Channelling the Cane Spirits

Monday 29.10.07

A group of us, populated mostly by the English, had ventured across the Rio de la Plata into Uruguay together. Three of the boys, Alex, Toby and Wilf were travelling around the world together, while Nick, travelling alone happened to know Toby from when they were kids. There was Tom, a chef from Stoke and Irish Steve, who was the oldest along with me, but along with the synonyms sober, sound, effective and adult, it was difficult to ascertain the most responsible among us.

We were in Montevideo, the Latin American city with the highest quality of life and capital of Uruguay. On the corner of two leafy streets near our hostel stood a Bicicletaria, so we rented bikes for the afternoon. We first ventured northeast toward Centenario Stadium, the location of the first FIFA World Cup final, which Uruguay won in 1930. It's a fact which Uruguayans as a whole are extremely proud to point out, soon followed by detailing their second victory in 1950 against Brasil in Rio de Janeiro.

We made our way downhill towards the Rio de la Plata and Montevideo's most popular and trendiest area, Positos. A seaside boardwalk stretches for many kilometres, from the eastern corner of the Ciudad Vieja (old city) to Carrasco, a wealthy neighbourhood in the west. From a satellite photo, one can observe that the Rio de la Plata is in fact an estuary - the widest in the world. It is into this great stretch of brown-hued brackish water that the Rio Paraná (itself a conglomeration of many rivers) and Rio Uruguay meet and distribute sediment drained from one fifth of the continent. The names Rio de la Plata and Argentina, both references to silver, draw from a mistaken belief that the Rio Paraná would lead all the way to Bolivia where the silver mines lay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%ADo_de_la_Plata

After a few weeks together, our group dissolved in the evening to go our various separate ways. My friend Adam who I had met on the way to Punta del Este offered me a place to stay for a while, so I headed east to the apartment he shared with his father. Adam, a sporty Canadian bloke, is the same height and a couple of years younger than me. His father Sultan, of Indian descent, emigrated to Canada and now runs a highly successful chain of printing stores. He has decided to open a restaurant in Montevideo specialising in cooking his native cuisine, which I have to say is excellent. In the interim before finding a suitable place to open a restaurant in, they were biding their time in the flat. What followed next was a week of utter relaxation for me, most of which was spent on the couch with the two of them consuming good food, honing my skills at Texas Hold'em and watching sport.

I bade them farewell with my bags packed the following Wednesday and caught the bus to Colonia del Sacramento, the town across the estuary from Buenos Aires. I had planned on staying the night, but with six hours until the next ferry left for Argentina, I decided only to spend the afternoon there.

Like the forbidden fruit flourished in front of the first female by a fork-tongued fink, thus I came across a motor scooter vendor and was faced with a tough decision. Would I sell my safety for a shot at the big time, risk life and limb for the feeling of wind in my face? Yes I would, and perhaps I'll never be the same again. I made a beeline for the edge of civilisation, and as i got braver on my Yellow Peril, I got faster. Soon I was rocketing down the Colonia coastline at top speed - well, about 50km/h I'm assuming, because the speedo was broken along with the tacho and fuel gauge, and I was quick to discover the brakes and indicator lights were also on the blink, so to speak.

Several kilometres out of town stood a ruined stadium, occupying the centre of a roundabout, which I discovered was previously the Plaza del Toro (bullring). There are still several Latin American countries that practice this brutal sport, such as Mexico and Brasil, but it is falling out of favour with the locals. The big events in those countries are visited and often bankrolled by wealthy foreigners because this kind of sport is illegal in their own countries. With bright sun emerging from silvery clouds, I headed to the historical quarter to check it out.

Colonia del Sacramento is the oldest town in Uruguay, founded by the Portuguese in 1680. Its ownership changed hands several times over the next 150 years, until permanently becoming official Spanish territory. The historical quarter is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, containing many original structures still standing amongst cobble-stoned streets. Typically Uruguayan, the town is so laid back it would be reposing in some kind of cute bohemian siesta if it weren't for all the tourists poking around its ancient nooks and crannies.

Accompanied by a rapid, almost audible deflation in my vivacity, the accelerator cable sheared while I was in the process of speeding off again down the promenade, and after forlornly attempting to hitch the three kilometres back to the shop, the owner fortuitously rode by and picked me up on his scooter. Fifteen minutes later I was aboard another, terrorising the streets again with renewed vigour. As the sun began to set, I enjoyed a home-made vanilla and dulce de leche ice cream back in the historical quarter before heading to the ferry station to return to Buenos Aires.

Thursday 25.10.07

Between the hostel recepcionista loading YouTube videos at 5am and a snoring roommate, my sleep patterns were sufficiently disturbed to ensure I overslept, to be frantically woken by my English travelling buddies an hour late and hurried to the ferry terminal. We were leaving Argentina for Uruguay, just across the Rio de la Plata.

The drab blue painted ferry looked like a huge prison transport from the rear, and what transpired for the next few hours was tantamount to torture in comfortable chairs when the football hooligans showed up. There was apparently a match to be played in Montevideo (Uruguay's capital) that evening between a local team, Defensor and River Plate, one of the biggest clubs in Argentina. The pre-match chanting begun even before we launched from the Argentine shore, accompanied by wall and table banging, foot-stomping and other loutish behaviour; the combined effects of which eventually felt akin to taking a cheesegrater to the ears. When we alighted in Colonia del Sacramento and boarded a coach for Montevideo, we found with considerable relief that the band of lunatics were on a different bus.

Two bus journeys, a couple of siestas and five hours later, we were over the other side of the country at Punta del Este - the most popular beach resort in South America, crowded with Brasilians and Argentineans during summer. As night fell just two months before Christmas it was apparent the town's many apartment blocks were unoccupied at this time and its eating places woefully barren.

When I finally emerged from our gloomy dormitory after a night of asymmetrical precipitation outside, I ascertained why the place had such a reputation with the beach-going elite. With shades of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, palm trees line the sweeping beachfront promenades and even the condominiums appear stately against bright blue sky. The prime real-estate is found on a slender promontory and near its tip lies a wharf, berthing several yachts only fathomless pockets could float. Right next door was a sizable flotilla of humble fishing boats, with ocean gulls and black seals frolicking nearby, probably waiting for the next business trip to return.

The Uruguayan sun was much stronger than we expected, and every single one of us was burned while sunbathing on the sand. I spent Friday evening with some girls from Montevideo I had met on the bus and their friend Adam from Canada, and discovered the radiation from our nearest star had got the better of them as well. Despite the prodigious amount of underage drinking that was occurring all over the promenade, there was not a bar open at night in the town.

We were far more cautious on Saturday with our bodies. With apparently nothing at all to do in Punta del Este apart from tomar sol (sunbathe), from which our bodies forbade us, we jumped aboard a bus in the early evening bound for Montevideo.