Postcards from Uruguay

High in the North

2010-04-22T00:04:00.014-03:00

After our one full day in Chiclayo and Lambeyeque, we headed to Chepen (the aforementioned “ancestral” homeland of Cesar’s clan). We had a lovely visit in that city with distant relatives who demonstrated graceful hospitality even though our visit was a complete surprise. At 11pm we boarded a bus for the five hour trip to the city of Cajamarca in the Northern highlands (2800 meters a.s.l.), where the last Inca leader, Atahualpa, was captured by Francisco Pizzaro in 1532.

Hotel options are slim when one arrives in a town at 4am, but someone did respond to our banging on a door in the town square and we all flopped down for a rest in a hotel low in amenities but high in character. With rumbling stomachs we headed out for breakfast around 8am and managed to find some turkey sandwiches (turkey sandwiches are a typical breakfast in most of Peru, accompanied by fresh fruit juice or god-awful instant coffee). After admiring the graceful colonial Plaza de Armas with its intricate antique wooden balconies, 350 year old fountain and fantastically ornate baroque cathedral, we visited the infamous chamber where Atahualpa was kept after his capture. A red line on the wall memorializes where he reached up and indicated how high his subjects would fill the large room with gold and silver to secure his release. He was clearly a tall man. Sadly, despite the ransom treasure, Pizarro drew up charges against Atahualpa and had him executed anyway. The Inca Empire quickly toppled under cruel European domination.

From one empire to another: our next stop was a mind boggling example of the excess adornments of the Catholic Church. This particular church however is a museum now and not a working church controlled by the Vatican. Our guide also gave us a very educational tour of the church’s hospital, also restored, and a museum of the local Cajamarquina culture. Interestingly, after the municipality’s complicated and expensive renovation of this once neglected and ruined space, now extraordinary and well maintained, (the church courtyard was used as a garbage dump before the renovation), the Catholic Church wants it back.

After hearing of that dirty business with the Church, we needed a bath. A 15 minute taxi ride took us to Los Baños del Inca – sulphurous thermal springs where Atahaulpa himself took the healing waters. The water’s natural temperature is 78 degrees Celsius. To make the water bearable, some is cooled and then mixed in with the hot. We enjoyed a leisurely soak in our individual private baths and then went in search of typical Norteño cuisine. Peruvian cuisine is varied, interesting and always delicious. More on this subject later.

It was time to end our little excursion to the Northlands and return by “cama” bus to Lima.

Next... High in the South.

Escape from Lima

2010-04-16T00:31:00.004-03:00

View from the mirador over the beach in the wealthy neighborhood of Miraflores, in Lima.

It had been 5 days since we arrived in Lima. True to form, we came to Peru with no set itinerary. We had vague ideas that at some point we would head south, or north, or whatever… So, on Wednesday at 3:30pm Cesar discovered there was an 8pm bus to Chiclayo, the capital of Lambayeque Department. Since the bus-ride from Lima to Chiclayo is 12 hours, we wanted to get it over with at night, so we could sleep instead of wasting a day on the long, dusty, Pan American highway through the desert along the Pacific. To my Norte-Americano friends and family – I know that the word “bus” in South America fills you with images of an ancient vehicle packed with sweaty peasants with their assorted farm animals. Sorry, folks. Buses in South America are incredibly civilized and a comfortable way to travel. This one had fully reclining “cama” seats that turn into beds. It even had meal service, movies a bingo game with prizes and a “urination only” bathroom policy.

So, that would give us four hours to get ourselves ready. No problema. No problem for Cesar’s dad either. To the three of us, simply say “vamos” and we’re ready to go anywhere. Cesar’s mom opted to stay in Lima. She’s a city girl.

By the time we had decided to go, explored other transportation options, and then finally bought our tickets, our four hours had been whittled down to one and a half, with just barely enough time to get from the bus depot, through dense Lima rush-hour traffic across town, back to our apartment to pack in five minutes, and back through the same streets to the bus depot. Thanks to a cab driver with uncanny navigation skills of back streets, we just made it. Looking out of the taxi window on the way meet our bus, I saw a colorful blur of row houses to my right – sky blue, ochre, mango orange, algae green and deep purple. This was nice, but looking right or left in intersections is another story. I don’t recommend it. You will see the onrushing flow of traffic coming straight at you. At night the lights of the cars headed for your side door are blinding. Cars in Lima don’t really stop for each other, they just all kind of merge in with the flow and fill in the gaps. Lines painted on the road are there for decoration only. At lights, taxis jockey for position to try to get a slight edge on the other cars they are lined up with. With much swerving, honking of horns, and sudden braking, we arrived just in time for our bus.

We arrived in Chiclayo at 8am and went in search of breakfast, which turned out to be delicious turkey sandwiches – fresh hot rolls with moist real roasted turkey - like the day after Thanksgiving but better. Then we found rooms and headed to a town to the north which houses museums of nearby archeological finds of pre-Inca cultures. We spent an hour or two in a dark and cool museum shaped like a pyramid. You start at the top and descend down, just as the archeologists did who excavated this particular find at a site called Sipan. It contained unmolested burial chambers of important Mochica leaders and priests, buried with huge amounts of intricate objects of copper and gold.

It was an interesting day for transportation too. We arrived in a luxurious bus, took a taxi to the town of Lambayeque to see the Museo de las Tumbas Reales de Sipan (12 soles for the 12 km drive), then after our museum tour went to a restaurant (for outstanding cebiche, and stewed goat and duck) by way of a taxi cholo – a lot like a rickshaw, but with a motorcycle converted into a three wheeled contraption with a long seat in the back, then another taxi cholo, which broke down on the way to our destination, then a collectivo which is the size of a VW microbus in which they cram up to 15 people. That ride, from Lambayeque back to Chiclayo was only 3 soles. The collectivos really are something. In addition to the driver there is an assistant whose job is to look for pedestrians in need of a ride. The assistant will hop out of the vehicle to shout prices and route information and generally try to get walkers to get in and take a ride. Then he’ll run for the already moving vehicle when it’s time to go and jump in. Ours was nearly left behind though because Cesar closed the sliding door just as he was trying to grab it. Cesar swears it was just force of habit that lead him to close the door. All of the passengers had a chuckle over that.

Tomorrow we’re off to Chepen, 40 km to the south to see Cesar’s ancestral homeland.
One of these days I’ll get around to posting more about our recent trip to Patagonia. For now I’ll try to keep up with our time in Peru.

Taxi cholo, taken from the back of our taxi cholo

Return to Patagonia

2010-03-08T10:33:00.011-02:00

We are back in one of our very favorite places, Patagonia. Patagonia is immense. Everything here is huge, from the mountains, to the rivers, to the steppes, to the portions of lamb served for dinner. Patagonia is a land of extremes. It is not uncommon to experience four seasons in a day while hiking here in Argentina's Glacier National Park. It is a mythical and magical place which had captured my imagination long before it captured my heart.

More specifically, we are in the town of El Chalten, in Santa Cruz province in the south of Argentina, very near Chile. This is a young town, built in 1984 after a border dispute between Chile and Argentina resulted in this area being in Argentina's possession. To stake their claim, the Argentines quickly established a town here. El Chalten feels like a frontier town. 500 people call it their home during the entire year. The summer (December through March) sees a large influx of tourists from all over the globe. Out on the trails, we hear a lot of German, French and English spoken. The town is a four hour drive through immense nothingness from the airport in the next largest town, El Calafate. Until recently, the highway here was an unpaved "ripio" road. Ripio is a washboard road that will rattle the fillings out of your teeth. But now the highway is paved and an airport is planned. The tourism industry is booming. It also helps that the current and former presidents of Argentina are from this province. Things here will change rapidly.

Patagonia, technically The Patagonia, is a region spanning across the bottom of South America, including both southern Argentina and southern Chile. No one knows exactly why the region is called La Patagonia. My favorite explanation is that Magellan, when he first encountered the very tall Tehuelche indians who lived here, exclaimed "Patagon!", which could mean "Big Foot". This isn't proper Spanish though and I for one am skeptical that this is how it got its name. The idea of Big Foot on the prowl here is easy to imagine though, once you experience the scale of the place.

It is our third day here and we have covered many miles already. On our first day, the clouds fell away from the major peaks and we were treated to fabulous views of Mount Fitz Roy and Mount Torre. Today, our third day, the wind has picked up considerably. Sometimes it gusts so violently that it takes ones breath away. The butterflies, dragonflies and birds are all grounded today. It is too windy even for Condors. I did see one this morning, but it appeared to be flying sideways. I heard someone say that they wished the wind would blow away the clouds hiding Mount Fitz Roy. This is not the thing to wish for if you want good views because mountains make their own weather. As the wind passes over the peaks, it speeds up and gets chilled, creating condensation which results in cloud formation. The indian name for Mount Fitz Roy is Chalten, meaning the mountain that smokes - because of the wisp of cloud usually trailing from it. No worries, if you don't like the weather in Patagonia, just wait, it will change.

p.s. I will upload photos as soon as I am able. The strong winds today seem to have an effect on the internet signal.

The Small Stuff

2010-02-10T22:47:00.007-02:00

Not many words today.
Let these photos be a reminder to stop enjoy the small things.
There is wonder in nature.
Photos taken in Aguas Blancas, in the Department of Lavalleja.

Coati Quest

2010-01-31T08:43:00.000-02:00

I knew I should have brought my camera… In fact, I thought I had packed it, but the moment I needed it, it was nowhere to be found. The odd creature who would have been my model seemed to know this and stuck around, watching us, coyly waiting to melt into the underbrush the instant a camera lens appeared.

We had been trudging up the small boulders that make the trail to the top of Cerro Pan de Azucar. This was our second outing to the park and I had left my camera at home. So there I was, admiring a ring tailed Coati staring right at us from 8 feet away while my husband, whose philosophy about picture taking just prior to that moment had been to “experience” rather than be behind a lens, expressed his disappointment that I was sans camera. Naturally, I told him to just be in the moment and enjoy rather than getting caught up in bagging a photo trophy. We stood there for a while, him watching us, us watching him, awed to see a creature like this here. The Coati didn’t seem awed though, he just yawned as he approached us with curiosity.

I could substitute one of the many Coati photos I took in Tikal, Guatemala seven years ago. In Tikal, ring-tailed Coatis are like squirrels are in most parts of the United States – everywhere. However, the same creature here is unlikely to be seen. Up until now, we had not even heard of Coatis in Uruguay. Their habitat is forest, which Uruguay does not have a lot of.

Hopefully, we’ll see this little guy again. If you should come across a Coati, or any wildlife for that matter, please don’t feed them. In doing so, you would be habituating a wild animal to humans, who may not all have good intentions. Wild animals have adapted beautifully to fit their environment, of which your snack food is not a natural part.

