The Curious Incident of the Bull in the Nighttime

We don't know how it got there. The bull certainly wasn't going to tell us. It just stood there and chewed its cud, staring at us.

We noticed it this morning as we were leaving for a day trip to the next town north, Minas. On the way out, Cesar noticed a bovine on the wrong side of the fence. Occasionally, if we leave the main gate open, a cow will come in to browse the otherwise untouched grass at the beginning of our driveway. This bull was in the wrong area though - inside our fence. Closer inspection revealed that the wire fence had actually been opened. Considering that bovines lack the intelligence and equipment to open fences (this part of the fence has a complicated wire latch that was beyond my ken to figure out how to open - I didn't even know it was a gate at first), it is not a leap to assume that someone let it in intentionally.

Who would let in a bull and why? Perhaps it was to be delivered to another house and they accidentally dropped it off at ours. Not likely. In that scenario, someone would have closed the fence back up after the bull was delivered. Perhaps the bull was already on the street and someone thought they were putting it back where it belonged or just getting it out of the road? Or perhaps someone sees us as an opportunity to store their excess farm animals. This I think is most likely. It is very bad form here to let your animals on some one else's property without permission.

After consulting a close friend, we took her advice and visited the local police to inform them of the situation. We did this to protect ourselves in case someone thought we stole their bull. I am sure the incident report reads rather oddly, but I suspect the local police are not unfamiliar with this kind of thing - whatever kind of thing this is.

That done, I wanted the bull out of here. My hubby thinks I am hard hearted for wanting to kick it out. We have a very nice area for a bovine to hang out in, plenty of green grass and water. I am sure the bull was quite happy to be here, but I wanted its owner to notice that depositing farm animals on this property is not going to be tolerated. So, under the belief that most animals are more afraid of you than you are of them, big stick in hand, I went to chase off the bull. I guess I looked menacing enough. He went off towards the gate, did a funny little bucking jig that reminded me just what a big powerful animal I was dealing with, and stood inside the gate for a while. Feeling more brave, I walked in his direction, keeping an eye out for trees to climb. At this he trotted off down the lane and I swung the gate closed behind him.

Colita Dolorida

The title is my best shot at translating "sore butt" into Español. That is what I have after riding my bike on the bumpy roads here. Overall, the roads are kept in pretty good shape. However, most are not the perfectly smooth black-top we have in most places back in the States. You U.S. cyclists don't know how good you have it, with your bike trails and super smooth roads. However, the attitude here towards cyclists seems much better than in the U.S. As far as we have seen, drivers here do not exhibit the same sense of arrogant and sometimes angry entitlement that U.S. drivers have. Here they are accustomed to sharing the road. After all, it does belong to everyone, and bicyclists have the same rights and responsibilities as motorists.

Brief rant about sharing the road aside, this place has some lovely scenery to be enjoyed from a bike, but it is still not exactly a biking shangri-la. For instance, there are times not to venture out on a bike - like Sunday evening on the interbalnearia between La Barra and Jose Ignacio. Considerate as they may be, having one speeding car after another blow by us, we had had enough and decided to bag it for the day. This morning we did the same ride while the tourists were still sleeping off their hang-overs. Much better. The wind, see "On the Road Again" post, wasn't even that bad. The tone was dramatically different. Instead of tons of cars there were quite a few people out bicycling or jogging. Now I know how the beautiful people of Punta del Este stay beautiful. We even made a new friend, from Cordoba, Argentina. Barely understood a word he said, but I immediately liked him because he was a doppleganger for our friend Gaston.

Our rides are still on the short side while we get our legs back and my bum gets used to the bumpy roads, but stay tuned for the K&C Uruguayan Century!

A note on today's photos: I did not carry my camera on our bike ride, but wanted to post some pictures of Jose Ignacio, so I borrowed these photos from various websites.

Christmas Images from Punta del Este

Since I cannot attach photos today, here are some descriptions of things we saw on Christmas Eve in Punta del Este.

The large all-in-one grocery and department store, Tienda Inglesa, filled with locals and tourists finishing their last minute Christmas shopping. Some things are the same everywhere...

Now for something you will not see in Virginia at Christmas time - the bright pink bikini-clad girl peddling her bike through traffic on a busy street in downtown Maldonado.

A surfer dude crossing the road with his board, headed for the waves of Playa Brava.

Two men on mo-peds, shirtless and sporting Santa caps.

