared to be huddled inside trying to get warm.

By 10:30 we retreated to find coffee and toasted sandwiches, and tried to work what to do next to keep our blood circulating. It was too early on a Sunday for anything interesting to be open.

We had heard from one of the taxi drivers that Colonia had just opened a mall (yes, pathetic, but we were very cold), so we drove there. The mall turned out to be roughly the size of an Olympic swimming pool, so twenty minutes exhausted its recreational possibilities.

The next taxi driver had heating and turned out to be a well-informed local, so we adopted him as our impromptu tour guide. He took us to see the famous Colonia bull ring - built in 1910, used 8 times and closed in 1912. He also showed us where Diego Maradona used to live, and where people go to the beach in summer.

We spent another hour or so touring the town's two small museums.

The museum of colonial history is in a historic and partly-restored house. They have some interesting 18thC documents regarding the early history of Colonia, though stored in poor environmental conditions, and quite badly foxed. Donations for a climate-controlled case are recommended.

The indigenous museum is also entertaining, particularly for small, round rocks, of which they have a large collection.

By now it was lunchtime, and a cozy restaurant with hot food seemed very appealing. We made our way to a big stone tower on the waterfront that served approximate Italian. I can't remember the name, and I can't find a review to check. We ate on the second floor of the tower, looking out at the rain blowing across the big brown river. We ordered soup to start - the tower was cold enough we could see our breaths, and we needed the warmth. I know there is an energy crisis across the river, but it was less than 10 degrees in there.

It took me three attempts and nearly an hour to get my main course - first they confessed that they ran out of gnocchi, then they brought the alternative pasta with the wrong sauce. It seems that "quatras quesos" sounds just like "portuguezas" in Uruguayan Spanish. When the food did arrive though, it was good.

At 15:00 it was time to return to the ferry terminal. Everything ran smoothly through the rather eccentric emigration process, up until the point where our US colleague was detained at the border. We thought perhaps the United States had been behaving badly in Uruguay, but no, he did not have a stamped copy of his original boarding pass from the morning. Some arguments in Spanish later, he was grudgingly allowed to leave Colonia. He really didn't seem to enjoy the next twenty minutes of jokes about being detained in an immigration lockup until we sent a consul from Buenos Aires to rescue him. I just counted my blessings nobody asked me - the morning's boarding pass was one of the many soggy bits of paper that blew away during the course of the day.

By this time we were a little paranoid about what would await us going back into Argentina. The answer was - nothing... I suppose if you are getting on a vessel that only goes one place, there isn't much point in doing immigration at both ends.

It was only back in Buenos Aires, as we walked back toward the hotel, that the others confessed to their own second thoughts about the weather. If we had all been a little more selfish, we could have slept in! All in all though, it was a fun day out, and I'm looking forward to going back when the sun is shining.

Of course this Monday morning we awoke to a perfect cloudless sky. Curse the weather gods for their sense of humour.

the world heritage game

I scratched Uruguay off the country list over the weekend - I think I'm getting bored with the country game. Here's a new one - the world heritage game.
UNESCO publishes the World Heritage List. To quote UNESCO, the World Heritage List includes 851 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value.
This game is a lot simpler than the country game because UNESCO has made the decision about what constitutes a World Heritage Site for you.
All you have to do for it to count is to have set foot on a site on the list.
I'm not doing too badly.
In Australia, I have visited Tasmanian Wilderness, Wet Tropics of Queensland, Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens, and Sydney Opera House.
In Belgium, La Grand-Place, Brussels, Historic Centre of Brugge, and the Major Town Houses of the Architect Victor Horta (Brussels) (just one of them).
In China, the Great Wall, Summer Palace, an Imperial Garden in Beijing (had dinner there), and the Historic Centre of Macao.
In the Czech Republic, the historic Centre of Prague.
In Luxembourg, the City of Luxembourg: its Old Quarters and Fortifications.
In New Zealand, Te Wahipounamu and Tongariro National Park.
In Poland, Cracow's Historic Centre, Wieliczka Salt Mine, Auschwitz Birkenau
German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp, and the Historic Centre of Warsaw.
In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd (Conwy only), and the Tower of London.
In the United States of America, Yosemite National Park.
In Uruguay, Historic Quarter of the City of Colonia del Sacramento.
Wow, I never added them all up before...

revisiting recoleta

20070820_BA_Recoleta

I have been waiting for 5 weeks for a sunny weekend day to revisit Recoleta.
I spent an hour strolling around the mad wonderland of funeral art - stark pyramids, deco slabs of black granite, miniature Gothic cathedrals, and mournful marble everywhere.
After a while it became weirdly cheerful.
Perhaps it was the American tourists who had two topics of conversation: "Where's Evita's tomb?", and "Look at the poor kitties, do you think someone feeds them?".
Somebody was definitely feeding them yesterday - every grubby cat I saw (not already sleeping in the sun) was filling up on kibble.

abrazos gratis (free hugs)

Perhaps it was the weather, perhaps people were just tired of being grumpy, but everywhere I went today, I saw little moments of ordinariness and goodwill.

Two men had one of the the little braziers the street vendors use to make popcorn and toasted nuts. They were struggling to get a tin bucket of wood chips and charcoal burning under it. A third man in a security guard's uniform hopped off a bus with three big pieces of wood nailed together and brought it over to them.

A taxi broke down on the same street. Another taxi showed up with a tow rope to haul it away.

A man, scavenging for scrap metal in a skip near Plaza de Mayo, had a small child with him in a pushchair. The young policeman I thought was walking over to tell off the scavenger, had a biscuit for the child, and a friendly word for the man.