Cerro Pan de Azucar

2010-01-25T18:53:00.014-02:00

Ever since I first laid eyes on the impressive stony flanks of Cerro Pan de Azucar, I have wanted to climb it. Pan de Azucar (not to be confused with the nearby town of the same name) is the tallest of three large hills near the city of Piriápolis, in the department of Maldonado, about 50 kilometers from Atlántida. With steep, bald stone shoulders rising to 423 meters above sea level near the Rio de la Plata, it is a picturesque sight.

We finally got around to exploring Cerro Pan de Azucar today. The route to the top is a well established and well marked trail, not the mad thorn-choked bushwack I suspected it may be. At the bottom near the trail entrance is a zoo of some sorts. We avoided it since I find wild animals in cages to be depressing. However, on the way to the trail-head, we did enjoy seeing in large enclosures two examples of Uruguay’s increasingly rare indigenous fauna, Pampas Deer (“venados”) and a small cousin to the ostrich, the Nandu.

Nandu

Venados

Our walk to the trail and ascent took just under an hour. We started at noon, when the sun is at its most brutal. I don’t know what it is about Uruguay, but the sun here seems extra strong and punishing. My unscientific theory is that the ozone layer above the country has been depleted by Uruguayans’ incessant burning of wood and the methane released by their many, many cows. But I digress. Our shadeless and broiling hot ascent was punishment for not getting there in the morning, as we had originally planned.

It was hot.

One of the things I admire about Uruguayos is that they don’t seem to worry about anything. All is “tranquilo”. In fact, the most frequent comment we heard while traveling in Argentina in response to our choice of place to live (next to “¿por que?”) is “ah, Uruguay, tranquilo”. Sometimes, though, the Uruguayan lack of worry can go a bit far. I am thinking of shirtless guys on motorcycles, often without helmets and wearing flip-flops; or today, seeing people going up craggy, rocky Pan de Azucar wearing flip-flops. By comparison, my all-leather trekking boots from L.L.Bean that I am breaking in must have looked seriously overkill to them. They may not be outdoors people as we are used to in the northern hemisphere (the Uruguaya idea of camping is being as close as possible to your 500 best friends), but I think Uruguayans are a hardy lot. Unfortunately, they don’t quite grasp the idea of protecting and respecting our natural environment, so litter and graffiti are common sights in parks.

Litter aside (anyone want to help me on a clean-up campaign?), Cerro Pan de Azucar is a fun experience, not to be missed if you live nearby. Enjoy the photos.

View from the trail

Typical disrepair of local parks.

Duh, where's the trail?

Lagarto

Antiques Shopping, Uruguayan Style

2010-01-17T12:21:00.011-02:00

Last month’s road trip took us to the eastern edge of Uruguay, to Chuy, the Brazilian border, Fortin San Miguel and Treinta y Tres. So for a change of scenery this time we traveled west, towards Argentina. Our excuse to hit the road this time was a grand estate sale outside a sleepy town in the department of Colonia, called Ombues de Lavalle.

When I was a kid, we would sometimes go to auctions in Pennsylvania, the home state of my Pennsylvania-Dutch family. My Grandmother, aunt and cousin still go to these sales. The custom there is to auction off a house and most of its contents instead of just selling the house through a conventional realtor. They call them “sales” in Pennsylvania and publish flyers advertising them. Sales are often whole day events and are just as much a social and entertainment event as a buying opportunity. Our family home, sadly, was sold in this manner. I wasn’t at all surprised to find that the same is done here in Uruguay. Here, they are called “remates”. It could be Pennsylvania –simply substitute paisanos (country people, who foreigners mistake for gauchos because they wear the traditional gaucho clothing) in their baggy gaucho pants, wide belts, leather hats and gaucho boots for Amish and Mennonite men in black suits, straw hats and ladies in long dresses and bonnets. (I regret not taking any pictures of the paisanos. Yet again, I erred on the side of politeness and respectfulness, not good traits in a photographer, plus I hesitate to photograph a cow-hand with a dagger tucked into his belt. I'll work on being less shy on future outings).

I think this particular remate was an unusual one for its size and the quality of the items. In contrast, check out the heap of junk for sale at the first remate Cesar went to in Uruguay. I’m glad I passed on that one. So, just like the Pennsylvania sales, this remate had a glossy flyer with the details and pictures of the most photogenic or desirable items. An auction house was hired to manage the event. An event it was – at 9am it began with the auctioning of farm equipment, it then progressed to different locations around the property to sell off smaller farming tools, odds and ends and common things like cook pots and knick-knacks. The main event, scheduled to start at 6pm, in typical Uruguayo style did not start until 8pm. Before sunset, we gathered in plastic lawn chairs before a large screen set up just outside of the main house.

The auctioneers warmed up the crowd by dispatching a few small items while people walked around serving the crowd complimentary cold soda or Johnny Walker Red on ice. Later there were free sausages and meat cooked over a fire nearby. A lot of people, probably from the nearby town, seemed to know each other and had a ball just watching and commenting on the items for sale. Mixed in the crowd were some serious antique hunters who clearly came for specific items and bidded assertively on them and left when the item was in their possession or in the hands of a competitor. As darkness fell, the remate went high-tech. A team with a video camera and lights went around the inside of the house to project each item on the large screen outside as the auctioneer in front of us did his job.

The items the crowd seemed most interested in were some antique gaucho accoutrements, such as ornamental daggers, boleadoras, a horse’s headstall and bit beautifully decked out in silver, solid silver stirrups and two beautiful and old gaucho coin belts, one of which fetched $20,000 pesos (about $1000 US).

We came away with a fascinating antique Uruguayan-made balance scale with silver feet, a wood body and marble top for $8000 pesos.

By this time it was past midnight. When we left at 1:30am the crowd had thinned and the auctioneer was trying not to yawn, but there were quite a few smaller items left. The thing I coveted was this dining table which went unsold as there were no bites at its base price of $35,000 pesos.

A Road Trip to Treinta y Tres

2009-12-14T12:59:00.015-02:00

Suffering from typical restlessness, Cesar and I decided on the perfect treatment for what ailed us – a road trip. We loosely planned a three day, two night circuit that would take us through the departments of Rocha , Treinta y Tres and Lavalleja. After securing house-sitting services from a trusted friend, we were off.

Then it began to rain. And rain and rain and rain. That meant our scheduled stop to explore the isolated sandy point of Cabo Polonio was a no go. So, with desultory stops to peek at Aguas Dulces (not worth even the short drive from the interbalnearia to the sea) and Punta del Diablo (a tiny but bustling beach encampment with a young, hippie feel) we pushed on the border town of Chuy. Chuy (Chui on the Brazilian side) sits astride a wide main avenue which also is the international border. On one side of the street is Uruguay, the other, Brasil. Chuy is essentially one big duty-free shop. Uruguayos travel here to stock up on inexpensive wine, liquor and to buy Christmas presents. The larger stores here look just like every airport duty free shop you have ever seen – liquor here, wine there, a large cosmetics and perfume counter with overly helpful sales assistants, and a smattering of electronics, clothing and imported chocolate. There are also wine and cheese shops, stores that sell only leather goods, and clothing. Also, on the Brazilian side, there are churrascarias with rodizio service – Brazilian steakhouses where various cuts of meat are brought around the dining room on large skewers, sliced off directly onto your plate. Chuy, however, dies at night, so the churrascarias are open only for lunch. We did find an open parrilla at which at 9:00pm (typically when restaurants start to get busy), we and a Portuguese-speaking family were the only diners.

The next day, rather than stick around and buy things we really don’t need, we headed northwest into the department of Treinta y Tres. Along the way we saw flooded rice paddies, dotted with an amazing collection of colorful birds of all shapes and sizes. Every once and a while, Cesar would stop the car so I could stalk some exotic winged creature with my camera. This area is a paradise for that odd species, the birder. We took in great views of more birds and the surrounding flat and wet landscape from the bastions of Fortin San Miguel.

This restored fort was built by the Portuguese in 1734, and later claimed by the Spanish. In 1933 began the restoration project to bring it from its ruinous state to a well-kept, if not often visited, national park. Its grounds are well manicured, but the fort itself is covered in yellow lichen, probably not conducive to its preservation. After looking at the ombu trees growing nearby, we were back in the car, headed for Treinta y Tres.

The capital of the department of the same name is a pleasant clean little city whose town square is a lively place centered around a large fountain. We were there to visit a 4000 hectare ecological reserve north of town, the Quebrada de los Cuervos (Gorge of the Crows). This is a misnomer as there are no crows in the southern hemisphere. It got the name because of the vultures that cruise the thermals above the deep gorge at the heart of the reserve. As we descended into the gorge with the help of first a wooden walkway and then ropes secured to a steep slope, we entered another world. Gnarled old trees dripped with sphagnum moss. Everything was moist and green. For the first time in Uruguay, we walked in a dark canopy of indigenous trees. This really is a rarity in this shadeless country where the only large stands of trees are non-native eucalyptus. We plan to come back to this place.

The next morning we were ready to go home, taking a different and more direct route back. We stopped just outside of Minas in the department of Lavalleja for lunch at the lovely Parque Salus, where Patricia beer is made and Salus water is bottled. As usual, their elegant restaurant did not disappoint and we had a memorable meal.

We came home to find our pets happy and home well-cared for. As for us, our wanderlust was satisfied by new sights and our little break from suburban life in Atlántida the perfect cure.

Taste of Home

2009-09-22T14:45:00.004-03:00

Does this jar of peanut butter look dangerous to you? It is a well-traveled jar of peanut butter, having made it from Washington DC to Montevideo in its own cardboard box, courtesy of a sympathetic agent at American Airlines. As we all know, air travel these days isn’t much fun – from the frantic peeling off of shoes, belts and jackets at the security lines to the cutting of most in-air freebies.
It ended up in our carry-on luggage because of our need to reduce baggage weight. While there is a strictly enforced rule that each checked bag must weigh no more than 50 pounds, no such rule exists for carry-on items.
So, as our bags passed through the scanner, an overzealous TSA contractor automaton flagged it for inspection. She was flagging just about every other bag. Another TSA agent explained we couldn’t carry it on. My weak reply was to point out that it is not a liquid. His retort was that liquids, gels and creams are banned. Since when is peanut butter a cream? He pointed to the Creamy label on my over-sized jar of Jiff… Note to self: buy the Chunky variety next time.

But we weren't giving up. To his credit, the TSA agent was a friendly guy - hey, he didn't make the rules - and he suggested that I go back to the check-in counter to have one of our bags recalled. After replacing my shoes, my jacket and leaving the other carry-on items with Cesar, I zipped back to the American check-in counter. There, instead of recalling one of our bags in which to safely place the threatening, possibly explosive peanut butter, the aformentioned sympathetic American agent found a discarded box in which he placed the threatening spread and checked it through to our final destination. The most gratifying part for me was his choice words about the TSA guy who wouldn’t let me through with it.
So the flight passed safely without any explosions involving roasted crushed nuts mixed with sugar. Meanwhile, I could have killed someone with the undetected nail-clippers and tweezers I accidentally left in my purse.