The sweet lady at the pastry counter at Devoto who offered me a free sweet, thrusting it towards me with a smile, saying "para ti".

A paunchy, tanned, middle aged man riding his bright yellow ATV down Gorlero street.

Cheerful, uniformed girls at the shops, providing free gift wrapping service.

Entire neighborhoods erupting with fireworks at midnight.

Seeing the Southern Cross directly over our house in the wee hours of the morning.

Obviously, from the attire to the constellations, things are different here from back home. However, some things are universal, like spending a delightful evening with new friends on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas To All!

I Wanna Be a Gaucha

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting Manchita. This sweet horse is hanging out in Gloria’s pasture, providing her with free fertilizer. In addition to making the veggies grow, she is incredibly patient, gentle and excellent for children or beginning riders, like me. Sergio, her owner, is also very patient, and indulged my curiosity by bringing over a saddle and other horse accoutrements and allowing me to go for a ride. His English non-existent, my Spanish very basic, he managed to show me the basics of what in the U.S. we call Western riding.

I didn’t realize it until after I had dismounted with shaky legs, but I was a little nervous at first. I am not what I would call a “horsey” person. Never begged for riding lessons as a kid and have only been riding on horses in groups where my horse simply followed the others with little direction from me. Being on my own on a horse was new to me. It is also something I want to experience again.

Telling a Uruguayan you don’t know how to ride a horse is like telling a Hawaiian you don’t know how to swim. They seem mildly shocked and sorry for you. Horses are an important part of Uruguayan culture. The true gauchos may have ridden into the sunset, but most modern Uruguayans have some longing for gaucho ways. Foremost in gaucho culture is the horse. There is a saying that a gaucho without a horse is a man without legs.

Where we live, horses are everywhere. People ride as a pleasant pastime or simply as a way to get from place to place. Some people own horses, but not land. One sees these horses of landless owners hitched in fields by the roadside. Several times on our way home from town we have seen men on horseback leading a herd of other horses. Where they were going, I’ll never know.

I hope to get to know horses better. I am certainly in the right place to do it. I think with help from Manchita, I will.

On the Road Again

After getting our house in some semblance of order after the deluge of stuff that came out of our container, we have fulfilled one of our top priorities of the week – re-assembling our bikes and finding places to ride. First of all, a quick thank you to Mike and Tom of Plum Grove for packing them so nicely. Thanks guys, we are going to miss you here!

So, bikes re-assembled and ready to go, where to ride? The road we live on is dirt, connected to another road of dirt, connected to a two-lane highway with large patches that are under perpetual construction, mostly involving, dirt. Therefore, biking directly from the house is a no go. However, there are stretches of mostly smooth highway nearby that are great for biking, with little traffic, enough inclines to be interesting and great scenery.

Ride number 1: We parked at a friend’s house in Punta del Este, near Playa Mansa, and headed east on the rambla. Tourist season is picking up, so we got an early start to avoid any traffic. Not a bad ride for the first one, we kept the pace nice and easy (mainly because our out of shape legs couldn't go any faster) and focused on how the bikes felt (put together right?) and avoiding potholes and insane Argentine drivers. The road heading east was pretty good. Except for cutting across the peninsula, we biked along the ocean the whole way. Being so close to the ocean, the wind was a bit brisk. It was a sign of things to come…

Ride number 2: “El Viento”. This time, to avoid the terrible stretch of pavement we encountered on the return leg of ride number 1, we drove to La Barra (a chic beach village outside of Punta del Este)and parked at Medialunas Calentitas, a hip little coffee and pastry joint with outdoor sofas you can lounge on while drinking your coffee. From MC, we headed East, through La Barra and beyond to avoid the Punta del Este traffic and the bridge of death:


