The US Embassy Welcomes Us to Uruguay

I can't tell you how much I appreciated the US Embassy arranging for an afternoon of country western music on a plaza in Montevideo for the day we arrived in Uruguay. Attached are a photo of the program prepared by the Embassy and a video clip of a Uruguayan band playing "Down on the Bayou." Don't know if you can get it to play on your computer, but it is hysterical. The whole afternoon was bluegrass, country, and blues. Very, very funny, but couldn't get Sylvan to dance. We had lunch with this fantastic music playing in the background at a nice park. The Embassy, we think, also arranged for a few employees to do a line dance in front of the stage -- it was the Electric Slide, for those "in the know." Actually, there was no evidence of Embassy involvement at all, other than the little notice on the bottom of the program, which you might not be able to read on the little picture attached. Those Uruguayans were very good, but funny to see them in North American cowboy hats. I don't think we posted this other picture, the one with the Peruvian panpipe players on the plaza in Mendoza wearing headdresses of eagle features popularized by the Plains indians of the U.S. To be sure, the Peruvians were "Indians," but the North American indian attire was just tooooo much.

Asado anyone? Everyone?

We may have mentioned how much these Argentines love their grilled meats. Can't have a day go by without grilling some meat. I loved this image -- the guys on a construction crew, knowing that lunchtime was approaching, had built a fire in the bucket of their front-end loader, put a grill over it, and were arranging the meat. Gotta have that meat! Much more important than having the front-end loader available for working. After all, getting the coals ready and the meat cooked is only going to take a couple of hours. Then, there's the siesta of course. Ah, life is good.

Uruguay's Coast

After an excellent breakfast buffet at our hotel in Montevideo, we rented a car on Sunday morning at the airport and drove across the country pretty much. We stopped for lunch in ritzy Punta del Este, apparently a town recently discovery by movie stars. It was much larger than we expected with high rises lining the beach - maybe it was discovered awhile back. The beach though just stretches on and on. We had lunch at an outdoor cafe area of a restaurant that I think was called Guappe, where Jake had another chivito sandwhich and I had a tomato and mozzarella salad (see photo of me at restaurant). The restaurant served very good licuados and lemonade as well. The inside of the restaurant looked quite fashionable. Note the photo of the man on the beach drinking mate with his thermos clutched in his arm. Young and old alike in Argentina and Uruguay cling to their mate cups at all times of day. Mate is a tea-like beverage made out of a relative of holly. You keep the mate leaves in a gourd and add hot water to it as needed.

The waiter gave us directions for how to get back on the highway headed east. After driving a long time I thought I might have misunderstood, but then we ran right into the road we were looking for just as had been described. Route 9 took us into the heart of Uruguay a little inland. There are huge areas of green rangelands, lots of planted eucalyptus forests, gentle hills, taller hills with wind turbines topping them and a lot of sheep and cattle. The highlight for me was seeing 2 rheas, relatives of the ostrich. Gradually we angled back towards the coast and more palm trees started appearing as well as huge lagoons. The palm trees form a palm savannah with all the green grass between them.

We are staying at the Hotel Parque Oceanico, one of the nicer accomodations we've had on this trip. We can see the ocean from our balcony and it is just a short walk away. The beach runs for miles (see photo at sunset). Across a suspended bridge over a small river lies the town of Coronilla. At the other end of the beach is the Santa Teresa Nature Reserve. The hotel has an indoor pool with hot water and outdoor pool large enough for short laps. We will shortly find out how the dinners are!

Uruguay - Montevideo

Early Saturday morning we caught the Buquebus from Buenos Aires to Montevideo, Uruguay. The ferry's windows were somewhat obscured by old plastic shading, but I did get a window seat to watch the broad Parana river from. Once across, we went through a cursory customs inspection in Uruguay, but did have to throw out the cheese we'd brought along not thinking about the border crossing. They either didn't notice or didn't care about the walnuts. A taxi took us to the London Palace Hotel near the historic part of the city. The hotel lobby was filled with Paraguayans dressed in their soccer team colors of red and blue. There was a game at 5pm in Montevideo between Uruguay and Paraguay. We walked down through yet another Plaza Independencia to a smaller plaza where the sounds of country music rang sweetly on Jake's ears. The American embassy was sponsoring a whole day of country music sung by local bands. We had lunch outside at that plaza and tried a chivito sandwich. In Uruguay it appears that "chivito" means a type of sandwich rather than grilled goat as it was in Argentina. Tasty nonetheless!