Home, again.

2009-09-11T18:55:00.003-03:00

Wait, where is home now? After stretching our three week trip into four, we are back in Uruguay. Being in the U.S. with friends and family sure felt like home, but coming back to our own house here and our pets felt like a homecoming too. It had been ten months since we had been in the U.S. Though this was the longest I have ever been out of the country, coming back was like being a fish in water again. To be honest, I was not sure what my impression of Uruguay would be upon our return here. Happily, I am glad to be back though I acknowledge that finding ways to beat boredom here and find meaning in day to day life is the challenge ahead.

For all of our friends who are curious about where we live in Uruguay, let me dispel a couple of common myths and misunderstandings we encountered while in the U.S. about our current location. First of all, Uruguay has virtually nothing in common, not even a border, with Paraguay. Let me say it again, we do not live in Paraguay. Secondly, we are way farther south than most of you think and it is not tropical here. I can’t tell you how many people were shocked that we didn’t come back with perfect tans. Now if I am describing you, dear reader, don’t fret; I am not picking on you. I just think it is interesting how our idea of a place can be radically different from reality. I like to be fair, so this is a good time to point out that most Uruguayans I have met think the United States means Miami.

My first impression upon coming back to the Washington D.C. area is that there are so many freaking people, so many cars and so much development – everywhere. Those multitudes of people have a bit more of an edge to them as well (I blame the crowded conditions). In Uruguay, if a driver sounds their horn, 99% of the time they are just saying hello to a friend. In the U.S., at least where I am from, that honk is usually accompanied by the driver telling you that you’re number one. Street lights on the interstates are as tall as the glacier carved cliffs in Mendoza and highway overpasses loom like distant Andean mountains. Everything is big. Uruguay by contrast is quaint – and I mean that as a compliment. There is a definite slower pace here and people are easy going and mostly pleasant.

This morning I took the dogs for a long walk on the beach. On the way to the beach I took note of all the new spring growth and startled a flock of startling green parrots on the path to the sand. The normally dark water of the estuary was a shimmering light blue, a perfect companion to the clear morning sky. The sea was calm as cormorants bobbed up and down in the gentle waves. In this moment I was happy. Every cell in me buzzed with the simple and powerful joy of being alive. Then I slipped on a slime covered rock by a tidal pool and my reverie was broken. No one knows what tomorrow will bring, so we will enjoy our surroundings while we are here. And yes, we’re happy to be back.

Timeout

2009-08-14T22:25:00.002-03:00

Postcards From Uruguay is on a three week hiatus while we are in the USA.

Market Day

2009-08-06T15:44:00.007-03:00

In the months leading up to our move to Uruguay, I had bucolic fantasies dancing around my brain about raising chickens, having farm animals and being an organic gardener. I had even planned what the hen-house would look like. In my Green Acres silliness, I had already named the goats we would raise after previous co-workers (Ino for the stinkiest one and Kylie for the cutest). Clearly, all those issues of Mother Earth News I had read had taken root in my brain.

Fast forward to the present. It became clear that an isolated life in a rustic cabin in the campo does not suit us for more than a few months of the year. So we traded in our pitch fork and overalls for a modern house in a beach town with all the amenities. Don’t start thinking this is typical suburbia though. The road in front of our house, though level and well traveled, is not paved. The other day I was lured outside by the unmistakable clipity-clop of a horse-drawn carriage going down the road. It could have been followed by a speeding Mercedes. That’s how it is here – an interesting blend of old and new. Just a 15 minute walk to the water and we can buy fish caught that day. We also have an open air market (called a feria) just down the road that we walk to once a week to buy a huge variety of high quality inexpensive fresh local produce.

So, no chickens for us. We can buy lovely organic eggs with rich orange yolks at the weekly market for far less than we would spend on chicken feed. And we don’t have to clean up chicken shit. Even after devouring books like The Last American Man, and Carla Emory’s Encyclopedia of Country Living, and of course, Mother Earth News, I am no homesteader. And that is just fine. Because in Uruguay, you don’t have to grow it yourself and live off the grid to have wholesome, fresh, locally produced food as the norm. It is a small country and they don’t need to turn to factory farming to feed it. Also it bears mentioning that petroleum based fertilizers are expensive and natural farming traditions are preserved because they are simply cheaper. Farm animals pretty much live out their animal lives in a natural way before making their way to your dinner plate. No CAFOs, no so-called “free range” chickens that live their beakless lives without ever seeing the sun, no docking the tails of pigs so they don’t bite off each others’ tails in their horrible fetid confinement. I think author Michael Pollan would be pleased.

Today is market day. I am eating divinely sweet strawberries at the moment. We came home with our usual huge haul. We walked there and spent 297 pesos (about $13).
This bought us: ½ kilo of strawberries, 1 kilo of tomatoes, 2 kilos of onions, 2 eggplant, 1 large winter squash, 1 bunch of spinach, 2 kilos of oranges, 1 large head of broccoli, 1 kilo of lemons, a bunch of bananas (the one non-local concession, they are from Ecuador, it is too cold here for them), and ¼ kilo of black olives. In this country of non-apologetic carnivores where beef is practically a religion, one could be a vegetarian quite easily.

Home, Sweet Home

2009-07-23T12:57:00.001-03:00

I have noticed an interesting phenomenon in the expat community here in Uruguay. Among people who have chosen to live in a country other than that of their birth, it is conspicuous how many of these people have nothing but negative things to say about their first country. For example, some people who have lived most of their lives in the United States move here for a change of pace or a more affordable retirement. They then rail against the U.S. and all it stands for. Personally, I think the U.S. stands for some pretty great things. Yes, it is not without its problems, but if you are looking for a country without problems, keep looking and let me know if you find it. It sure ain’t Uruguay.

My explanation for this phenomenon is cognitive dissonance. All types of people emigrate for very valid reasons. But, a lot of them then support and rationalize their decision to leave the United States by putting it down. This rationalization allows them to avoid any discord in their own heads about the bold decision they made to move to another country.

I keep this blog neither as a platform for my views or as my own personal soapbox. So what does the above have to do with it? Well, we have bought a house here. And for the record, it is not because we are anti-U.S. We are absolutely not. We just like it here – for now. Home may be where you hang your hat, but the home in my heart will always be the United States of America.
That said, pictures and a virtual house tour will be forthcoming. We have been preoccupied with moving and getting settled in to our new home – our very first owned together. Now you know why I have neglected this blog for nearly a month. This is not the end of the blog though! I will keep it updated with our continued adventures in South America and home ownership Uruguayan style.

Back in Uruguay

2009-06-22T01:38:00.002-03:00

With a few nights in hotels without internet access and many miles on the road, I have neglected our online travelogue. We arrived back at La Gaia yesterday just before dark after driving all day from the city of Santa Fe, in Argentina’s Entre Rios province. Chile we will save for a future trip.

During our two weeks on the road, we covered approximately 5500 kilometers, stayed in eight cities/towns, and ate way too much red meat. Our “Cordoba trip” took us to Mendoza, Uspallata, San Juan, and Tupungato. Uspallata and Tupungato are interesting and beautiful; I will write about them in future blog posts. San Juan, the city in the province of the same name, I will neglect because the only redeeming thing about this ugly and depressing city is the Graffigna winery and wine museum.

I may have quipped that the best thing about Uruguay is its proximity to Argentina. After this trip, that still holds true. However, peaceful, bucolic Uruguay is nice to come home to after a long and tiring trip. The animalitos were all beyond happy to see us again. They were well cared for by our fantastic house-sitters. Except for missing the cats a bit, I did not worry about them at all, because I knew they were in good hands.

Highlights of our trip included the awe-inspiring scenery of the Andes, two fantastic hotels – the Ca’Montana in La Falda, Cordoba province and Tupungato Divino in Tupungato, Mendoza province – Mendoza wine and the freedom of deciding from day to day where the road would take us.

Our little Volkswagon Parati held up incredibly well. Cesar has dubbed it “Sherman”, because it proved to be a little tank. We took it up Andean roads at 2800 meters, along unpaved rocky roads and covered many miles of highway. It performed like a champ.

We came home with further appreciation for our vast and diverse neighbor across the Rio de la Plata. Argentina is so much more that tango and Buenos Aires, the two things most North Americans know about it.

The scenery around Tupungato Divino, in the Uco Valley of the province of Mendoza.

Argentine Road Trip, Days 4-6

2009-06-12T23:48:00.003-03:00

Surprise! We’re in Mendoza, land of vineyards and majestic mountains. I would say this wasn’t in the plans, but then we didn’t really have any plans, so maybe it is not so surprising. After two days in the province of Cordoba, Cesar started dreaming of Mendoza. I think he had our shared fascination with Aconcagua in mind.

By Thursday morning, when we were getting ready to check out of the delightful Ca’Montana hotel, we had pretty much decided to head for Mendoza. The only thing holding us back was lack of knowledge about the quality of the roads and just how long it would take us to get there. By kismet, Alejandro, co-owner of Ca’Montana is a walking encyclopedia of Argentina and has made this drive at least several times. He invited us into his family’s private home on the grounds of Ca’Montana and got out his many maps. As we sat around their table discussing the route and the sights, I got the feeling he was as excited about our trip as we were. I felt very privileged that he was sharing his information and love of travel with us.

Alejandro was right on the money. We were able to follow his directions easily and admire some incredible scenery along the way. Taking a road through the Sierras Grandes of Cordoba, we climbed and twisted and turned our way through mountains where condors soared. Before that section of the road, we had randomly put in a CD of Beethoven. The grand soaring lines of the second movement of the fifth symphony were a perfect accompaniment to the scenery. With jaw-dropping mountain scenery and exposed two lane roads, it was an exhilarating drive. At one point I had to brake hard for a loose goat that trotted out in front of the car. Did I mention the local specialty? I felt like having some at that moment.

We came into Mendoza at night. Finding your way in a strange city in a foreign country is not easy, but we managed just fine - with some stern words between a tired, irritable pilot and his exhausted, grumpy navigator - and found a hotel for the night. The city of Mendoza, capital of the province of the same name is attractive and welcoming. Unlike other Argentine cities, it has very wide streets - in case evacuation is necessary for a super earthquake.

Mendoza has it all - an attractive city with every convenience and good shopping (including mountaineering gear), the best vineyards on the continent, the highest mountain in the western and southern hemispheres, and good food. I know a certain Irishman who left Mendoza for Uruguay because he was bored here. Now that I have seen this place, I want to grab this man by the ears and shake him hard, and ask “what the heck is wrong with you, brother?”. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.

So, here we are today in Uspallata, a small village about 90 km north of the city of Mendoza. It was another awe-inspiring drive. The mountains looked close enough to reach out and touch. After our time in Patagonia, we know that distances in grand places are seriously misleading. What looked close enough to reach out and grab is probably a three day walk away. After checking in, we drove west along Ruta 7 to ogle more Andean scenery. We ended up at the Aconcagua national park to get a glimpse of the great mountain for ourselves. We saw an interesting thing on the way back to the village. Two fully laden tractor trailers overtook two more fully laden tractor trailers, going downhill, on a two lane road, with another big rig coming the opposite way. We both breathed a sigh of relief when all four trucks going our way were single file again. That could have been very ugly. I expect a trucker or two had to change his shorts after that.