Before we moved here, I was concerned that we would not find enough hills to develop really good bike fitness. I need not have worried; the wind here makes up for the relative lack of good hills. Our ride started out nicely. We have driven down this particular stretch of the interbalnearia many times, but seeing it from a bicycle saddle is like seeing it for the first time. The sea was a mesmerizing blue green and looked like liquid silver in the morning light. The wide beaches were empty and beckoning. And the colors of the green plants along the road, contrasted with red rocks, white sand dunes and blue-green ocean were picture perfect. However, my reverie was soon interrupted by a never-ceasing, brutal headwind. Never before had I experienced wind like this. I was reveling in it, having fantasies of training in it constantly to prepare for the Mount Washington mountain race. Those delusional thoughts lasted for a few miles, then all I could think was “make it stop”. I was comforted by the hope of a tail wind on the way home. Really, I don’t mean to bitch, this wind is a gift, but it wasn’t what I signed up for this particular morning. I knew Cesar was probably suffering too, both of us biting our lip not to be the first to complain. The point would have been moot, or should I say “mute” anyway since we would not have been heard over the roar of the relentless wind. We turned around at our pre-arranged midway point and headed back to La Barra. Just before town, a group of brightly jerseyed cyclists on road bikes passed us, heading into the wind in the direction we had just come from. I was happy to see fellow bikers. Naturally, I picked up my pace in an effort to look like the bad-ass cyclist chick I am, in my own mind at least. It didn’t matter, their broad grins indicated they were pleasantly surprised to see a woman on a roadbike, period. Of the many cyclists we have seen here, I have seen only one other female. A couple of minutes later, stopped on the side of the road in La Barra to make a phone call, they were headed our way. I thought maybe they wanted a second look at the odd woman on the nice bike, but I think they got one blast of that wind and decided to turn around.

Ride number 3: The Papa of El Viento. We decided that a break from the wind was in order for this next ride, and wanted to start a little closer to home, so we parked at our friend Gloria’s house and biked down Ruta 9 to Ruta 12, in the direction of Punta Ballena. This is a north/south ride, rather than east/west and instead of ocean views, it is along a gently rolling stretch of empty highway with vineyards, pasture and trees and a great lake view. It is a lovely scenic route that we like to take sometimes to Punta del Este instead of the much quicker route through the town of Maldonado. The wind started immediately. This time it hurled obstacles in our path as it shook loose bark and small branches from the eucalyptus trees. Turning onto Ruta 12, we headed into its strength. A semi passed me and I didn’t even hear it coming over the roar of the wind. Near the Alto de la Ballena winery, the donkeys in the pasture to our left stared at us with a bemused look. Stupid humans, they were thinking. We hung in there until our pre-arranged turn around time and headed back. When the wind stopped and the brutal heat and sun sent a shower of perspiration down my face and into my eyes, I wished the wind would return.

My former music teacher and mentor impressed upon me to embrace that which I hated. What I think he meant by that is this: You hate practicing the stuff you are no good at or which you find particularly difficult. However, those are precisely the things you need to practice. So, toughen up and embrace those things. It makes you stronger. Now I love the wind. Bring it on.

Godzilla?

Meet Lagarto. Tupinambis merianae to be exact. Commonly called Lagarto, this lizard is a member of the Tegu family and is often seen here. This particular specimen ambled across our lawn one day, pausing for a shady break under a honey-suckle bush, before making a direct line to the area in the backyard where I had been dumping kitchen waste (to be the site of our compost bin).

This one is about three feet long. I walked right along with him to take the picture above, and he didn't seem to mind. They are pretty well habituated to humans because they seek us out for the feeding opporunities we provide in terms of garbage and hen houses. Here he is, feasting on banana peels and egg shells with gusto.

Mutts

The puppies we found by the side of the road are still with us. And, bad sign, we have named them.

First, there is Red. He is my favorite because he is calm and rarely barks. He is also bigger than his brother and sister, so when he finally gets tired of their abuse, he just tackles them and holds them down. However, he is extremely tolerant of their antics, so it takes quite a bit to get him to the point of retaliating.

Next, there is Tip, named so because the very tipy tip of her tail is white. She is the smartest. While the others push around the bones we give them, she figured out immediately that chewing them is much easier if she holds on to them with two paws. Good girl.

Finally, there is Mooch. I saved him for last because otherwise he is always first. Aptly named because he is always mooching food and attention from his siblings. He is the biggest whiner of the group.

Red, on his second day at his new home:

Driving in Uruguay

Anyone coming from the U.S. is in for road culture shock if they try to drive here. Traffic signs are mere suggestions. What is more important than obeying traffic signs is maintaining the flow of traffic. Traffic does not really stop, it just ebbs and flows as cars merge in and out and slow down just enough to allow for turns.

Here are three interesting and completely non-intuitive local driving rules.

