Uruguay: Not Myuguay

Colonia and Montevideo:

It´s not easy leaving my comfortable little life in Buenos Aires, but Uruguay calls, and so Stephen and I say goodbye to Daniela and Marcelo and to Schuster as well, who will stay in Buenos Aires a while longer and then go his own way at his own pace.

The Buquebus ferries us from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. Colonia is a picturesque town with cobblestone streets, a lighthouse, and Sycamore trees and mopeds everywhere you look. Its cafes spill over the sidewalks and onto the cobblestone, and this, the oldest town in Uruguay, is a good indicator of how tranquilo life in Uruguay is.

After spending just a few hours in Colonia, we take a bus to Montevideo, the country´s capital city. Montevideo seems stuck somewhere between the small beach towns in Uruguay and a full-fledged city. (It´s no Buenos Aires; that´s for sure). Horse-drawn buggies collect trash, passing well-dressed business men as they go. The beaches are mediocre, and the only thing to speak of, based on my two days there, is the Port Market. There, at a number of parillas, hefty men (grillmasters, if you will), serve large slabs of meat and chorizos, pulling them off the grill and plopping them onto your plate. Tourists and business men alike go to town on the asados, helping them down with some cold beer. The funniest to watch of them all is Stephen, the born-again carnivore, who can´t decide if he´s delighted or absolutely disgusted.


Punta del Este and Manantiales:

Punta del Este is known for being a resort town that draws in people from all over the world. Argentines, many of whom own summer homes in Punta del Este, cannot say enough about Punta del Este. I, however, am not too impressed. Sure, it has decent beaches, but it could just as easily be a big development in Florida; not to mention that our hostel, equally unimpressive, is the most expensive of the trip thus far, even though high season is over.

Manantiales is about thirty minutes north of Punta del Este. The hostel and nearby beach offer relaxation and, more importantly, a chance to finish my tax return. It´s good riddance and too bad that I didn´t realize earlier that I would be receiving a sizeable refund, as I may have extended my trip.


La Paloma:

La Paloma, or at least our hostel there, is a manifestation of the buena onda of Uruguay. The hostel is run by a sixty-something man named Ricardo and his two younger, surf bum counterparts, and it sits just across the street from the beach. Santiago, one of the younger owners, checks us in, and he wears nothing but his swim trunks the whole while we're there.

Due in part to the small group staying at the hostel - roughly ten people from Sweden, Australia, Germany and the U.S. - we receive first class treatment from our hosts. They join in the soccer matches on the beach, and it's the first time I've ever seen a sixty year-old man (Ricardo) do a headball, and a good one at that. Ricardo also takes it upon himself to man the fire pit and the grill in the evenings, and he serves up delicious caiprinhas, the national drink of Brazil, from the bar. It's tempting to stay the week, like the brother and sister from Boulder and the three Swedish soccer players, but it's onward to Barra de Valizas to meet my aunt Jayne.


Barra de Valizas and Cabo Polonio:

Jayne, who's residing in Valizas for a month and a half and the only gringa around, meets us at the bus stop and shows us to the duplex of her friend Milton, where we'll stay for a few days. The cozy hippie cabin smells like an antique store and has knicknacks on the walls. The town itself, with about 200 residents, is also hippie. The streets are of grass and sand, and the "potholes" are patched with rocks and hay by volunteers; all of the public utilities, in fact, are done by volunteers, and the only form of government to be found are a couple of police officers who are probably not really needed. Horses graze on every block, and the locals wave and say hello as you pass.

Milton, the owner of the cabin in which we're staying, is from Valizas, but he lived as a hippie in the United States for twenty-two years and in Mexico for four. He tells us about the fishermen in Valizas, who just recently dug out the delta of the river to create an estuary to attract more fish; about the nearby magnetic strip in the ocean that has caused compasses to fail and many ships to wreck; and about living out of a backpack and being homeless for twenty-six years. He also talks about the book he has self-published: an account of his ten year search for inner peace, which he tells us is necessary to be at peace with the world, and the impact of the environment on spirituality. Milton is well-spoken, and he hardly resembles a hippie, with sophisticated, tortoise-rimmed glasses and a Coca-Cola hat that covers his thick, well-kempt, pearly-white hair.

Besides listening to Milton's stories and philosophies, we get a first-hand glimpse into Jayne's day-to-day life in Valizas. How about doing a little "dead bug" in her yoga studio - a comforter on the grass - after having some wine and tea, and why not a good body surfing session in the afternoon? The ocean is browned from the waters of the river, and we ponder whether the newly formed estuary attracts sharks; we enjoy the surf nonetheless. In the evenings, we make dinner and sip more wine, and I'm eager to hear Jayne's plans for me, which include starting a travel photography workshop. It's encouraging, especially at this juncture, when I can sense the end of the trip is near and when I am dreading a harsh reality of fruitless job searching.

On the second-to-last day in Uruguay, Stephen and I make the trip to Cabo Polonio, the neighboring town that's inacessible by road and that wouldn't be in existence if not for the government's plan, some years back, to plant pine trees along the coast in order to break up the monotony of the sand dunes. A local ferries us across the river from Valizas to the dunes (not completely wiped out by the pine), and what could be an hour and a half walk to Cabo turns into a four-hour walk. We stop to admire the ponds and boulders within the dunes, run down the largest of the dunes, and, back at the shore (where the beaches are empty except for a couple of passers-by and some cows), we jump into the brown and then emerald green water to cool off (a visible line divides the ocean water that's mingled with the river water and that which has not). Cabo itself is not bad, but the journey there was a lot more fun. The journey back to Valizas was interesting as well, with a 4x4 ride along the beach and through the pine to the main highway and then hitch-hiking with a family from Valizas back to the center of town .