Montevideo seemed very quiet after BA. It's a city of a million people, but maybe most of them were at the soccer game or at the beach. Most of the stores were closed although restaurants were busy. The city really has a unique feel to it. It has beautiful late 1800s, early 1900s buildings some of which are in good shape, but others are crumbling. Many of the streets are lined with sycamore trees giving it a leafy, quiet aspect. The city is built on a peninsula and has parks along one side of the peninsula and a working port on the other side. It wasn't until we took a taxi to the airport east of town that we realized how large the city really was, but because most of the buildings aren't too tall it it seemed very pleasant. We'll be back for a day on a weekday, so maybe our impression of how peaceful it seemed will change. There was some excitement around 7pm. We were at another cafe on another plaza and Uruguay won the soccer game to the delight of all the other patrons at the cafe. I have to say we were more engrossed in watching an informal group of dancers dancing tango and some sort of waltz.

Before dinner we watched a performance art piece we ran across on the street near our hotel. It involved a young woman and mirrors, fluids, audience participation and some music and poetry. It had something to do with womanhood. There was another piece we missed most of whose remains were a giant abstract on the street made of apple peelings and corn kernels.

We had dinner at a restaurant featuring grilled meat and sushi (something for everyone?) near the hotel. Jake had an excellent plate of beef carpaccio and I got a piece of grilled chicken and a salad to share with Jake.

Gardens

Today we visited both the Carlos Thays botanic garden and the Japanese Garden. The botanic garden is free and not terribly large. It features several formal gardens and sort of a random assortment of other collections arranged by division or by continent. The garden is filled with cats that seem friendly and well cared for. We followed a self-guided pamphlet about native trees of Argentina. If you live in the south, you might find the fruits familiar of one tree pictured above - the tree is Phytolacca dioica, relative of pokeweed! There are some impressive trees in the garden. The garden is celebrating its 110th anniversary this year.

From the botanic garden we walked down to the better maintained Japanese Garden. This garden has a modest 5 peso entrance fee. It has a large lake in the center that is criss-crossed with different oriental styled bridges. The lake is filled with huge multi-colored koi. You can buy food to feed them with in the garden so they tend to congregate as you walk across the bridges. There is a large building at one end of the garden with a nice Japanese restaurant that overlooks the garden. We had lunch by the window with a beautiful view of a hillside crowned with a pink-flowered palo borracho tree (Ceiba speciosa). Jake got a fragrant bowl of udon noodle soup with slices of mushrooms and some sort of soy product. I had a good but rather small salad with crispy pieces of salmon over mixed greens.

After the gardens, we walked on over into Recoleta. Along the way we passed quite a few dog walkers out with their many charges. You can see some dogs roaming under another huge tree in a park. We stopped at one of the cafes along the edge of the park in front of the cemetery for coffee and dessert. We each got an enormous slice of a very sweet and rich chocolate cake. Under the ganache topping was a layer of raspberry jam and dulce de leche. We got to talking with a young guy at the table next to ours. He teaches music and bartends in NYC and had come down for spring break. He was enjoying a bottle of chardonnay with his lunch on his last day in the city. He had taken a month of tango lessons before arriving and had gone to milongas nearly every night. He recommended one to us in Palermo where he danced until 9 am one morning.

In the evening we went to an acrobatic tango show outdoors on the rooftop terrace of the Recoleta Cultural Center. 12 acrobats performed to tango music on tightrope, trapeze, a large ring and other equipment. It was really quite striking with impressive feats of strength, flexibility and artistry.

The Art of Service

Wednesday felt like a day of being well looked after. Our first stop of the morning was a leather store called Maru Guerberg in Palermo Soho once again. My mom had gotten a leather jacket here two years ago, so we thought we’d check it out. At the store you choose the style of jacket you like, then pick the leather, lining and other details. They take your measurements if they differ from the standard sizes and will make up a jacket for you in just a few days. The two men staffing the store were extremely helpful suggesting linings and leather styles. It was clear that their sense of style was much more developed than mine so I went with their suggestions! Both Jake and I ordered up our jackets and will pick them up when we get back from Uruguay.