• If there are on-coming cars on a narrow bridge where one must give way, the car going in the direction of Montevideo will have the right of way. This rule calls for a good sense of direction.
• Traffic to your right has the right of way at intersections. I know what you're thinking "duh, everyone knows that", but imagine driving through a city where there are many four way intersections that have neither a stop sign nor a traffic light. Before we learned this rule from a local, our method was to slow down just enough to see whether there was traffic to our left or right and observe whether they were letting us go first. It goes something like this: Car slowing towards intersection. Driver: Who has right of way? Passenger: They don't have a stop sign. Driver: I can't tell. Passenger: go go go! STOP! STOP!
• Here is a rule which takes the cake for least intuitive: If you want to turn left, you must move slightly to the right while signaling your intention to turn left. This is so the crazy speed demon behind you can pass you on your left before you make your left turn. Paying close attention to this one is essential to your survival here.
  

Other interesting tidbits about driving in Uruguayan cities:

• Traffic circles. Lots of them. These work pretty well if everyone plays by the same rule: before you enter the circle, give way to traffic already in the circle.
• Windshield washers. Unlike NYC, the indigent guy with the squeegee and bucket not only will ask you first if you want your windshield washed, but will desist if you say no. If you say yes, he will actually do a good job cleaning your windshield for a few pesos.
• Motos everywhere. Expect to be surrounded with swarms of various two wheeled contraptions in cities, such as bicycles, mopeds and motorcycles, some of them pulling trailers, or stacked with entire small families. Seeing Dad on the front, Mom on back with a kid in front of each parent is not unusual. More than once, we have actually seen people riding mopeds and carrying bicycles at the same time.
• In some areas, the law says you must have a helmet, but I suspect it is vague as to where on your person you must wear it. We see a lot of people riding motorcycles or mopeds, carrying their helmet on one arm. Someone please call the folks who run the Darwin awards.

Cachorros

There are a lot of stray dogs in Uruguay. One sees them everywhere - walking on the side of highways, trotting around small towns, sleeping on the side of the road. For some reason which we have not figured out yet, most people here do not spay or neuter their dogs. Someone with a lot more local experience than we have said they believe it is cruel to spay or neuter dogs.

However, they don't seem to see the cruelty of abandoning an unwanted pup. Today on the way to town, Cesar noticed puppies on the side of the country road. Tiny puppies. We guess they are about 5 weeks old. There was no one in sight and no other dogs around. It was obvious they had been abandoned. When we found them, they were skinny, low on energy and generally pathetic looking. We felt the only choice was to pick them up, turn around and take them home. We will care for them while we try to find another home for them.

They are resting now, bellies full of milk and puppy chow.

Almost Christmas

Back in the U.S., the commercial frenzy that comes with Christmas began before Thanksgiving. Here, I am having trouble remembering what month it is. The reverse of seasons from the northern hemisphere plus the lack of hubbub about Christmas makes it easy for me to forget that it is December. Yesterday, however, was my Christmas. Our container arrived at the house.

The MSC Dresden container ship had come into port on the 28th of November, only slightly behind schedule. The journey from Baltimore to Montevideo, with many stops in between, was scheduled to take 22 days. Several days before the ship arrived, we contacted a despachante de aduana (customs broker) to get our things through Aduana (customs) and out of the port. What followed was a highly stressful debacle that seemed destined to end with us not being able to even claim our things, no matter what kind of deposit we put down. Then we found someone competent. Our new despachante de aduana whisked our container through the labyrinthine clearing process and had it delivered to our door exactly one week from the day we staggered, nearly hopeless, into his office. Everything worked out exactly as he said it would.

So in the 40 minutes it took us and two friends to unload the container, we went from a camping lifestyle to North American abundance. I did not really miss the stuff while we were without it, by oh my, is it nice to have after doing without it for a month. This little chacra feels down right luxurious to me now. And while opening boxes I felt like a kid again on Christmas morning.

A note on photos

Gentle readers, I would love to be able to post photos to go with my blog entries. Several of you have asked for more photos. I hear you, but am still dealing with abysmal internet speeds. According to speedtest.net, my upload speed right now is 10kbps. So, for now, I will continue this online journal and will upload photos when possible.

Be well and keep in touch!

Critters

We are living much closer to nature than we did back in the metropolitan DC area.
For example, last night I heard the distinctive slapping sound of a frog hopping around in our kitchen. So I scooped him up and put him out the front door. He will be back. I have lost count how many times I have removed a frog from the house.
The other day, I lifted up the toilet seat (checking for spiders under the seat before I sit is a habit I acquired on a trip to Botswana, when I encountered the infamous spider, from now on known to me as the toilet spider) and saw a dark lump in the toilet. Well, this turd jumped. Another frog.

