Photo of the day, 5/29/2010: in case of emergency, business people are out of luck.

sign on the ferry back to Buenos Aires

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay.

Yesterday we did a large part of the old town walking tour in about an hour (we even stopped a few times and took some detours - it's a small, small town).

a lookout point along the shore

fortressing

Calle de los Suspiros ("Street of Sighs") - original Portuguese cobblestones and home fronts

modern lighthouse, ancient convent ruins

I really have no idea

In the afternoon we decided to wander along the river/beachfront.

At the end of our easterly wandering we came across the old bullfighting ring...

... then headed back west to town through side streets. The neighborhoods were fascinating - ranches next to concrete run-down structures next to colonial beauties next to architectural anomalies.

I never would have expected to see ranch homes. And in between the houses were auto shops, produce stands and frankfurter restaurants. (Why are hot dogs so big here? Inquiring minds want to know...) No neighborhood zoning requirements, apparently.

After a late lunch I headed back to my (blessedly empty!) dorm at the hostel and Kim went to her b&b (think sharing a bathroom with 14 grungy boys finally did her in).

Kim's lunch

Jen's lunch

It's been raining for about 12 hours with no end in sight. Really feels like fall and I am loving it - it will be so weird to go back to summer, sunrises before 7:30am, green trees and wildflowers blooming.

We'll try the museums this morning (which I am guessing might take all of 30 minutes) and then head to the ferry station for Jen's fifth and final take on Buenos Aires...

Photo of the day, 5/28/2010: file under "yum."

gorgeously colorful fruit stands in Colonia del Sacramento

It's like going from San Francisco to Alameda...

... only everyone is carrying mate mugs and thermoses of hot water instead of coffee mugs. That's what the transition from Montevideo to Colonia has been.

Mate. I don't get the big deal. I tried it on the Salinas Grandes trip outside of Salta. It tastes like slightly more bitter green tea. Not bad like I'd expected, but not great. It seems like a pain in the neck too - having to keep your thermos full and carry that plus a mug with no lid plus tea leaves - and heaven help you if you lose your straw. Nope, something else I won't be bringing back to the US with me.

These amazing biscuits they serve for breakfast, on the other hand... A kilo of those to go, please.

This morning I got up early (if 6:15am can be considered "early") to watch the sunrise from the hostel rooftop terrace, and ran across a full moon. A nice surprise.

I think there are still more of those nice surprises in what's left of my South American future...

Photo of the day, 5/27/2010: shunning subtlety.

a cigarette box in Colonia del Sacramento

Why two brains are better than one.

Kim reminded me about the horse-drawn carriage garbage "trucks" in downtown Montevideo. I can't say I have seen anything like that before, at least not in such an urban setting.

She also reminded me about the cleanest bus station in my history of travels - in the small town of Minas, of all places. There were several women constantly mopping the station floors to the point where they were always wet or about to be, and as soon as you used the (also cleanest in my history of travels) bus station bathroom they went right in after you and cleaned.

As we were sitting in one of the small plazas last night watching the sun set a small girl was sweeping all around the center of the plaza, for fun, from the looks of it. Seems that Minas is a firm believer in cleanliness... Which is odd considering that the Montevideo hostel owner lived there for seven years and her hostel was not the cleanest I have stayed in. That might have been due to some construction she explained as a reason for the grit or, more likely, the 14 grungy young men staying in the dorms.

This morning the city was overcast as we enjoyed a surprisingly good pastry and fruit breakfast (which I suspect was a result of the woman being there instead of one of the many teenagers employed at the hostel). This woman kindly gave us a list of all the museums near the hostel even though we kept saying we were leaving this morning. Information that would have been more helpful Monday night, but I am pleased with my Montevideo/Minas experience so whatevs.

balcony of casa de grunge

When we got to the bus station the sun came out. More and more reminiscent of San Francisco...

I noticed that many of the dark-haired women here have dyed their hair burgundy. Wonder if that's the latest European-ish trend?

Off to Colonia del Sacramento now. Should be a nice break from the last two weeks of gogogo before we head back to Buenos Aires for three days of gogogo again. A zero day sipping coffee and meandering around a sleepy, quaint town sounds good to me.

In one week I will have been in Portland for 24 hours. Weird.

Photo of the day, 5/26/2010: cuidado!

Parque Salus - Minas, Uruguay

File under: "And how many people can say that?"

We saw a pretty decent sunset and an almost-full moon in Minas, Uruguay this evening. Neat.

Minas is a smallish town about two hours north of Montevideo.

Kim was interested in visiting because they have a brewery; the brewery is right next to Parque Salus and the "rolling Minas hills" were supposedly a nice change from Montevideo so it sounded good to me too.

I was grumpy this morning. This hostel is ridiculous (I've dealt with no hot water and long waits for showers and mediocre-at-best breakfasts but NO water? in a major metropolitan city no less? come ON!! and that pesky mosquito all night!) and I just wanted to get the hell out of here and be on our way. No coffee to be found until Porky's in Minas, but we found a nice pastry shop on the way to a taxi.

this is actually a coffee shop

Pastry shop guy was pleasant and offered to speak English (have I mentioned that Uruguayan - and Buenos Aires - Spanish is very difficult for me to understand?). Win #1.

Minas Tourist Information lady was SUPER nice, spoke slowly and I understood her perfectly - win #2.