Tomorrow’s plans include a hike in the Parque Provincial Aconcagua, to ogle the giant again, a visit to a natural stone bridge called Puente del Inca and who knows what else. Maybe we’ll end up in Chile. I’ll try to keep you posted. Hasta Luego.

On our hike to the top of La Banderita in La Falda, Cordoba.

Ruta 7 to Uspallata from Aconcagua

Aconcagua

Argentine Road Trip, Days 1-3

2009-06-10T00:49:00.012-03:00

Since my last post, we have been to Argentina twice. The weekend before last we spent in Buenos Aries getting our fill of the city. Ostensibly, the purpose of that trip was to pick up a few things to get ready for our next trip to Argentina, a road trip to the province of Cordoba, but really we just wanted to hang out in the big city again. A week after returning home from Buenos Aires, we were off to Cordoba, this time by car.

I had meant to do a blog post at the beginning of our trip, but was overcome with packing and getting ready. So, here we are, three days into our trip and I am finally getting around to it. Beyond planning to spend up to two weeks on the road, and knowing where we were going to stop for the first night, we have no itinerary. Road trips are best when you wing it.

Well, winging it didn't really pay off for the first two nights. Trusting our guide book, we decided that our stop-over point on the road to Cordoba should be the slightly out of the way city of Rosario, in the provice of Santa Fe. Our Rough Guide to Argentina described Rosario, birthplace of Che Guevara and Argentina's third largest city, as "one of the most attractive cities in Argentina".

Pedestrian street in Rosario

Its charms did not exactly jump out at us and grab our attention, and with only one night there we did not try very hard to seek them out. I am sure that if one was stuck in Rosario long enough, one cound find some interesting things to do, but we were there long enough to have dinner, sleep and go for a walk the next morning before driving off in search of greener pastures. Greener pastures we did see (literal ones, not the figurative ones ot which I was referring) on Ruta 9 to Cordoba. We were crossing the litoral - the bread basket of Argentina - and along the way the sides of the road were nothing but enormous, Kansas-sized farms, nothing but fertile flatness for as far as the eye could see. Then as we approached the city of Cordoba, capital of the provice of Cordoba, the landscape changed all at once. Beyond the city, the sierras lurked like a low hanging cloud. All we could discern was a large shape in the distance, about the same size as the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, but it was nice to finally see hills. I was expecting Cordoba city to be lovely, but the approach to it was anything but. There was smoke and haze everywhere. We drove by a large area of rubble that looked like a dump for construction materials, with little smoldering piles everywhere. It was the worst introduction to any city that I have ever seen. Cordoba has a rich colonial history, owing to the Jesuits who developed much of it and founded what would become the second largest university in South America. Alas, the Jesuits eventually lost favor with the Spanish crown and were expelled in 1767 by King Charles III. The city continued to thrive and is Argentina's second largest city.

Almost immediately, we knew Cordoba city was not what we want. What we want is beautiful alpine scenery and fresh air. Obviously one does not go to the country's second city for those things. After navigating our way to the city's filthy, smoggy and very convenient beltway, the circunvalacion, we headed north on Ruta 38 for the Punilla Valley. Our destination was a boutique hotel just outside the city of La Falda. First we stopped for lunch in Carlos Paz, a bustling resort town built around a large reservoir with sandy beaches. After sinking our teeth into a pile of fresh, hot, delicious empanadas, we were back in the car and bound for La Falda. We passed through many small towns which clung to the hillsides. After about an hour and an half we arrived in La Falda and asked for directions twice before finding this very private and out of the way hotel that looks like a private residence. We were greeted warmly by its proprietors and shown to our room. What a pleasant surprise after two days on the road and basic hotel accomodations. The hotel itself is an extremely solid and well made home from 1944. The woodwork in it, all local indigenous hardwood, is exquisite and shows remarkable craftsmanship of a quality that simply does not exist in modern buildings. To my delight, our bathroom has an enormous round Jacuzzi surrounded by windows and a glass ceiling and includes a small rooftop patio. We spent the afternoon playing with the two hotel Rotweillers, napping and exploring the town. Then we spent the first hour of darkness trying to find the hotel again after exploring the town. We finally admitted we were utterly lost, found a taxi and together with the driver managed to find the hotel. That was followed by a luxurious soak in the giant tub and a sumptuous dinner prepared by the onsite chef who is the daughter of the hotel owners.

For tomorrow, we are looking forward to a morning hike, hopefully followed by a lunch of the local specialty, grilled suckling goat, and planning the rest of our trip - a little bit. I will try to keep up with the blog postings. Hasta luego.

Walking

2009-05-22T23:42:00.012-03:00

One of our great joys here is taking long walks. Flat little Uruguay does not have much variation in scenery, and the sameness can be boring after a while for someone like me whose idea of hiking means steep trails. However, we have found some lovely places to walk which we have not yet tired of. Behind La Gaia is a large fenced in piece of land, maybe 500 acres. Tired of walking only on the road near the house, one day we climbed through the wire fence to walk through an adjoining field. The next day we did the same thing, but went further. Finally on one of our walks, we were met by a man on a horse, the caretaker of the property. We asked for his permission to walk there. After he realized we were not hunters, he gave us his blessing. The property has hills, outcroppings of lichen covered boulders, remants of old stone walls and strange steep-sided valleys. We have to skirt the occasional herd of cows. Even in autumn, tiny wild flowers in yellow, white, purple, pink and blue still manage to thrive. We see liebre (giant rabbits), which to my immense dissatisfaction, our dogs love to chase. I suspect that I will never get it through their thick skulls that this is unacceptable. We also see eagles and a strange long-necked quail-like thing that bursts into the sky with a sudden noisy racket. These creatures nestle unseen in the grass and do not reveal themselves until nearly stepped on, when they startle me as they take off. Also hiding in the grass is the occasional snake. Last week Cesar found a red, yellow and black snake. I said, "oh, that snake is just pretending to be poisonous. See how it looks like a coral snake?" Well, it is a good thing I did not choose to show off by picking it up. I looked it up in our reptile book when we got home and saw very clearly that it was indeed a coral snake. Note to self: stop picking up unidentified snakes. No, scratch that, do not pick up ANY snakes. I will put herpetology right next to mycology on my list of hobbies to NOT take up... With those, it is too easy to die from a misidentification. So, we made it home alive and I am typing this from beside the fireplace instead of from a hospital bed.

Near miss with a coral snake.

Incomplete house.

Happy dogs.

Big sky.

Our own personal stonehenge.

We Like It Raw

2009-05-11T19:57:00.007-03:00

Our milk, that is. We have discovered raw milk and are now hooked on the stuff. Devotees of raw milk tout its health benefits. I cannot prove that it is better for me, I just like the fact that it is delicious and all natural and I know its source. Before you get all squeamish about drinking unpasteurized, unhomogenized, straight-from-the-cow milk, consider this - do you know where your food comes from? Do you care? I hope you do. I do, and that is why I am happy to know the cow that our milk comes from and to know the farmer who cares for her.

I admit that initially I had reservations about drinking unpasteurized milk. This was just due to my ignorance. I did not know what it would taste like and have heard many warnings against its consumption. The milk was brought to us as a gift from a friend who knew we were curious about his cows. I assumed that it should be used in cooking rather than consumed as is, so I used our first five liter batch to make dulce de leche. However, we liked the rich creaminess and clean taste of the milk and were soon asking for more. Cesar, true to form, immediately researched the topic and discovered some very interesting things about fresh, raw milk.

For starters, the pasteurization process which kills harmful bacteria also kills beneficial bacteria and destroys certain enzymes which aid digestion and boost the immune system. One of these friendly bacteria is lactic acid bacilli. When this heat intolerant bacterium is destroyed, the milk cannot sour and simply decomposes eventually. This is why old pasteurized milk gets very stinky and foul after its expiration date, whereas raw milk simply sours. Pasteurization changes the composition of milk in other ways too. It makes calcium less soluble and therefore more difficult to absorb by the body and it makes the lactose more soluble, therefore more quickly absorbed. Of course one takes the risk of consuming harmful bacteria as well, such as Listeria, E. coli and Salmonella. But if the cow is pastured rather than kept in a pen and the farmer takes all necessary precautions to keep her clean and healthy, I feel this risk is small. I believe I would be more likely to get nasty pathogen like E. coli from eating bagged spinach in the USA than I would from consuming milk from our friend’s cow. However, be careful before you try this at home, kids! If you do not know the cow and do not have complete confidence in the person who cares for her, do not drink it raw.

We visited our farmer friend at his house for the first time. He let me milk the cow. As a new experience, it was fun, but I wouldn’t want to have to do it every day. His family has four cows and they must be milked twice every day. It does not matter if you are sick, it is freezing cold outside or you are just sick of milking the darn cow - it has got to be done. Each cow gives about seven gallons of milk a day. Perhaps we will own a cow someday. For now though, we are happy just to have a source of fresh raw milk that we know and trust.

Are you curious about raw milk?
Further reading:
from the Washington Post: The Raw Deal
from the New York Times: Making Their Case for Raw Milk and Should This Milk Be Legal?

To Kiss, or Not To Kiss?

2009-05-02T10:31:00.003-03:00

The New York Times reports today that many New Yorkers are now squeamish about handshakes and air-kisses because of fear of transmission of swine flu. Not so in Uruguay, where a single kiss on the cheek as the usual greeting between friends and acquaintances is a deeply engrained part of the culture. Even now that the Uruguayan public health minister has confirmed that there is one suspected case of infection in the country, I don’t think people will think twice about kissing, and I hope they don’t.

There are slight variations in the custom for men and women. Men meeting for the first time usually shake hands only. However, male relatives and close friends will exchange a single kiss on the cheek. Kissing men on the cheek is in no way an affront to a man’s machismo. I have seen members of that uber-macho profession, the Policia, exchange a kiss in hello. Women, however, can kiss everyone. So, women kiss women and men; and men kiss women and close male friends and relatives. Got that?

The same goes for goodbyes. Just like my mother does in the U.S., much to the chagrin of my dad, when you leave a place you say goodbye to everyone individually. Not doing so is unthinkable. And of course, if you kissed them hello, you kiss them goodbye.

As for the kiss itself, it is a quick but sincere peck on the right cheek, not exactly an air-kiss and not a lingering pressing of lips to cheek – that would be icky. In Uruguay, they kiss once, not twice like they do in Italy.

Overall, Uruguayans are very polite, to each other and to foreigners. I think this kissing custom may have something to do with that. When a kiss is exchanged in greeting people, one is reminded of their humanity. There is less of a barrier between people and I think this makes them more considerate of others.