We also share the house with all of the sparrows with in a five mile radius. Maybe that is a slight exageration, but the walls are alive with them. When they return to roost in the eaves of the roof each evening, we can hear them twittering and jockeying for position in their night-time hideout. Occasionally, one of the falcons who hang out in the back yard will dive by to try to catch one. There is a crash and scraping of talons as the falcon slams into the house, trying to catch the swallow before it disappears into safety. The aerial acrobatics of the swallows are delightful to watch. I would much rather the falcons stick to eating snakes.

Speaking of snakes, we have those too. Last week, Noah found a black and yellow snake next to our front porch. It was a harmless variety called culebra de penarol. Birds, frogs,snakes,what's next? Oh, spiders. One beautiful morning, we were sitting on the front porch having our coffee when a huge hairy thing dropped down from the roof on a thread of silk, about two feet from me. It was pretty cool, but I was thankful it dropped where it did and not onto my head.

Here is its portrait:

I have unfortunately discovered that arachnids are not the only many-legged things that visit us. That discovery came by way of a 2-3 inch long dead centipede in the shower. Creepy crawlies are cool outside, but not so cool when found in the house, especially in a part of the house where one is usually bare-bummed!

Rain - Saturday, November 29 2008

A soft fine rain is steadily falling today. All day it has been raining. We need it. After we arrived, we had brief afternoon thunderstorms for a couple of days. Then the rain stopped and it was lovely and sunny, though extremely windy. Wildflowers carpeted the pastures. The road to our house reminded me of the Wizard of Oz for its abundant yellow flowers on either side. The yard had beautiful delicate wildflowers in hues of yellow, orange, red, purple and white. Then everything started to whither and dry.

It had been dry for weeks before the rain came. Cattle in other parts of the country were suffering for lack of water. Near Montevideo, in the department of Canelones, fires consumed 300 hectares (a hectare is equal to 2.2 acres). The water table in the department where we live is high and we have lots of water, so it is very good for cattle and sheep. But still we needed the rain.

So today is a lazy Saturday. We're not doing much besides watching the rain fall. Later we will join friends to barbeque a lamb, which we bought from the carniceria just for today. The evening will be cool and the frogs will sing out their appreciation of the dampness.

Giving Thanks

It is easy to forget it here in Uruguay, where turkeys are scarce and exotic, but today is Thanksgiving Day. We have been blessed to know some good people here, who hardly knowing us have welcomed us like family. Trying to make one's home in a foreign country is difficult without some sort of support network. Thankfully, our new friends have helped us tremendously by showing us how to do things while providing good company and generally just making us feel at home.

Thanks to our friends and family back home for your love and support and for at least trying to understand our wanderlust. For those who wonder why we wanted to live in a foreign country for at least a little while, one reason is the personal growth of stretching beyond known limits. Having supportive family and friends makes that possible.

We are extremely thankful that our three furry kids arrived safely. The baggage handlers and airport personal we encountered -from the kind gate agent who boarded the plane to let me know our cats were on board, to the compassionate maleteros who whisked us through Customs and gave us water for the gatos - were a godsend. Thank you.

I am typing this enjoying the beautiful view from our front porch, looking forward to an afternoon of fun and good food with new friends and remembering that we do indeed have a lot to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day.

Abre la puerta, cierra la puerta.

Good fences make good neighbors. True for property as well as human relationships, if boundaries are known, they can be respected.
In rural Uruguay, every property seems to have a gate, from the most humble to the grandest. Therefore, I find myself opening and closing gates often. Every time we leave our house in the car, we go through a ritual of locking everything up, driving to the gate, stopping at the gate for one person to get out of the car to open it and then lock it behind us.
When we visit our friend Gloria, she usually leaves the gate opening if she is expecting us at a particular time. Last April, when we visited the owners of the Alto de la Ballena winery, I recall opening and closing behind us no fewer than three gates.
So when you visit, be a good neighbor and close the gate behind you.

Incommunicado

We still do not have internet set up at our house, so my apologies if I have not been the best lately about returning emails. We have two options for internet access, bad and worse. Which is worse depends on the day, or the alignment of the planets, or something totally arcane.

We visited the office of Dedicado today, which provides satellite internet. The plan we signed up for is 128k down and 64k up! Ouch. The cost is $69 per month. Double ouch.