We got everywhere we intended to go, Minas had a surprisingly good town map, and we even got an enthusiasic thumbs up from a bus attendant when we confirmed our final destination. Win #3.

thumbs down to smoking and spitting though

The bus from Minas to Montevideo was very late - unusual here - but it came and dropped us at the Montevideo terminal instead of by the side of the highway. Win #4.

The brewery was just a brewery, though - no tours, no samples, just a large beer-making factory that seems to employ a quarter of the population of Minas and keep the rest imbibed, if all the town bars are any indication.

And the green space was just a tiny green space at the end of a long walk. But there were wild parakeets, a beautiful fall tree and the aforementioned sunset...

... and communication and transportation wins and later, an almost-full moon, so...

... all in all, a good day.

Photo of the day, 5/25/2010: muchas gracias.

on the way to Montevideo's cemetery

Just add sunlight. And a coffee shop or two.

Tuesday morning we had a rather underwhelming breakfast at the fairly underwhelming hostel (location location location is NOT always everything, unfortunately) and ventured out. It was a very overcast morning but weather.com had promised clear skies later so we opted to spend the morning in a few museums and the afternoon in the sunshine.

Walking around that morning we were both not quite ourselves. There was a depressed feel to the overcast city streets which definitely impacted our moods...

And all the dog poo on the sidewalks was making me cranky. But we enjoyed the Museo Torres Garcia very much (once we stopped repeatedly walking past it in search of it!). The Museo del Carnaval was interesting but really lacking in context or anything that would help me to understand the draw of Carnaval... But hey, it was free and I was able to take some photos inside so I'm not complaining.

As we wandered toward our next eventual destination we walked along the bay and stopped for a great lunch in an artsy theater bar. By then the sun was out, our stomachs were happy and our mood had shifted dramatically.

hadn't seen one of those in a loooooooooong time

By the luck of Kim having to tie her shoe we ran across the Cementerio Central and I got to show her why I can spend hours in these places.

It was amazing in a different way than Cuenca's, on a much smaller scale than Buenos Aires', but much larger and more grandiose than those of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia's - and on a whole different level than Pisac's graves in the cliffside. I hadn't seen mausoleums like that before, nor had I seen family monuments quite like that.

I have been to cemeteries in every country I have visited. Mostly on purpose. (Both continents too, surely - I suspect the Antarctic continent and Drake's Passage are their own cemeteries of sorts.) I wonder what that says about me...

Eventually we stumbled upon a neighborhood near the shore which had the same effect on my mood as when Viki and I went from downtown Lima to the more artsy Miraflores neighborhood. My comfort level suddenly quadrupled and it had nothing to do with safety or the weather shift - I just felt at home. Cafes, shops and dogwalkers were everywhere. The people seemed happier. Like with the cemetery obsession, I don't know what my mood shift says about me either, but it did reaffirm that I'm pretty sure Portland is the right place for me, at least for the foreseeable future.

or maybe it just had to do with these GENIUS step-open dumpsters?

We couldn't get into the bizarre Castillo Pittamiglio (Lonely Planet operating hour fail) but we admired it from the outside...

... and wandered back home, stopping at the mall just long enough to use the always-pristine McDonalds bathrooms. I decided to buy some fries as a "thank you" for all the times their bathrooms have saved my life on this trip. Not sure the fries were worth the $0.35 but hopefully it bought me some good karma.

because I don't already look 12

Walking back through the busy, crowded downtown streets to our hostel, our moods shifted again - and our pace increased noticeably. Interesting. I think we walked about 10 miles in total, and after some well-deserved pizza we called it a day.

I wish the mosquito that haunted me all night had done the same. I keep seeing posters warning about dengue fever. That would be just my luck, to survive this long in several countries and so many different environments, only to get dengue fever in metropolitan Montevideo, Uruguay...

Montevideo!

Got to the hostel late Monday night and only had energy to venture out for dinner and a few evening photos of the Plaza Independecia near the hostel, which features a 17m, 30 ton (read: GINORMOUS) statue of the country's independence hero who is buried underneath and whose tomb is guarded 24/7 by armed police.

The city reminded me a lot of San Francisco, probably due to the urban feel (and the Urban Outfitters we saw three blocks from the hostel??) and the rain earlier that gave the streets that wet city smell. Not a bad smell, just familiar, and different than the nostalgia Portland's wet city street smell might conjure.

not pictured: Burger King and McDonald's, both right across the street

Dinner was hilarious thanks to a heavily-Italian-influenced restaurant and waiter, and my new favorite way to order wine: the media litre. It's somewhere between two and three glasses which is just what I needed after that crazy weekend-plus of travel.

After that, sleep. Tuesday's plan was going to have to wait until Tuesday as far as I was concerned... I think Kim agreed.

Photo of the day, 5/24/2010: vino mas barato at the bus station.

1/2 litre for about $2... and pretty decent, I must say

Buenos Aires-Montevideo haikus.

Where had I come from?...
Hostel staff wanted to know
Had to stop and think...

Time is running out
Being a "person" again
Is in my future

Manta surfing pal
At Buenos Aires hostel
It's a small, small world

Planes, buses and ships
Mountains, jungles and cities
Ten border crossings

Kettleman bagel
Then no bread for several months
... Make that two bagels!

(title: in this order...)
Electric toothbrush
Stumptown and peanut butter
Shower and haircut

(title: note to self)
Nature v. culture
Solitary v. social
Balance is key

(title: BA for ~14 necessary horas)
A backpacker's life
Vamos a Uruguay hoy
Chau, Buenos Aires