This is never okay, though, anywhere.

Things We Take For Granted

2009-04-19T14:52:00.003-03:00

On Tuesday I took my first shower in five days. I know what you are thinking and I am just sorry that no one has invented click and sniff technology for the internet. No, my hygiene issues were not by my choice and no, I had not joined some odd religious sect that prohibits bathing. Rather, the pump that pulls water from the community well had stopped working during the worst possible time - semana de turismo. Elsewhere in Latin America, the week is known as semana santa, or “holy week”, for the week ending with Easter Sunday. However, very secular Uruguay calls it tourism week. Never wanting for an excuse to stop work, virtually the whole country goes on vacation. As far as getting a repairman out to the country to fix the pump during semana de turismo - forgetaboutit.

Me climbing the water tank in the back yard. Bravo Randy & Michelle for having installed such an awesome holding tank.

Fortunately, the pumped well water goes to a two thousand liter holding tank behind the house before being used for bathing, cooking, cleaning and flushing the toilet, among other quotidian things we take for granted. Used conservatively , two thousand liters can be made to last a while for two people. It was the weekend before semana de turismo that we noticed our lack of water pressure. Usually this just means that someone has turned it off because of pipe repairs or something like that. On Monday, we still had pathetic lack of pressure so we went to check it out. Bad news - the pump was powered on and just not working. So began our conservation efforts like “navy” showers and a “if it’s yellow let it mellow” policy. Eventually even the super short showers ceased and we reverted to taking what I call bird baths with store-bought water heated in the kettle on the stove.

The pump is back in business as of last Tuesday. We thought we were conservative with resources, but after this, we became aware of how much we had been wasting. We were grateful to be able to flush the toilet again just by using the lever. I even looked forward to washing dishes using the tap water. There is nothing like doing without something for a while to really appreciate it.

La Vuelta Ciclista del Uruguay

2009-04-13T17:52:00.009-03:00

160 professional cyclists came flying into Montevideo yesterday in the final stage of the 10 day Vuelta Ciclista del Uruguay. It was the 66th Vuelta and was won for the first time by an American*. That American was Scott Zwizanski of the Minnesota based Kelly Benefits Strategies team.

A Uruguayan team won the team award.

Cesar and I drove to Montevideo to see the finish. We claimed an early handhold on the roadside barrier so we could see the racers on their final sprint to the finish. Then we watched the crowd fill in around us. People watching was almost as much fun as watching the race. Most people were drinking mate. Pretty girls representing large companies, like Claro, were handing out balloons and other advertising freebies. Hawkers sold trinkets, flags and peanuts to the spectators. Spectator does not seem an apt word to describe those waiting to see the race though. When the peloton whizzes past at 35mph, there really isn’t much to see besides a quick blur of color. Then it’s over. The fun was the building anticipation of when the peloton would make its appearance.

So there we stood, taking pictures of the crowd, admiring the architecture, and watching the race officials try to keep the course clear of people. The crowd grew and grew. Then a buzz seemed to swell among the waiting crowd - they were coming. First a long stream of support and marketing vehicles came plowing through, honking their horns and waving to the crowd. Then came the motorcycle escorts and finally the mad crush of riders. At this point in a stage race, the race is pretty much already won, baring any accidents.

Coming into the final stage, Zwizanski had a 59 second lead. This may not sound like a lot, but it is an insurmountable lead to overcome in a single stage. His job on this day was to maintain his lead while staying away from any accidents. His teammates were there to make sure that happened and to help catapult him into the lead group of riders nearing the end of the race. When a group of riders comes across the finish line in a big bunch as they did in this race, they are all given the same time - the 59 seconds held.

The awards ceremony was a bit jumbled and done in no particular order. When they finally got to Zwizanski, he looked a little confused. You would be too if you had to stand exhausted and completely spent on a stage where everyone was talking in a different language. I imagined him thinking, “just get me back to the hotel for an ice bath and massage, damnit”! He was especially confused when they gave him not one but two huge trophies.

Kelly’s other squad won in the Tour of Thailand.

* The term American technically could be applied to any person from North, Central or South America. However, people from the United States also use it to describe themselves as being from the United States of America. It is in this sense that I use it here.

Cow Candy

2009-04-06T21:11:00.002-03:00

Uruguay is a country of cows. There are approximately four cows to each human in Uruguay. That is a whole lot of milk. I think that explains Uruguayans’ addiction to dulce de leche, the creamy sweet stuff made from cooking milk and sugar. Dulce de leche is popular in all of South America, but the Uruguayans take it to new heights with their consumption of pastries filled, drizzled, daubed or smothered with it. Walk into any panaderia and you will notice that most of the sweets on display involve dulce de leche. Sadly, they are not very into chocolate here and their chocolate generally stinks.

So what is it exactly? Dulce de leche, heaven on a spoon, is a caramel colored, exquisitely smooth, and very sweet spread. It can be smeared on toast, used to fill cakes, cookies and crepes, or just eaten with a spoon from the jar. North Americans usually mistake it for caramel. It is like caramel, but more creamy and milky in taste and texture.

Living here, I knew I would have to battle my dulce de leche addiction. For the first couple of months, I put off buying any. Then I caved and bought a jar of the La Pataia brand (my favorite). Once the jar was gone, I vowed to not buy any again. That does not mean I don’t eat it when we go out, but there is no reason to have it around the house.

That was until yesterday, when a friend brought us five liters of fresh milk. Just that morning that milk had been in his cow. By the evening, the milk was in my pot, being simmered with sugar, a small bit of baking soda, and a bit of orange zest until it was transformed into the sticky goodness that I love. My first time making real dulce de leche (some people cheat by submerging an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk into a pot of boiling water for three hours) I was expecting disaster, but it was quite easy to make. Or maybe I should clarify that by saying it is easy if you don’t mind stirring the pot for two hours while it reduces and cooks until light brown in color. Luckily, Cesar shared in the stirring duty. The result was creamy and smooth. The taste was sweet, with the rich flavor of caramel and a delicate hint of orange flavor that gave it nice depth.

Now I have to figure out what to do with the stuff. It can’t stay here, or I will eat it all.

A Visit from Mom and Dad

2009-04-04T08:44:00.004-03:00

On Thursday night, we saw my parents off from Carrasco airport. They had been in Uruguay just a week for their first trip here, their first ever to South America. My dad kept remarking about how surprised he was that it was so lovely here. I’ll have to review my previous blog entries - maybe I have done Uruguay some disservice in this blog and that is why he was expecting “West Virginia”. I found this notion of his extremely odd, but maybe my postings about dead cows, dogs, giant kitty litter piles, errant bulls and all manner of biting insects had something to do with its formation.

At Arlecchino, home of the best gelato in Punta del Este.

That preconception happily dispelled, we enjoyed showing them around. They benefited from our first five months of trial and error as we got our bearings here. We distilled down the very best of our first months and tried to show them a good time. Uruguay cooperated with perfect weather. And to make sure we had plenty of Uruguay to show them next time they are here (it is a small country after all), we spent two nights in the throbbing, pulsating, very much alive city of Buenos Aires. It was our first overnight trip to the big city (and I mean big, B.A. alone has nearly four times the population of the entire country of Uruguay). In Uruguay, we were the expert guides; but across the river, we were every bit the unaware tourists and didn’t mind playing the part.

Mom and me on the steps of the very swanky Alvear Palace Hotel in Recoleta, Buenos Aires. We stayed across the street, at the Ulises Suites boutique hotel.

Mom and Dad are safely home in northern Virginia now, fresh with new experiences to share with the rest of our family. Steve (Dad) has a little saying – “company and fish, they both smell after three days”. Maybe, but I was still sad to see them go.

World's Largest Litter Box?

2009-03-24T22:00:00.004-03:00

Our cat's new wonderland of sand probably is not the largest litter box in the world, but it is definitely the largest I have ever seen. We got the idea for it after visiting friends who are in the midst of a huge construction project. Behind their house are large piles of sand and gravel to be used for a soon to be constructed concrete roof. We noticed how their two cats frolicked in the sand.

That was two days ago. We did not waste any time in ordering our own. So, today we had five cubic meters of fine sand delivered to the chacra. I was wondering what the man delivering it thought of us having a truckload of sand delivered just for our cat. Something along the line of “crazy gringos” was what I was expecting. But no, he does the same thing for his cats. His advice – just show it to kitty and she'll know what to do. And indeed she did.

I am always glad to hear people tell me they have cats. Uruguay is for the dogs, literally. There are dogs everywhere and it seems that everyone has their own pack, especially out in the country. Cats here just don’t get any respect. However, bit by bit I am noticing that people do have cats. You can buy kitty litter, but it is quite expensive, about $35 for a 40 lb bag of the clumping kind. If our cat takes to her giant outdoor litter box, it could save us quite a bit in kitty litter.

Patagonia

2009-03-16T19:13:00.003-03:00

One of the objectives of our move to Uruguay is to travel in other South American countries. After our first four months in Uruguay, we finally ventured out. Neighboring Argentina with its incredibly varied landscape offers quite a lot to see and do. It dwarfs Uruguay in variety of climates, terrain and sheer size, being over fifteen times larger than its tiny neighbor to the northeast.

I had been feeling a little fenced in and was getting bored with the flat landscape in Uruguay. Cesar and I were both antsy to get out and see something new. We had planned on going to Córdoba, a province in the northern part of Argentina and within driving distance. However, a friend had just come back from Santa Cruz province in Patagonia and was just glowing with happiness about what she saw there. I had a dim understanding of Patagonia and had it listed in the back of my mind as a place to visit someday. However, after our friend’s trip, we could not wait to see it for ourselves. And, it has mountains, real mountains – the perfect antidote to Uruguayan flatness! It occurred to us that we only had about a month left to see that particular part of Patagonia before winter, when hotels and restaurants close and roads become impassable with snow.

So, we quickly booked a flight with LAN from Buenos Aires to El Calafate, in Santa Cruz province. We spent four nights there then took a bus to a town to the north called El Chalten, Argentina’s self-styled national capital of trekking. It deserves its title. We spent four nights there and went on day hikes each day, all of them spectacular.

The first words that come to mind when describing Patagonia are immense and expansive. It struck me as a playground for giants – everything there, from the mountains to the rivers to the steppes is huge and impressive. Usually I keep a journal when traveling, but had difficulty putting pen to paper on this trip. This bothered me a little, was I experiencing writer’s block? – but then I realized what the problem was, I didn’t want to take my eyes off the landscape for long enough to write. In the evenings, we were either tired from the day’s adventures, nursing sore feet or planning our activities for the next day. We saw glaciers, turquoise lakes, savage electric blue rivers, snow capped mountains, lush emerald green forests and steppes that seemed to go on forever.

We are back in peaceful Uruguay now, with many photos, sore legs and memories of a great trip. Here is a teaser photo until I get the others uploaded:

At Laguna de los Tres midway of a challenging 25 km trek. Fitz Roy towers behind us.