Our other option is 3G and is about half the cost of Dedicado. Interestingly, we were able to use 3G on the road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere and even make Skype calls. At home, sometimes it works, sometimes it fails to even connect.

So, here I am, typing this on the fly from an internet cafe, looking forward to getting plugged in again!

La Gaia

Houses in rural Uruguay seldom have house numbers. If I were explaining to someone how to get to our house, I would say - take Ruta such and such, turn at kilometer marker blah blah, turn right on the gravel road and we are in La Gaia. That is a perfectly acceptable description of our address. Almost all houses in small towns and rural areas have names rather than numbers. Ours is named La Gaia. The name means Mother Earth and was bestowed upon the property by its owners, who live in the U.S. and hope to retire here in the not too distant future.

The property is on 5 hectares (about 12 acres) with a rustic but cozy 2 bedroom house. The house is made of wood, which is a rarity in Uruguay. Most houses we have seen are made from concrete blocks covered with plaster.

For heat, we have a small wood stove in the main bedroom and a fireplace in the living room. It is early summer now and we won't be needing a heat source for quite some time.

Our water comes from a community well. The water is pumped from the well into a huge holding tank in our back yard. Thanks to this arrangement, if the power to the pumps should fail, we would still have a reserve of water, possibly enough to last several days.

It is peaceful and idyllic. That comes at a price of convenience though. If it's 10pm and we're hungry for dinner with nothing in the fridge, we have a 25 minute drive into town. But that is what we are here for, peace and quiet. We have that in abundance.

We have arrived.

Hello from Uruguay, everyone. We have been incommunicado because we do not have internet set up yet at our home. I am typing this from an internet cafe. Lots to do, so I'll be brief. We arrived safely. What a journey. We left for National Airport at 3pm on Monday and finally arrived at our new home around 3pm on Tuesday. Thanks to sympathetic baggage handlers at both airports, we had plenty of help with our three cats, two bikes, and 5 suitcases. The malateros (baggage guys) in Montevideo even gave us water for the cats.

And, a million thanks to our dear friend Gloria who picked us up at the airport in Montevideo and took us to our house!!! Without her, this would have been an arduous trip indeed.

The cats arrived safely, but were pretty stressed from the long journey. As for us, we are slowly getting settled.

What a View!

Until Monday, every time we open our front door, this is what we see - the tail end of our 20 foot shipping container. As if I could forget, it reminds me that the clock is ticking and our move is imminent. Whoo-hoo!

Just Pets Rocks

No, this post is not about that seventies phenomenon, Pet Rocks, it is about my favorite pet store, Just Pets in Reston, VA. Which does not sell Pet Rocks, by the way. However, the Pet Rock concept was cooked up in.... wait for it.... Los Gatos, California. So, there is a tie in to this post afterall.

Being paranoid about the well-being of our pets in Uruguay, we have stocked up on Newman's Own canned food and Wellness dry food to make sure our furry four legged kids will continue to get the healthful and nutritious food they eat here in the US.

Thanks to the guys at Just Pets for ordering it for me and being so cool about it. Remy, Noah and Snickers thank you too!

That New Car Smell

Our new car awaits us in Uruguay. In April, on our last trip to Uruguay, we went car shopping. Considering where we will be living, out in the campo, we need a car. And, considering a new car in Uruguay is not necessarily something you drive off the lot the same day you purchase it, we started shopping early. Good thing we did.

After narrowing our choices to Volkswagon, Honda and Peugot, we decided on the Volkswagon Parati. Para-wha? The Parati is assembled in Brazil. I am not sure, but I think it is named after a town in Brazil. It is comparable to a Jetta station wagon.

Shopping for a car in Uruguay is nothing like shopping for a car in the U.S. First, the price is what it is. We visited about six dealerships and the price quoted was exactly the same at each one. Second, this may be different for luxury cars, but in our price range, you get what you get. We did not have a menu of options from which to choose to customize our ride.

Cars are expensive in Uruguay. For example, MSRP for a basic, manual transmission Honda Civic in Uruguay is $28,900. A comparable Civic in the U.S. would cost $10,000 less. That, and the fact that the only Honda dealer in Montevideo would be getting one Honda Fit in two to three months later eliminated Honda from our short list. It is not a common car yet and we do not want to stand out.

