Jose Artigas is to Uruguay what George Washington is to the United States.
You see enough statues in enough places and finally you wonder about the men behind them. You do a little research and discover that Jose Artigas is a real person with a real history. Some of his history has been romanticized, but he played a huge part in Uruguay achieving its independence from Spain. Born in Buenos Aires, he spent the last years of his life exiled in Paraguay, but he is the man that people of Uruguay salute as their national hero.
As a boy from a wealthy family ,who settled in Uruguay, Artigas was sent to church to learn religious studies but refused to accept the discipline and dropped out of the school. At 12, he was sent to work on family farms and became close to the gaucho way of life.That stuck with him through his life and when, at 86, he felt he was going to die, he asked to be placed in the saddle of a horse so he could die there, which he did.
In his early days he had a price on his head for cattle smuggling and got a pardon in exchange for joining the military. He escaped capture several times, and made life and death decisions in his role as a military General fighting for Independence.
This compound, in Maldonado, occupies a city block and holds remnants of what used to house Artigas and his troops, men who were loyal to him to the end.
What is odd is that the kid who didn’t like discipline turned into a man who lived discipline, made rules, and had them enforced.
Men of substance often do things they don’t want to do, and live by rules they don’t like.
Discipline and success are not strangers.
Piriapolis is a small Uruguayan town an hour bus ride from Punta Del Este.
A one way ticket on the bus lines COT, or COPSA, runs ten dollars. This is one of those side trips that gives a bigger vision of the country.The beaches at Punta Del Este are well spoken of but the beaches in Piriapolis are smaller, more accessible, with calmer waves.
Walking a wide boardwalk that runs parallel to the beach, I look down and see, peeking out of the sand, the head of a young woman. Her body is completely buried. I don’t know if she is asleep or her partner covered her while she was awake? I don’t know if she protested?
He is about to pounce when he looks up and sees me. I point at my camera. He kneels down and gives me a thumbs up.
It is a beautiful day and this couple has time to do whatever they choose. He chooses to cover her up like a kid playing in the sandbox and she chooses to let herself be covered up because it means he is paying her the attention she wants.
They have the beach to themselves.
Precious moments whiz past our heads all day, like bullets. A few hit us hard enough to be remembered,and, even fewer, get written down.
The noise draws you. With stands visible, and walls keeping people out, this spectacle is a city road race. There are cameras and cameramen strategically placed and, in retrospect, the best way to see the race is to see it on television.
Despite what Juan Carlos says, the cars are loud and there is the smell of burning fuel. I get a General pass in the nosebleed section, way around on the opposite end of the track from where I buy my ticket, and show the little blue band wrapped around my wrist to a gate guard in the D section.The stands are full and a warm up car is leading all competitors around the track in a get to know you lap.
Fans are ready for action, standing at the rail, lounging in chairs in grass areas near the grandstands. There are portable toilets, a food concession, parking, and if you want shade you can find it under the grandstands. It is a long oval track and sheet metal walls containing it are tall enough that you can’t see the race unless you are looking down from a second story balcony of one of the hotels across the street.
My ticket calls the race the Grand Prix of Punta Del Este .
Beautiful models get out of a van. They are gorgeous. All made up and dressed in official racing outfits, they are walking to the finish line till a winner is declared and then they will get their pictures taken for the newspapers and honor the winner with multiple hugs and kisses.
Kisses are powerful motivators.
This young man cleans shellfish he harvested earlier this morning.
The shellfish are on the bottom of the bay and he uses a net to bring them up, a net weighted heavy that he casts out by hand, lets sink to the bottom, then wrestles up and into his small boat with shellfish captured in it.
He cleans his catch in a homemade sifter made from two by fours with a screen mesh nailed to the underside. On the concrete steps this morning he pours sea water over his catch and moves shells around in the bottom of the sifter with his hand to make mud stuck to the shellfish dissolve. It takes him three different pours before he scoops clean shells out of his sifter and puts them into a five gallon plastic paint bucket to sell to his customers.
While he works, seals swim to the edge of the walkway and bark. They are begging, but getting no response, from either of us, they take a breath of air and disappear back into their murky water.
There are plenty of steps one has to go through to get shellfish from the sea onto your plate.
These shell fish will end up on a local restaurant menu, part of a lunch special for visitors wearing diamond earrings and Rolex watches.
For some people, time and money mean the same thing and you don’t want to waste either.
The first stop on our day trip is a farm and museum off Route 1 that takes you from Montevideo to Colonia Del Sacramento through some of the best vineyards and cattle country in Uruguay. The Museo and farm are the creation of Emilio Arenas who not only has a world record pencil collection but sells cheeses, jams and jellies, in his little country store.
People collect anything. It can be ashtrays, matchbook covers, ceramic animals, music, books.The list is endless. Most collections,though,never end up in world record territory.They end up on shelves in the living room, or occupy a garage or shop where no one but the addict can be affected by his compulsion. In his case, Emilio’s pencil collection is the world’s biggest and brings customers to buy in his gift shop.
Out in the yard, not far from our tour bus, I sit in a chair under a shade tree and let the world zip by.
It is comforting to be in the countryside and dream about staying in a little house surrounded by chickens and goats and a milk cow. At night a window will be open and the stars will look like little pencil pricks of light, white sparkling dots on a black canvas.