A New Home for Tip

2009-03-05T22:06:00.004-02:00

There was a happy ending to the story of the puppies left by the roadside. Tip, the sprightly and spirited female, now has new guardians. When we rescued these pups, we did not think much beyond taking them home and getting them into good health. Later we would worry about what to do with them. However, we soon learned that finding good homes here for dogs is not so easy. Unwanted dogs are seen everywhere wandering the roads. Who would want to take in strays? There are exceptions, but for the most part, North Americans and South Americans have very different attitudes towards animals in general. We wanted to make sure that whoever adopted one these dogs would treat them as a member of their family, as opposed to attaching them to the end of a chain in the yard.

Enter a lovely and kind couple from Canada. When I contacted them, they seemed to want a dog, but had reservations because they already have an older terrier who apparently hated puppies. However, they came out to our place to meet Tip and seemed to like her well enough. Goodbyes were tough for us. I felt like a monster for sending her off. Cesar didn’t help - I think he may have even called me cold hearted.

All that night I worried about whether they were happy with the dog and whether things would work out. The next day I received two emails describing in glowing terms what a great dog she was. I was relieved. Cesar’s non-deserved guilty feelings were put to rest.

So, Tip – now called Kiya (pronounced Keesha) – has a happy home. She is a smart dog and will adjust to her new environment very well. This story had a happy ending for everyone – our friends have a nice addition to their family, Kiya has loving owners who will shower her with attention, and I have a little more peace around the house and a good feeling for doing right by this dog.

Kiya is being pampered by her new parents.

Puppy Love?

2009-02-22T21:54:00.011-02:00

The three dogs we rescued from the roadside are really thriving. Good food, veterinary care and lots of love have allowed them to become happy and vibrantly healthy. They were tiny when we found them. In my blog post the day we found them, I had written that they were perhaps five weeks old. I think I was mistaken. Back then, they weighed about one kilo each and I could hold all three in one hand. Now, I can hardly hold one of them with both of my hands. They have grown like crazy and obviously have more growing to do. If they grow into their huge paws and oversized ears, they will be quite big.

Adorable as they may be, we really cannot keep all three. During this vagabond stage of our lives, there is no telling where we will be even a year from now. Also I worry about our cats. The dogs are respectful of them and have learned that in the family hierarchy cats rule, but still I worry. So, parting will be sad, but we really do need and want to find homes for two of them. They are probably about ten to twelve weeks old now and are at the perfect age for adoption.

So, without further ado, allow me to introduce:

Tip

Tip is the female of our trio. She is a spirited sweetheart who absolutely loves to be hugged. She has beautiful short fur which is not quite brown and not quite black. I would describe her as being a sable color. Her paws are white, her white belly is speckled with Dalmatian-like spots and the very tippy tip of her tail is white. She is by far the smartest of the bunch and discovered that bath-time on a hot day is actually nice. Her brothers still run when I pick up the hose…

Mooch

When we found the puppies by the side of the road, Mooch was the first to come to us. A very sociable dog, he is also the first to come out when people come to the house. We call him Mooch because he really hogs attention from his siblings and has to be the first to do everything. He is deep shiny black with a white star on his chest. His eyes are the most beautiful chocolate brown – a very handsome dog.

Red

Deciding which dog to keep for ourselves is tough. They are all great and each has his or her own special characteristics. Maybe it is because of his mellower disposition that Mooch and Tip often leave Red out of their games. But he would rather sleep at my feet than chase and wrestle with them. He seems to have chosen us, so we choose him to stay. Even on their first day here, I had commented that the red one seemed more sickly. Now I think I was just seeing an early glimpse of his laid back personality. He actually turned out to be bigger and thicker than his siblings. I should probably have named him Tank, because he is built like one.

If you have room in your heart and your home for one of these dogs, and can provide the love and care they need, please contact me as soon as possible. You will not regret it.

Water, and Lots of It

2009-02-22T15:06:00.002-02:00

Today would be a good day for sipping hot tea and baking scones. The skies are battle-ship grey, and the cold rain is coming down in horizontal sheets. Mother Nature decided to take care of the drought. Unfortunately, she procrastinated to the point of having to give us all the rain at once. The parched earth just cannot absorb the rain quickly enough. The pasture in front of our house is now crisscrossed with rivulets of fast moving water. The pond, in which the water had been steadily receding to the point of the banks almost caving in, is now overflowing out to the driveway, which just may be impassable by our car.

We would have had those scones and tea I mentioned, but had to mop the laundry room floor instead – with an inch of water. We thought it had come in from a window which we had forgotten was open, but noticed as we mopped that the water level would just rise again. Our Sisyphean task was the result of not just the window, but water seeping in from below as well.

Side view of driveway.

Already wet, Cesar and I donned our rain coats (and little else – bare skin dries so much easier than clothes) and had a very wet walk-about. We found white water gurgling into the pond via the formerly dry streambeds which feed it. We began to walk through the shin-deep water of the lowest part of the driveway but remembered the shoddily buried electrical wires there and thought better of it. After our little tour of the property, we came back in and had some hot cocoa and listened to the plop plop plop of water droplets falling from the ceiling.

Water flowing out of pond overflow drainage.

I am not complaining. We are wearing our big fluffy bathrobes and just chilling out. The cows will be happy, the grass will be a brilliant green tomorrow, and the frogs are chirping and squeaking and blurping away having their little Dionysian amphibious orgies. The rain has stopped, probably just for a brief respite, the water has receded slightly and the winds have really begun.

Blood Sucking Devils

2009-02-12T11:01:00.007-02:00

I think if given the choice, I would trade vampire bats for mosquitoes. Even though the vampire bat takes about two teaspoons of blood for its meal, and a mosquito takes five microliters (5 millionths of a liter), I would rather play host to a blood sucking mammal right now than suffer the incessant irritation of the plague of mosquitoes we are currently experiencing. Why there are so many, I do not know. Perhaps it is the time of year, recent relief from the drought, or just the normal state of things where we live. Whatever the case, we find them in every room of the house and I am usually greeted by a small swarm of them whenever I open the back door. Our sleep is interrupted every night by their bites and our groggy slaps and involuntary scratching in response.

Short of burning cow dung (which I plan to try this evening), we have pretty much exhausted our options of controlling the little bastards. We have tried a bed net, citronella candles, mosquito incense coils, a wall outlet device that looks like an air freshener plug-in, and various chemical sprays in increasing degrees of toxicity. And still I slap and scratch at myself.

I like to know my enemy, so after reading a bit about mosquitoes, I am not surprised they are such a successful species and impossible to get rid of. Craig Childes describes the mosquito thusly in The Animal Dialogues:

“a nightmare insect that will find you anywhere you hide. Of any creature this size, the mosquito has the most complex mechanical wiring known. Fifteen thousand sensory neurons reside in the antennae region alone. The sensory organs of the head are arranged like clockwork. Electron-microscope examination reveals interconnected rods and chambers, pleated dishes and prongs and plates. It looks like a science-fiction world of satellite dishes and receiver towers. These take the mechanical and chemical environment and translate it into a tactical array of electrical impulses to the mosquito’s brain, a brain the size of a pinprick on a piece of paper.”

The mosquito just goes to show that nature is stranger than fiction.

Through trial and error, we have developed a multi-faceted approach to control the mosquitoes. I can’t say we are bite free now, but this approach gives us some relief. For starters, we keep the doors closed at dusk, which seems to be when the hovering blood suckers are most active. Every few days, I apply a repellent spray inside and around the house. I alternate spraying with a chemical called Stockade (active ingredient is cypermethrine) and a stronger one that is still safe for pets, called Derribador (active ingredient is deltametrina). My goal here is to keep the mosquitoes and flies away while mitigating harm to other insects, if possible. Then, as a final low tech option, we sleep under a mosquito net. This sounds romantic, but try it for a while and it becomes annoying.

The mosquitoes have driven me to these steps. Until moving here, I was very much anti-chemical. Uruguayans have a chemical for everything though. Almost half an aisle at the grocery store is devoted to various insecticides and repellents. I guess I am just fitting in.

Know thine enemy. A few interesting facts about mosquitoes.

Only female mosquitoes bite. They require your blood for egg production.

If a mosquito is released in still air, it will come directly to the nearest host, even if it is one hundred feet away.

A mosquito locates you by sensing the carbon dioxide of your breath, lactic acid from your skin, traces of acids released by the bacteria living on your skin and the moisture and heat emitted by your body.

Even mosquitoes have a purpose. In addition to feeding on you, they also serve as pollinators, feeding on the nectar of flowers.

One female mosquito may lay 100 to 300 eggs at a time and may average 1,000 to 3,000 offspring during her life span.

Wild Skies

2009-02-06T00:07:00.004-02:00

Evening view from the front of La Gaia.

La Gaia is situated in a little valley at the beginning of the sierras. Whoever built this house laid it out very nicely. It faces North exactly, so we have lovely sunrises to our right and mesmerizing sunsets to our left. Being at the edge of the sierras, we also have a nearly constant dry wind that drops down from the hills. I think it is due to that wind that we have such impressive skies here.

Sorry, Montana, but this is big sky country. This evening we were working in the back field and I noticed that suddenly, the light seemed different. Huge clouds had rolled in and there was an opening of clear blue sky right over our heads. The effect was that of a huge but soft spotlight shining down. Everything looked more crisp and defined. Glancing up, I saw part of a large rainbow in the east. Behind me, big dark clouds were rolling in, making the sunset monochromatic and eerily impressive in shades of steel blue, with brilliant patches of light shining through in shimmering metallic shades impossible to describe or reproduce. Big alto-stratus clouds in the north reflected light from the setting sun in shades of pink and purple. Cesar and I just stood there for a while, enjoying the break from our work, and pointed out the various features of the sky to each other. It was nearly 9:00pm and the moon was bright through a thin veil of clouds, but there was still plenty of daylight. These skies are too special for me to waste a moment by running inside to fetch my camera, so I hope that by my description you can paint your own mental picture of the scene.

The sky is something that modern people forget to pay attention to in their hurried lives. I can see how ancient peoples who lived much closer to nature than we do were so aware of their natural environment, especially the movements of the sun and stars. I noticed last night that Orion is slightly more westward than it was when we arrived. That is something I never would have noticed at home since we can barely see the stars there for all of the light pollution.

As I type, the wind is blowing quite briskly. I can hear it moving through the trees and around the house. I think we will have an interesting sky in the morning. We always do.

Mom, look what I brought you!

2009-02-04T23:58:00.007-02:00

I have found a few things around the house which gave me a momentary shock. Finding some kind of animal in an unexpected place, like a frog in the toilet or a bat hanging from a door frame gives me a quick little jolt every now and then. There is a split second where every nerve becomes alert, then immediately back to normal when my brain processes that it’s only a bat, a frog, a big hairy spider or a snake. This morning we had come home from grocery shopping and the dogs were ecstatic to see us as usual. I decided to unlock the back door instead of the front, turned the corner to the back porch and got one of those little jolts I just described. Then I started laughing as Cesar came around the corner, concerned about what had made me emit that little involuntary shriek.