So, after deciding on the make and model we wanted, and choosing the color - choices were grey, and grey - we put a deposit of $1000 down on our car and went home. A month later it still was not in. Then it came in, in black. We decided to wait for the next delivery since we now had extra time due to postponing our move once. Meanwhile, the price went up, but the dealer honored our original quote. When it did arrive - after a small delay because of a general strike at the port - we wired half of the money to the dealer. Our friend Gloria paid him a visit to get confirmation that he received the money and to get the VIN number. Only after she confirmed the car was in the showroom and was ours did we send the balance.

Another note about buying a car in Uruguay, forget the test drive. That is a luxury you simply don't get. Again, maybe it is different with the luxury brands, but with the average car, you can look at it in the showroom, sit in it, and that's it. Dealers simply do not have the resources to keep a bunch of cars around. In fact, it is customary to pay first for the car, then the dealer is able to get it out of the port, then you get your car. You really have to trust the dealer, and that is something we are trained not to do in the U.S.

The Time is Near

Very near. We and the tres gatos are scheduled to fly out of DC on November third. That is two weeks from today. Oh my god, why I am writing when I should be packing?! Okay, gathering composure and continuing... We are nearly packed. There are boxes stacked up in the living room and in the basement. The rest will be packed in the next four days. I have contracted with an NVO (short for Non Vessel Operating Common Carrier, like my new lingo?) to send our things by sea from the port of Baltimore to Montevideo. The vessel itself will get there after a trip to the Med. By the time our things arrive at the end of November (it's a 22 day journey) our household goods may be better traveled than we are. Nah, that's hard to do!

In an international move, a big moving company is kind of like a general contractor. Their guys show up at your house to pack and load your things, but after everything is packed and loaded into a shipping container, they work with partners to fulfill the rest of the move. In our case, we are the general contractor. We will work with at least three parties to get our things safely to our new home - the NVO who works with third parties (the trucker who hauls the container to and from our home, and the shipping line who owns the vessel), a customs broker in Uruguay who will get our things released from port, and a local mover to haul the container out of port and to the house for us.

The first part of the journey begins this weekend. On Friday, Bernard the trucker will drop off a 20 foot container at our house. Then on Saturday, a crew we hired will load the container. This is not an across town move, this container is going to be moved around by cranes and will be on a ship which will possibly encounter huge waves and maybe even storms, so how it is packed matters. Our crew will make sure it is packed tightly and balanced. After the container is all packed, we will put our own chain and locks on it. When the trucker comes on Monday to pick it up, he will apply a seal, which - touch wood - will be unbroken until the container is taken to our Uruguay home.

Well, back to packing. Stay tuned!

These are a few of my favorite things.

I could not resist the Sound of Music reference. We spent a week in Vermont recently at the Trapp Family Lodge, courtesy of my Aunt Helen and Uncle Jack, so the title seems apropos. We found Vermont to be pastoral and refreshing, with a relaxed easy pace and good quality of life. Kind of like Uruguay, except with bigger mountains and a brutal winter. We are a month away from our move. Between boxing things up and fretting about details, I am day dreaming about Uruguay. Here are few things I am looking forward to.

1. The night sky in the country.
When you turn off the lights, the night is black and the stars brilliant. Just like in Pennsylvania when I was a kid.

2. Quiet nights.
No car alarms, no neighbor's music. Just crickets. Oh, and the bats in the eaves of the house...but that's another blog post.

3. Learning Spanish.
Total immersion.

4. Taking visiting friends and family to the Mercado del Puerto.
In Anthony Bordain's words, a "glorious, joyous, miasma of meatness".

5. Exploring Uruguay and other countries in South America.
In addition to exploring the coast and interior of Uruguay, here are a few places on our must see list: Machu Picchu, Florianopolis, Iguazo Falls, Tierra del Fuego, Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Patagonia, the Amazon, the Bolivian Altiplano and Lake Titicaca, Santiago...

6. Gardening.
We'll see if I really do have the family green thumb.

7. Fresh unadultered food.
The Slow Food movement is quite at home in Uruguay.

8.Beautiful beaches.
The most isolated.
The trendiest.

9. Not having to be anywhere.
Nuff said.

10. Watching the horses from our front porch.
See number 9.

11. Keeping chickens.
See number 7.

12. Meeting new friends.

The Secret Life of STUFF

Did you read my last post about getting rid of a lot of the stuff Cesar and I have acquired over the past few years? I hope it made you think about the similar stuff your family has accumulated. Do you ever think about how that stuff was made, where it came from, where it goes when you are done with it and the larger implications of its creation/consumption/disposal cycle on our natural environment? Have you considered whether you really need it or not?

