Montevideo, Blog 6

Montevideo, Blog 6

 I hope you’ll be happy to hear that I survived the flight over the Andes.  For a while, I had my doubts.   When we boarded the plane, the pilot literally said, “We’re flying over the Andes.  It’s rough.  Fasten your seatbelts securely.  Don’t use the bathroom.  Flight attendants:  remain seated.”   For those of you who know how I deal with turbulence, you won’t be surprised that I prepared for death.   Fortunately, it was fairly smooth and the Andes are very narrow so we quickly flew over them and I was able to resume breathing.

Montevideo airport is large and modern.  Uruguay is in the European part of South America and was settled by the Spanish, English, French, and Italians, and people from the Canary Islands.   It was once a beautiful city, but the decay is evident.  The entire population of Uruguay is only 3 million.  It has the highest life expectancy of all the South American countries with many professionals and low unemployment.  Our hotel room overlooks the Rio de la Plata on two sides.  It is the widest river in the world and looks more like a sea.  It is impossible to see the other side.  People enjoy the long beachside promenade strolling, exercising, walking with their dogs.  The sand is soft and white.  

Montevideo is derived from Portuguese.  Uruguay is a very flat country.  By California standards there is one teeny, tiny pimple of a hill in Montevideo.  When an early Portuguese settler saw it, he said,  “I saw the mountain.”  Throughout the city, there are many pine, eucalyptus, sycamore, and a tree with a beautiful bright pink  lily like flower called the boracho (drunken) tree because it’s shaped like a bottle.   Green parakeets, which we were delighted to see, are considered pests by the natives.

On the way to our hotel, the local guide extolled the virtues of the beef in Uruguay.  We had dinner at our hotel.  The beef was so tough I couldn’t cut it with a sharp, serrated knife.  No one could.  We have 7 people of Indian descent on our tour so we always have vegetarian options.  I asked if I could exchange my beef for pasta and they were very gracious about doing so. 

Our hotel is on the main square, La Plaza de Independencia with a large statue in honor of their liberator.  Directly across the street is the main government building.  Uruguay is so small that they have only a federal government.  At the beginning of the 20^th century, the president declared the separation of church and state; abortion is allowed, and 50% of the population is agnostic. 

Two days later:  We’ve had so many experiences—I hope I can remember them.  We walked through old town, which was really underwhelming and then drove to the old port for lunch—more meat, much better than the previous night although I had chicken.  The “starter” was a delicious melted cheese with oregano and a fantastic sausage, which even I ate.  Dessert was flan, yummy.  

Eight of us walked back to the hotel through city streets.  Many of the buildings are in disrepair, but it’s possible to see that they were once beautiful—French neoclassical with many small wrought iron balconies—a bit like New Orleans.  We saw young men driving wagons led by a single tired looking horse.  On the back of the wagons, were many garbage bags.  These men go around collecting all the garbage in the city to recycle for their own purposes.

The people of Montevideo love statues, and some are truly remarkable.  The best known is a larger than life sized replica of early settlers on a wagon driven by oxen.  The detail is amazing.

In the government building across from our hotel is one of the best sculptures I have ever seen:  it depicts a stage coach with passengers, driven by a team of 6-8 horses with a lead horse and rider who search for the best way to go.  It is made of driftwood and fossilized shells.  For those of you who live near me, I will have pictures if you plead to see them.  Behind the theater is Golda Meir Square with a sculpture representing the Diaspora.  It consists of many small,  broken irregular pieces of stone representing the scattering (diaspora) of the Jewish people.  From the bus I saw a holocaust monument along the beach.

How to describe the evening!!!  Our guide got tickets to see a dance group for those who wanted to go.  Fortunately the tickets were only about $13/person.  It was the strangest performance I have ever attended.

We were seated in the second row.  The stage was flat so if we had been in the first row, we would have been seated on the stage.  It looked like ¼ of a basketball court.  Dissident music began playing and 7 people  (2 women, 5 men) walked out—7 ugly people in very ugly and grubby everyday clothes and tennis shoes.  I like modern dance, but they all lacked grace, and the choreography was too bizarre for me.  For one hour they formed groups of every possible combination:  the 2 women together, the women and men, 2 men, in various numbers. They would stand and stare at each other and then hurl themselves across the room to form another group.  At times they flung each other; at others they groped each other very provocatively—again in all possible combinations of genders.  It lasted a very lonnnnng hour.  I was sitting next to one of the women from our group; we kept looking at each other and struggled not to laugh.  No one in our group liked the performance, but the rest of the audience gave them a standing ovation.