With three dogs around, it had to happen eventually - a little bit of the dead cow from next door made it to our house. For days, we had been finding what I thought were sheep hooves. I would hear the dogs snarling and play fighting like they do when they have a special toy and would inevitably find the fought over object to be a black hoof. With so many sheep about, I just assumed that maybe they shed hooves occasionally and the dogs were finding these little treasures in the field. Little did I know they had been visiting the dead cow and pulling off its hooves. But this time they got lucky and the lower leg came away with the hoof. I don’t think they really knew what to do with it, but they did bring their trophy home. So it turned up like some kind of sick mafia warning on our back porch.

Curious now about hooves, and the difference between cow and sheep feet – cloven, one, two, or three toes? I Googled “cow hooves” and was surprised to see that nine out of the first ten results were for mail order cow hooves. Who knew? And here we get them for free!

The Obligatory Mate Post

2009-01-27T01:34:00.005-02:00

No, not “mate” as in Aussie speak or your partner – it is pronounced MA-tay and is the official beverage of Uruguay and Argentina. Just as many people in the US walk around with Starbucks cups glued to their hands, you couldn’t throw your half caf decaf with a twist (anyone get the movie reference? Post a comment if you do) and not hit an Uruguayo with a mate gourd in his hand – that is if you could get your half caf decaf with a twist… more on the sorry coffee situation here in a later post. I’m still too depressed to write about that one.

Remy likes mate too.

So, back to mate: Mate is an herbal infusion made from the yerba mate plant, which grows in Paraguay, and drunk in huge quantities in Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and parts of Brazil. It is an acquired taste. People unaccustomed to it describe it variously as grassy, like green tea, bitter or just plain awful. I happen to like it. The really cool and unusual thing about mate is that it is drunk from a gourd, not a cup, and you sip it through a metal straw called a bombilla. The bombilla is tapered at the end which goes into your mouth and the other end is spoon shaped with tiny holes to act as a sieve to keep the mate bits out of your mouth. Some uppity Argentines use tea bags instead, but that practice is met with scorn here.

Noah does not like mate.

My first experimentation with mate was not good. I did not realize there was a process one must follow to get drinkable mate. I ended up with a strongly bitter beverage and lots of powdery mate bits coming up through the straw. The result was quite unpleasant. Happily, I was inducted into the tradition of mate by true Uruguayos. Our dear friend Susana taught me that I must first soak the mate with cold water and push it down into the side of the gourd. Once it is good and packed, I then pour hot, not boiling water into the gourd. Once the straw is set in the packed mate, don’t move it or you will screw up the nice packing job you did when you poured in the cold water. From there, you can replenish the hot water whenever necessary. The mate can be used over and over again through out the day. There are all sorts of subtle variation on the process, and they are as individual as the drinker. I now have a fond memory of whiling away an hour before lunch sipping mate with Susana, her husband Jorge, Cesar and Tita, who showed me how to fill the gourd properly so as not to disturb the mate and how to pass it to my left to my friend. When the gourd made its way back to Tita, she would fill it, drink and pass it on. You can drink mate alone or with friends. Uruguayans are very sociable and usually a small group of friends will share a mate gourd.

Mate is every where here. At some gas stations you will even see vending machines that provide hot water for your thermos. Mate drinkers carry around thermoses (the preferred brand is Stanley) full of hot water so they can continually refill their gourds. Many people carry a specialized leather container just the right size for a thermos, bag of dry mate and the gourd. It is not uncommon to see people on mopeds, mate paraphernalia bag hanging from their shoulder and the mate gourd in one hand, leaving the other hand for the slightly less important job of steering the moped. The very adept mate drinkers can even hold the gourd with one hand and pour hot water from the thermos held under the armpit of the same arm, leaving their other arm completely free. If you see a lot of Uruguayos with burn marks on one hand, now you know why.

Snickers says "screw mate, I am an American cat, give me the tootsie pops!"

Murciélagos

2009-01-26T15:48:00.000-02:00

Murciélagos is the Spanish word for bats. I estimate that we live with about a hundred of them, maybe more. That’s right, 1-0-0. Curious about our little winged furry friends, I sat down in a corner of the back porch at dusk and watched as the bats came out of the house to start their nocturnal bug gorging fest. I stopped counting at fifty because by then it was too dark for me to see. They popped out of the tiny entrance to their roost in groups of two or three. Then they swooped low to clear the roof of the porch and fluttered right over my head into the night sky.

This would be a good time to dispel some myths and misunderstandings about bats. First of all, they do not get tangled in your hair. I don’t know where this silly myth came from, but bats want nothing to do with your head. It may be their seemingly erratic flight patterns that brought about this myth. Secondly, though they can have rabies and other sorts of nasty pathogens, only half a percent of bats carry the disease. It is extremely rare for humans or domestic animals to get rabies from a bat. Another myth is that they suck blood. True, there are three species that feed on the blood of cattle or other animals, but they do not harm their host and they do not usually feed on humans. The three types that do feed on blood use their scalpel sharp teeth to make a tiny incision, then lap up the blood that flows out. Their saliva contains a special anticoagulant that keeps the blood flowing as long as they are feeding. A meal would be just a couple of teaspoons of blood. Finally, the expression “blind as a bat” notwithstanding, they are not blind. There are two orders of bats – megachiroptera and microchiroptera. The mega bats have large eyes and use their excellent eye sight to find fruit and flowers for pollen and nectar. The micro bats feed mainly on insects, and use echolocation to find their prey. Their eyesight is poorly developed, but they are not blind.

I have had several opportunities to observe them up close. Unfortunately, most of these were not good for the bat. One morning, I found a bat treading water in the dogs’ water bowl. I put on the leather gloves I always wear when handling the bats and wrapped it up in a washcloth and put it in a warm place in the laundry room until dusk. That night I released it. It seemed groggy at first, but flew off. That story had a happy ending. Others did not. There was the bat I found with torn wings – maybe a near miss by an owl. That one did not survive. Then there was the stiff as a board bat I found in the laundry room. It had crawled out of the wrong hole in the roof and got stuck in there and died, still hanging upside down on the wall.

Our bats are not the blood drinking sort; rather they consume probably thousands of insects a night. Mosquitoes here are bad enough even with the bats, I don’t want to think about what their numbers would be without their bat predators. For this reason, and because I think they are cute, and because of our live and let live attitude towards wildlife (which makes exceptions for any centipedes I find in the house) we let them be, even though they make noise all night and their guano stinks. Stinky droppings aside, they are clean animals, spending hours each day grooming themselves and their roost mates.

The Best Birthday Present - My New Butch Bike

2009-01-15T00:32:00.002-02:00

As I mentioned in my first post about biking in Uruguay, to ride our road bikes, we must first pack them into the car and drive somewhere with paved roads. That small inconvenience aside, Uruguay presents many great biking opportunities, from coastal rides with fantastic sea views to rolling pasture on dirt roads with no cars in sight. My creamsicle-pearl-orange custom I.F. Factory Lightweight will always be my pride and joy – my main squeeze, I like to say – but since we have been here I have been jonesing for a mountain bike. So, for my birthday, I had a choice of motorcycle or horse as a present, but instead I confessed my desire for a mountain bike, and off to the Trek store we went.

Neither of us expected to find a quality bike shop here. But after noticing the many hard-core roadies hammering down the highways, we knew there had to be something. Trek’s store here, well located in an upscale area, is gleaming perfection inside. High end components are lacking, but they have a nice selection of Trek, Lemond and Gary Fisher bicycles. The service was top notch. I was pleasantly surprised by the thorough fitting I received by an extremely helpful Chilean racer named Claudio, fresh from his daily ride, still in bike shorts, jersey and bike shoes.

We came home later that day with a hard-tail Trek 4500 WSD, my first mountain bike. I had Cesar drop me off at the main road to our house so I could ride in. Riding a mountain bike is a different world from the road bike. For starters, I am not used to being so high up. Also, it is truly liberating to cruise over rough terrain or potholes without fear of damaging my bike. Bombing downhill on a gravel road is exhilarating. In all, a LOT of fun. For a while, I am going to be something of a sissy until I get used to this bike. I could use some pointers on just how to ride a mountain bike (comments, anyone?). Cesar’s only advice is “whatever happens, don’t stop”. Um, that helps…

Maybe we will still get a horse someday. I even have a name picked out for when we do. But for now it’s nice to have an aluminum horse that doesn’t eat and that I don’t have to saddle up before riding.

The Girls Next Door

2009-01-12T23:01:00.006-02:00

Not one of the girls next door, this cow is free to roam up and down the lane, eating her fill of fresh grass.

Our only neighbors within a stone’s throw away are the cows on the lot next to us. The first night we spent in the house they mooed all night long. It seemed like some kind of bizarre cow welcoming party. Since then, we have either become used to their mournful calls, or they have become used to us and decided to give us some peace at night.

I have not exactly befriended the girls. When they see me coming, they either turn and amble away, or simply turn and stand there with their backsides towards me. Nevertheless, I feel something like affection towards them. That is why I was so distraught several days ago.

We are in a terrible drought. For nearly two months, not a drop has fallen from the sky. Our grass is now the color of straw and it crunches under foot when we walk through the yard. On the day I mentioned, I was particularly frustrated because the cows were oblivious to my attempts to be kind to them by providing clean fresh water. It was a hellishly hot day, not a cloud in the sky, and the brutal sun was scorching everything. The cows’ pond is quite low, though there is still enough muddy water to sustain them.

I thought the poor boney creatures would appreciate a large bin full of fresh water. However, my attempts to lead them to it were futile. I also tried spraying them with the hose, but a strong headwind simply blew the spray back in my direction. I got close enough to notice that one poor creature had walked through some loose fence wire and was trailing a large tangle of it behind her, part of it wrapped around her front legs as well. I grabbed from our tool box what I thought were a pair of wire cutters, and while deciding the best way to free the cow, tested them out and found them to be useless against the strong fence wire. In the end, I gave up for the day. Fortunately, the next day, someone else (the owner possibly? a vet?) came to visit the cows and removed the wire. I really wanted to talk to this person to find out who they were and why they were neglecting their animals, but my Spanish is still very poor. Rather than get into a pantomime confrontation, I kept my distance, rationalizing my timidity by telling myself a confrontation wouldn’t help anyway.

This photo may appear over-exposed, but it is not; that is actually the color of the grass now.

It is beyond me how people can be capable of such callousness to the suffering of animals. These are domestic animals; they are there because someone bought them and put them there. That means that person has a commitment to those animals and is responsible for their welfare. Leaving them on a plot of land barely able to provide enough vegetation and water is inexcusable. It is obvious the owners do not care about these animals. The dead cow is a prime example.