Feeling elated and exhausted by all those decisions at the leather store, we selected a restaurant catty-corner to the store for lunch. We ordered two of the specials for the day, meat balls served with tomato sauce and saffron rice and chicken croquettes with sesame seeds served over a mixed-greens salad. Both were quite good. Refreshed, we walked up to Cordoba Street, known in this part for its discount/outlet stores of famous Argentine brands. We shopped unsuccessfully for some new shirts to replace our travel worn ones. Shopkeepers are generally very welcoming and helpful in Argentina.

In the evening we headed over to Florida Street, the pedestrian street filled with shops and restaurants (see photo of bears of nations taken at San Martin Plaza on the way). I waited a little too long for an afternoon cup of coffee and ended up ordering a gin and tonic at Richmonds, a revered old café on Florida. Jake stuck with the original idea of coffee. The waiters seemed to be all older gentlemen with long service. Richmond is richly paneled in dark wood and gleaming brass chandeliers hang from the high ceilings. My G&T was made up at the table by the waiter. He poured a measure of gin into a glass of ice, then liberally poured more gin from the bottle in. He left me with a bottle of Schweppes and a couple slices of lemon to adorn my gin.

Feeling hungry, we asked directions to the highly recommended “Palacio de Las Papas Fritas” (Palace of the French Fries). It turned out it was right around the corner practically. It was another wood-paneled place staffed by people who had worked there for years. It was recommended to us as the place with the best steaks in Buenos Aires, so we ordered a salad and tenderloin steak to share. The salad of lettuce, carrots, beets, hard-boiled egg and celery was brought un-tossed to the table. The waiter asked what dressing ingredients we wanted and tossed it for us at the table. The steak arrived rare as ordered with a delicious grilled flavor. It was somewhat tough for a tenderloin though. But what was truly spectacular were the French fries. They were thick slices of fried potato puffed up into golden pillows. They were truly the best French fries I’ve ever eaten!!

Buenos Aires - Puerto Madero and Recoleta

On Monday I walked around our neighborhood and the microcentro, and around 1pm we met our wonderful travel agent who had arranged the apartment and our future travel to Uruguay and Iguazu. She gave us maps and vouchers and from her office in the Microcentro we walked over to Puerto Madero, the newest addition to BA’s trendy neighborhoods. This area forms a long strip along what used to be the port. The brick warehouses have been converted to offices and apartments and the water is filled with sailboats and yachts. On the other side of the water are chrome and glass corporate offices. We ate at a restaurant the guidebook recommended called Bice. The prices were outrageous, but the food was excellent and it was extremely pleasant sitting outside with cool breezes from the river. Jake had eaten at the Bice - New York. We don’t think they’d appreciate being called a chain though! Jake had a Lasagna Bolognese and I had a spinach salad with mozzarella, parmesan and parma ham. The meal came with lots of extras – small slices of pizza, a little plate of sweets and a glass of limoncello, but the bill came with extra “service charges” as well.

After our elegant meal we decided to head up the BA’s most fashionable cemetery. The Recoleta cementery is packed from end to end with mausoleums and monuments to BA’s best known families. It was really quite remarkable for the different styles of monuments. We didn’t try to seek out any particularly famous people, but just wandered around. A lot of the people who have streets named after them are buried there. Currently the only living residents of the cemetery appear to be feral cats. We meandered along the streets of Recoleta admiring the pretty apartment buildings and fancy stores. It could have Madison Avenue with more trees.
In the evening we walked over to the Ateneo bookstore. If you’re in BA, be sure to go to this store! The bookstore is housed in an old theatre complete with balconies and a painted dome ceiling. The stage has become a coffee shop and the balcony has armchairs where the box seats used to be. There is a great collection of books and classical music CDs. I got a little field guide for Iguazu and another book on Patagonia plants and wildlife by the author of “Invasores en Patagonia” which I had picked up in Mendoza.