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 sun is barely awake.
After a hotel continental breakfast, it is time for me to hit the road.
The beaches on this marina side of the peninsula are non existent. The shores here are lined with rocks that create tide pools where multi-colored birds are hunting critters caught in the shallow water. Some of the docked boats are big, sleek, expensive and geared up for long ocean voyages. Others are less well taken care of and are used for transport, fishing, or other work by working class owners. It is early, but, on a few yachts, deck hands are bustling about while their Captain is below deck nursing his hangover with a bloody Mary.
Near the biggest pier in the city, fishermen lock their cars in a big parking lot and line up to board charter fishing trips.
The fishing grounds here are, according to multiple guidebooks, some of the best in the world.
Walking wears better than fishing this morning.
My experience with fishing is that it is hard to get the smell of cut bait off your fingers and you don’t always come home with fish.
All the fishermen I pass are smiling though, leaving terra firma for a peaceful ocean with nothing but sky, blue deep waters, a pole and tackle box, and great hopes.
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It costs me six dollars to go by taxi from Ciudad Vieja in Montevideo to the Tres Cruces bus terminal in Montevideo, and only eleven dollars to ride a brand new air conditioned bus from Tres Cruces to Punta Del Este, one way, an hour and a half ride away.
Leaving the congestion of Montevideo, middle class neighborhoods whisk past, malls and industrial parks visible through the bus windows as we wind our way into the countryside. Cities look much the same the world around, once you leave tourist stops. Many tourists choose to just stick with guide book stuff, statues, museums, parks, national historical sights. However, we can design any kind of trip we want, linger if we wish, jump ahead when we get bored.
A trip, after all, is only as small or large as the inside of your skull and the limit on your credit card..
I am going to the beach and not shedding crocodile tears to leave big city Montevideo and all it’s big city bustle and bluster..
As our bus follows the highway out of town, buildings become scarce and cows start popping up like targets in a shooting gallery.
I’ll be back to urban Montevideo, but, right now, sand and surf is calling me with the crook of their little finger.
Changing venues is what travel is all about.
Deciding whether you like or dislike a venue is what you are all about.
My bus arrives at two fifteen in the afternoon in Punta Del Este and one of the bus cleaners finds my hat and brings it out to me at a taxi stand which is unbelievably kind.
A taxi driver pulls up quickly, loads me and my stuff, and whisks us all to the Hotel Playa Brava which is only a short cab ride from the bus terminal.
Unpacked and checked in at my new home, I take a short stair climb to the observation deck on the hotel roof.
The surf is just blocks away.The sky is blue, lighter than the blue water, diffused with light, clear, endless. Water stretches to the horizon where it meets sky and the line there is like a wall meeting a floor.
The owner of the Hotel Playa Brava, Juan Carlos, told me, in English, about a tourist bus I can take to see Punta Del Este sights as well as the famous sunset at Casa Vilaro.
This city is another room in the Uruguay mansion and it is light, airy, and contemporary.
From this rooftop I can see what pirate’s saw from their crows nest, scanning the horizon for land, hoping for ships flying Spanish flags filled with gold and silver.
While I’m not likely to find gold and silver here, except dangling on tourists necks, I am pleased to be in a place for real that used to be just an internet vacation dream.
Being from the desert, water always gets my full attention.
Punta Del Este, moving into its tourist season, is a movie set waiting for a movie crew.
It is hard to find fault with beach towns full of light, openness, a relaxed attitude and water in every direction, at the end of every street. This morning a few souls are on a little beach at the end of the street from Hotel Playa. The beach is named Emir Playa after a local family.
In Montevideo, streets are narrow and buildings tower like giants looking down shaking their fingers at those of us who dare to move without the proper password. Here, I can breath.
Going from the big city to the beach feels like ditching a heavy jacket and changing into a pair of swim trunks.
This is a reputed playground for the rich and well connected but the season hasn’t started yet and I’m one of the few out walking today.
Whether I will be viewed by others on the street, as rich and famous, is unlikely, but how exactly do you tell a person is rich by looking at them in just their swimming trunks? When you strip away all their jewelry, clothes, cars, perfumes, makeup, how do you really know that who you think you see is really how they are?
I expect to be seen as a senior tourista, healthy enough to walk, not on a schedule, with enough time and money, in the correct proportions, to see the world, going where the winds blow me.
How people see us, strangely enough, is quite often how we actually are.
Reading between the lines is, apparently, not as difficult as it first seems.
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