Just a couple of weeks after our arrival and before the drought had really set in, one of the cows died. Close to the fence, we noticed her lying on her side. Sleeping? No. That became the first of our two odd police reports concerning bovines. Unable to find the owner or anyone who knew the owner, we went to the rural police station to find out whether they knew the owner of the cows. No luck. It seems that when a cow is dead, and needs to be removed, the owners do not want to be located. So the carcass remained there and remains to this day. The prevailing winds come from the east of us, so we are upwind of the cow and only smelled it on the few times the winds came from the other direction. And it was foul. I think the carcass is so desiccated now that it does not have much odor anymore. Even the carrion eaters do not visit it now.

Hopefully there will not be future casualties. There are two young among the cows and they look so new and fresh and clean. I can only hope they will be better off than their parents. But I know that they too will experience the vicissitudes of climate during their lives.

Veterinary Visit

2009-01-06T23:43:00.000-02:00

This morning I put on my goin'-to-the-vet clothes and did not bother to take a shower. We were taking the dogs to the vet for a routine check up and I knew that by the time we returned home I would be wearing puppy puke. I called it right. All three dogs barfed in the car.

Around town, there are many veterinarians. They are inexpensive and even make house calls. Today's office visit, which included vaccinations and anti-parasite pills, cost 200 pesos per dog. So, in total, we spent about $25. In Virginia, Pender veterinary would cost us $80 just to walk through the door.

Tip, doing her best "Flying Nun" impression. This photo was taken several weeks ago.

Fire

2009-01-06T00:10:00.005-02:00

This is how things looked when we arrived:

But after nearly two months of drought, we now have this:

Okay, so that was an extreme comparison - photo hyperbole to make a point of just how dry it is here now. As if the lack of rain was not bad enough, conditions are just right for brush fires. By the way, the cow died of unknown causes other than drought, more on that in a later post.

Our personal experience with fire started out on a somewhat light note. As I wrote in my New Year's post, we started out the year playing firefighter in front of Gloria's house. That particular fire burned an area roughly 20 by 30 feet and we were able to get it under control before the real firefighters arrived.

Photo courtesy of Gloria.

That fire was nothing compared to the one now raging just down the street from her house. Fortunately it is a safe distance away. Others are not so fortunate though. Large swaths of hillside are engulfed in flames as I type this. The smoke is illuminated by the fires and looks like billowing red clouds against the night sky. It is rather scary, especially considering there are homes nearby. We do not know how it started. Firefighters have been working all day to try to contain it.

There have been fires in nearby departments as well. In Canelones, the department just to the east of Montevideo, a huge fire started last Thursday near the town of Villa Argentina. According to an article in El Pais on January 2, 2009, translated courtesy of UruguayDailyNews.com, 100 hectares burned there. Poor visibility due to smoke caused lengthy back-ups on the coastal highway and flames were as close as 20 meters to some houses.

As I type, the wind has picked up. I can hear it blowing outside. This is bad for the firefighters. I wish in vain that rain would accompany the wind, but the sky was perfectly clear today, not a cloud in sight.

A Falcon's First Flight

2009-01-05T00:06:00.003-02:00

In my “Critters” post on November 30, 2008, I wrote about the falcons snatching barn swallows as they dove into their hideout in the eaves of the house. At least that is what I thought they were doing. Shortly after that posting, we noticed that the falcons were actually entering the eaves of the house. I thought they were going in there for an all they could eat barn swallow buffet, but that was before we noticed they were already carrying food, usually snakes they had caught. Then we started to hear the chirping. It was a new sound. We would hear the scraping of talons and crashing of wings as the falcon entered, then the chirping would begin. It sounded like babies begging for food. And indeed it was. Over the following weeks, the chirping at feeding times got louder and louder as the babies grew. Finally, on New Year’s Eve day, I was summoned to the back yard by Cesar. He always calls me whenever he finds some odd animal – or something too gross to pick up (that’s my job). He had noticed a bird on the ground that would not move as he approached. Perhaps there was something wrong with it. I immediately recognized it as the baby of the falcons. There was nothing wrong with it; it was just on its first voyage out of the nest and hadn’t quite gotten its wings yet. In the next couple of days we noticed another baby. We think there are only two, because we have only seen two falcon babies at a time, but the American Kestrel can have up to seven eggs in a clutch.

Baby falcon close-up

The American Kestrel has an incredible range, from Alaska all the way to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. It is also known as the sparrow hawk, because of its small size. Its scientific name, Falco sparverius, means "falcon of the sparrows." However, it is a member of the falcon family and is closely related to the Peregrine Falcon. The color on these birds is fantastic. With rufous back and tail, white speckled belly, dramatic black face markings and slate blue on its wings, it is the most colorful of the birds of prey. The American Kestrel nests in cavities not of their own making, like our house, and may return to the same nesting locations year after year.

The young falcons’ flying is improving each day. Their landings are still a little rough, but we can see improvement. I suspect their parents were living here before we came along. We enjoy sharing the house with them and hope they like it enough to stick around and maybe have next year’s young here.

Baby falcon in pine tree

On the Frontera

2009-01-04T23:16:00.005-02:00

On a whim, we drove to Brazil today. We cannot officially visit Brazil until we get visas, but we got a very small taste of the Portuguese speaking nation to our north by visiting the border town of Chuy. We knew we were getting close when we saw the mandatory Aduana (Customs) stops we would have to come through on the way back, but did not realize we were in Brazil until we noticed the road signs were in Portuguese. Being border ignoring scofflaws was not our intent, so we quickly turned around headed into town.

Chuy (Chui in Brazil) has a reputation as being a rough place. Other than the dude I saw walking down the street with tattoos covering his face (sorry, I may be brave enough to chase a bull, but was not brave/stupid enough to ask this dude for his photo), we did not see the rough side of it. Let’s just leave it as saying it is cool to see once, but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Most people go there for the duty free shopping. The main road through the center of town – one side Uruguay, the other, Brazil – is lined with duty free shops on the Uruguayan side. Prices seem pretty good – a 750ml bottle of Chivas was $25, and we saw Johnny Walker Blue Label for $150. We passed on the Scotch and purchased a bottle of Penfolds 2006 Koonunga Hill Shiraz, mainly because seeing an Australian wine here is such a novelty. We also bought some Frey Swiss chocolate, a hand-made hammock, and a dress for me. Eating lunch at a parilla we noticed that most of the patrons were speaking Portuguese. We were both hoping for some good Brazilian style black beans and rice (probably impossible to find on a menu in “Euro” Uruguay), but settled for a tortilla Espanola and chicken brochettes. The surprise of the day was running into an expat couple from Canada who we knew through http://www.uruguayliving.com/. I had met Gundy only once and knew her husband Syd only by his photograph, but recognized them walking down the street. What a small world it is. Then we slipped across the border again to take this photo of the Brazilian side:

Uruguayans are limited in the value of goods they are allowed to bring back from Chuy. However, with an American passport, Aduana does not even ask what we purchased. All I had to say to the Aduana official was “somos Americanos” and he waved us by with a friendly “muy bien” and a thumbs-up sign. Ah, I love my U.S. passport!

Bueller, Bueller....?

2009-01-02T06:30:00.002-02:00

I know you're out there. You have been reading the blog, lurking. Come on people, give me some comments! Please? For the technologically challenged, you can submit comments by simply clicking "COMMENTS" at the bottom of each post.

I am happy to say I can now post photos. Thanks to a free download of Microsoft PowerToys, I can resize .jpg files so they can be easily uploaded. Some older posts have been updated with pictures.

¡Feliz 2009!

2009-01-01T23:38:00.000-02:00

Today is only the first day of 2009, but it has been such a full day that I feel like it has been at least two days so far. First, we had a fantastic time with friends last night. As I have mentioned before in this blog, new friends here have welcomed us like family. Their warm and sincere hospitality gives me a sense of comfort in this far from home place. I am grateful for it.

After spending hours around the table enjoying good food, wine and conversation, we ushered in the New Year in the Uruguayan way – with besos all around and fireworks, naturally. Fireworks here are called “fuegos artificiales”, literally artificial fire. But soon we had real fire to deal with. All it took was one ember, and a large patch of dry vegetation by the front of the house was ablaze. The bomberos were called but we did not wait idly for them to come. With Cesar manning the hose, Neli with a bucket, and Marisa and I beating down flames with soaking green branches torn from Chilca bushes, we kept it contained. Dirty from smoke and soot, we called it a night around 1:30am. Nothing kills a party like a brush fire.

We did not get much sleep though, because we were determined to welcome the first rays of sun of 2009 on Playa Brava, in Punta del Este. Being married to the human alarm clock is really handy when one has to get up at 5:30am after three hours of sleep. On our way to the beach, we passed huge crowds of revelers just leaving the clubs after partying the night away. Sleepy-eyed, we rendezvoused at the beach with Gloria and friends and took in the warmth and energy of the rising sun. I had the fleeting but powerful feeling of rejuvenation; like this was not just another sunrise, but the start of something new.
Back at the chacra, we made a big American style breakfast complete with home-made biscuits, before trying to catch up on sleep. Before we knew it, it was mid-day and time to go back to Gloria’s house. None of us got enough of last night, so we gathered around the outside table one more time for a lunch of turkey, roast pork, arugula salad, caprese, stuffing, green beans almandine and of course, wine. Satiated, we wiled away the rest of the afternoon, either playing cards, napping, exploring the garden, or just relaxing.

From chasing a bull to putting out a fire, to soaking in the first rays of sun, it has been a pretty exciting couple of days. Here is to 2009 – may it be filled with peace and happiness for all.

The Curious Incident of the Bull in the Nighttime

2008-12-31T18:26:00.000-02:00

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

2008-12-30T15:03:00.000-02:00

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

2008-12-25T13:54:00.000-02:00

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

2008-12-24T00:16:00.001-02:00

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

2008-12-23T19:17:00.000-02:00

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?

2008-12-15T13:34:00.001-02:00

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

2008-12-15T13:12:00.001-02:00

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

2008-12-10T23:32:00.000-02:00

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

2008-12-06T12:33:00.003-02:00

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

2008-12-06T08:08:00.000-02:00

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

2008-12-03T15:52:00.000-02:00

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

2008-11-30T17:03:00.000-02:00

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

2008-11-30T10:04:00.000-02:00

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

2008-11-27T12:06:00.000-02:00

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.

2008-11-18T19:54:00.000-02:00

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

2008-11-13T16:13:00.000-02:00

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

2008-11-08T21:56:00.000-02:00

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.

2008-11-07T16:21:00.000-02:00

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!

2008-10-24T15:58:00.000-02:00

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

2008-10-24T15:48:00.000-02:00

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

2008-10-22T00:29:00.000-02:00

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

2008-10-20T11:55:00.000-02:00

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.

2008-10-03T22:17:00.000-03:00

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

2008-08-27T06:03:00.000-03:00

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

2008-08-18T21:24:00.000-03:00

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

2008-05-06T15:09:00.000-03:00

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…