An elderly busker playing an accordion and singing old songs had his own private fan club in the well-dressed man who sang along with all the choruses.

Two off-duty living statues strolled down Belgrano with the remnants of silver paint all over their faces.

The Puma concept store on Estados Unidos in San Telmo had sprayed graffiti saying "no es Palermo". And they were right - San Telmo may be shabby, but it has its pride.

The beggar children on Florida made enough change to go to Macdonalds.

On Defensa, they were giving away free hugs (see the picture if you don't believe me), and there was a tango ensemble on every corner.

And, most miraculously of all, every time I got change, they gave me one-peso and 25 centavo coins for my laundry.

sonnet español

Alfonso the eleventh, a former king of Spain
Was often plagued by nightmares of worms within his brain.
Fearful of doctors' derision, but more for the state of his head,
he stationed twelve hungry sparrows in ranks at the head of his bed.

Each night as he donned his nightgown,he would whisper to his sparrows,
"Watch out for those wormies, be swift and sure as arrows,
If you see them peeking from the innards of my ears,
Peck and snap and gobble up those beasties of my fears."

Alfonso's wife, a patient sort, endured this for some time,
The sparrow poo, the twittering, Alfonso's nightly rhyme.
Eventually she had enough - the birdies had to go.
The worms, the rhymes, the ghastly noise - and so did Alfonso.

Accept that quite uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,
But don't let worms obsess you - that really brings you down.

misty morning in madero

20070814_BA_Puerto_Madero

It was quite foggy along the dique this morning. After a couple of days of drizzle and low clouds it was starting to feel like I was back in England.

The mists finally began to burn off about 7:30, with some nice cinematic effects as they departed.

It must have been unusual weather, because it made it into Reuters' pictures of the day

the country game

have you ever played the country game with a well-travelled group of friends? Pick people with full passports, or it can turn ugly. The principle of the game is to see who has visited the most countries, but most of the fun comes from getting agreement on the rules.
Here are a few basic rules to start you off:

1. England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales count as one country.
2. Republic of Ireland is a separate country.
3. Macau is not a country.
4. Neither is Bali.
5. Nor is Tasmania (though they are different).
6. Hong Kong only counts separate from China if you visited before 1997.
7. The Vatican does not count as a country if you have also been to Italy.
8. You have to have left the airport for the country to count. Note that being stuck overnight in an airport hotel does not count (there goes Denmark).
9. Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya count as two countries regardless of the local opinion.
10. Gibraltar, however, only counts as one because it's too small to bother with.
11. The West Bank only counts if you passionately believe in the Palestine Free State.
12. The former Yugoslavia counts as one, two, several or none, depending on the year of your visit.
13. Slovakia and the Czech Republic only count as two if you visited after the Velvet Revolution.
14. Former Soviet Socialist Republics all count as separate countries, regardless of when you went, because of difficulty credits.
15. Out of respect for the Chagossians, so does Diego Garcia.
16. Antarctica gets triple points, but isn't really a country.
17. You get bonus points for supersets, e.g. Benelux, all 7 continents, all members of NATO, all members of ASEAN, all former French colonies, etc.

My current count is around 20, but I'm not quite sure about Taiwan. Happy travelling!

nothing ever happens in buenos aires

well, it was a slow weekend in Buenos Aires this time. Too cold and grey to do anything adventurous except stay warm.
Friday evening we introduced the locals to the great Australian tradition - Friday night drinks and a game of pool at the local bar. A quiet but enjoyable time was had by all.
After drinks three of us (notably those with no real homes to return to) moved on to dinner in the next block of buildings.
We were introduced to a new (I believe Brazilian) style of dining. You load up at the salad bar, then sit at your table while waiters bring by an endless stream of platters of barbecued dead animal for you to select from.
Yes, it's dead cow time again.
Fortunately the salad bar was good, so I didn't go home hungry. They had a couple of nice little touches - a large vermouth to start with, and a free bottle of red for paying with Mastercard.
If only I had a Mastercard. However, as it was my colleague's third Mastercard bonus bottle in three nights, he generously donated it to me (the only non-red drinker in Argentina). Still, a little rough red always helps a nice pasta pomodoro.
The next morning I was up bright and early for the 5km trek to the supermarket. Did I say 4km last time? Well, the nastier the weather the further it gets.
As I strolled along the dique, I noticed that the building we were dining in the night before was on fire, or at least smoking furiously. That barbecue must have been smokier than even the chef intended. This lasted for quite a while before the fire engines started to arrive. By the time I wandered past later everything was back to normal. I'm not sure the Saturday lunchers even left their seats...
On my long walk to the Disco supermarket for fat-free milk, I passed construction workers and naval officers and the occasional bit of public art. It is a little unnerving walking past monuments to the glorious defenders of the city against the English in 1806 and remember it wasn't that long ago we were on opposite sides of a disagreement involving large ships and guns. Around here you don't mention the war (any of them).
The amount of public artwork on display seems to be a good index for the relative wealth and strength of central government in a country. It seems that if you're short of cash and not sure people like you, the thing to do is make some kind of grand gesture (and feed a sculptor).
Sunday was the Costanera Sur fun run, which I watched from my 5th floor balcony in my slippers. It was about 5 degrees out there, but lots of people braved the cold. As I walked up Belgrano into San Telmo a while later, I passed the survivors hobbling along, limping and looking chilled but noble. Memo to self - I promise to go to the gym this week.
Nothing much else to report for this week - I saw some more decorative buildings in San Telmo, saw a really good tango group busking (bought the CD), watched kiddies feed the rat-birds in Plaza de Mayo and found myself a nice warm mall to spend money in for the rest of the afternoon.

20070805_BA_San_Telmo