A friend introduced me to a website called Story of Stuff. Please, click on the image above and watch this video.

Our Life, In a Box

I took this picture after the two gentlemen and one lady from Security Storage had wrapped, boxed, disassembled and neatly stacked most of our household items into this 20 foot container. A quick plug for this company – I meant it when I called them ladies and gentlemen. They were courteous, professional and hard working. The job took the better part of a day. When they were done, the house was mostly empty and I thought we had taken the biggest step towards our move to Uruguay. Fate had other plans and our move was to be delayed, but at least the things we chose to store are out of our way and safely secured in Security’s Dulles warehouse. Our nicest furniture is in that box, and frankly, I don’t miss it. That is the point of this post: you don’t need half the crap you think you need.

In the weeks building up to our planned move date, I slowly tried to shed the things we did not want to take with us and were not worth storing. Running out of time towards the end, I ended up going on a rampage and rounding up several truck loads of stuff and just taking them to a nonprofit organization in Herndon, VA which takes donations. Getting rid of things in such a manner is liberating. I was known to say often during this process “you don’t own your things, they own you”. It felt a little wasteful, but at the same time, I could feel somewhat good about it hoping it would go to someone who actually needed it and not end up in a landfill just yet. At the same time, I was repenting for my consumerist ways and pledging not to let the build up of excessive stuff happen again.

Sick of my soulless corporate job, I got rid of the vast majority of my suits and high heeled shoes. I did keep a couple of the nicer skirt suits, just in case I have to go to court or something like that. Harder was getting rid of old clothes that no longer fit me. I admit to hanging on to those size 4 Calvin Klein jeans that fit like a glove at one time. I’ll be back, girls. The skinny clothes dilemma is something many of us are familiar with. How can I fit back into that dress if I get rid of it? Getting rid of it seems almost tantamount to accepting the 10 pounds keeping me from slipping into it. Just tell yourself you can buy a whole new wardrobe – of current styles – once you regain your svelte physique. The jeans however, are staying.

Next to clothes, books are the hardest thing. Unless you really are going to read it again, or use it as reference, why keep a book around? The cynical answer is because they are trophies. One’s book case says, look how interesting I am, how well read. I always take great pleasure in perusing a person’s book collection. They say a lot about the owner. However, after culling the books I was embarrassed to have around, never read and never will, were downright bad, or were dated tech manuals, I could not part with the rest - which was most of them. This is because they remind me of things which once excited me or held my interest. Revisiting them can be like bumping into an old friend. I’ll keep those.

Clothing and books under control, we still had various knickknacks, small appliances, furniture and other flotsam and jetsam. Out went superfluous kitchen gadgets like the salad spinner. I rank this gadget right up there with the garlic press – a tool invented just so someone could sell you something. Out also went the crock pot. I don’t know how this Rachel Ray of cooking equipment made it into my house anyway. Among the many other things I tossed was the egg poacher – a pot of boiling water works just fine (sorry, Mom).

It’s funny how one rationalizes keeping certain things, either for sentimental or even superstitious reasons. That old lamp suddenly looks pitiful and sad when sitting in the to-go pile and I find myself feeling sorry for an inanimate object. But OUT it goes. Someone else will love it. That laminating machine which I used ONCE five years ago suddenly shines with possibility. OUT it goes as well. Again, someone else can make good use of it. More likely, it will sit in their closet for five years until they chuck it.

Welcome

This weblog is for our friends and family and its purpose is to be our online diary and virtual postcard about our life in Uruguay. We will keep it updated with the latest news and photos of our daily life and adventures in South America. We will miss our families and friends very much while we are away. We hope these virtual postcards will allow our loved ones to feel like they are a part of our lives abroad. I hope that it also turns out to be good armchair travel for my desk-bound friends at Oracle and other places I have worked.

We are living the dream I have had my entire working career of doing something truly different and thumbing my nose at nine to five corporate life. I am escaping from the cube farm! My significant other made this escape a long time ago and has been an entrepreneur ever since, working extremely hard to build his business. Now, he too desires a break. Thus, we are moving to Uruguay to begin our next great adventure together.

We are in the middle of undertaking one of our biggest projects ever – the logistics of moving ourselves, our worldly belongings and three cats to another country. So, posts at first may be scant while we get settled.

Welcome to our weblog and please stay tuned for future posts. More to come…