Next time back, Emilio will get a pencil from New Mexico from me.
He will always find a place for one more.
On Sarandi Street are groups of people, dressed to the nines, standing in my way as I pass on a sidewalk past a woman’s fashion store,
Happy couples exit a bland doorway, into the sunlight. They are jubilant.
When more smiling couples come out and take photos, throw rice, hug and toss flowers to the next lucky man or woman, it is certain this extravaganza is about marriage, a traditional and good institution, if there ever was one.
A closer look at a little bland sign on the bland building confirms that this office, next to an upscale clothes retailer, is the City’s Office of Matrimony
As brides and grooms pose outside for their wedding pictures, some with professional photographers, others with friends or family who have phones or fancy cameras, some couples do dramatic hugs and kisses. Others are subdued.
On this occasion it would be a sacrilege to remark that not all of these newly joined couples will be together in five years.
The search to find someone who will live with you, for better and worse, is worth the effort no matter how it ends.
The next historical development in weddings will be to get married at a drive up window, in street clothes, with a cooler of beer in the trunk and passes to the opera in the glove compartment.
Most marriages begin happy but their success rate is still only fifty percent, regardless of who marries you, where you get married, how much money you have, what God you worship.
Odds, as Las Vegas knows, are hard to beat, but odds don’t stop people from getting married.
Turning a corner off Colon street, near Roberto’s antique store and studio, I happen upon a sleeping man in an alcove. He is out of the way of pedestrian traffic, looks comfortable, isn’t causing trouble. There are no wine bottles. There is no cart packed with clothes and bags of groceries to show he has been on the street a long time. His clothes aren’t pressed but they aren’t dirty.
His chest moves as he breathes.
There are similarities between sleep and dying. One you wake from, the other you don’t. One is temporary and the other is permanent.
I debate taking his photo. If an awake person doesn’t want their photo taken they can shake their finger or say no. He has no say in his present condition.
If you snooze, you lose.
Being able to sleep on the street in board daylight, in the middle of a big city, shows a level of trust I don’t have.
Surrounded by dogs, all on leashes, this long hair consults his map.
It isn’t certain whether this group is going on a field trip, going to relieve themselves, headed for a romp on the beach, or just following their leader, who holds their leashes. They are stopped and the dog walker takes out a plastic bag and picks up a present left by one of his charges. It is certain he is the only one doing this nasty chore in this port district because you find dog presents on most streets and are surprised there aren’t more.
The sun is going down and it would be unexpected that all these dogs belong to this young man. Whether they have to be registered and need checkups and shots is an unknown but a vet supply place is near so there is a need here that someone is making a living catering to.
Putting his map away, the dog whisperer clutches all the leases in one hand and strides away, a pied piper.
Animals love their people.
This pack knows who their lead dog is even if they don’t know where he is taking them, and don’t care.
What I’m asking is – why would you have a dog if you don’t want to take it for a walk?
Tango began in the early 1900’s in Buenos Aires and Montevideo.
Beginning in brothels, like American jazz, it was refined and adopted by middle and upper classes, cleaned up and turned into a respectable music and dance form.
Dance competitions usually contain the tango, a sensual dance with complicated movements and hypnotic music.
In front of one of the cafes near my studio, there is a demonstration of tango with a lady who is much older than her partner. She is dressed in black with net stockings and clipped black hair. The couple move over rough tiles as music plays loudly from a little black speaker.The traditional tango is played by an orchestra that has a piano, two accordions, two violins and a double bass. This recorded music is just violins.
For an entire song, we in the audience watch the pair move in ever widening, and then contracting, circles in front of the restaurant. She makes most of the movements, dipping her shoulder, lifting her knees, tossing back her head, letting the young man lead.
The themes of Tango are unrequited love, betrayal, the passage of time, and death.
A famous local poet, Enrique Discepolo, called tango “the sad thought that is danced.”
Tango came from poor neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and Montevideo where money runs short and emotions run high.
Cutting edge art flows from those who live closest to their emotions and have empty wallets.
There isn’t anything new about pizza.You find it all around the world. What is refreshing about this pizza is that it is made outdoors, you watch the guys prepare it, the ingredients are natural, the taste is great, the price is a bargain.
“What would you like,” my personal chef asks?
I spot a toaster oven with a miniature tomato and cheese pizza on its top cooling. On a linen tablecloth, on the folding table in front of me, are bowls with fresh cut ingredients. There are chili’s, peppers, tomatoes, ham, onions. lettuce, cheese, and other typical choices.
“What are you making, ” I ask?
“We are making you a special pizza,” the young man dressed in black says, “you pick your toppings.”
“How much?”
“60 pesos.”
That is about three U.S. dollars which sounds pricey but yesterday a pollo sandwich with bacon cost six dollars U.S. at McDonald’s with no fries and no bebida.
Elias, the brains behind this operation, scoops his starter pizza off the toaster top with a spatula and puts it on a piece of wax paper on the tablecloth in front of me, then loads on the toppings I tell him I want. It looks like a salad by the time I am through and he finishes by slicing the pizza into fours for me.
This pizza stands up to my taste test.
I get lunch plus entertainment for three dollars.
Small cheap surprises are some of the best.
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