Uruguay - Life is a Beach

Well, the old team is back on the road again for our third trip to Latin America.

Our first destination was Paraiso Suizo on Uruguay’s southern coast where Footloose Lucy, our Land Rover Discovery, has been in the tender care of Heinz and Sylvia for the past 10 months.

Our journey to Montevideo on Monday 4^th February went entirely smoothly.  Heinz met us at the end of the road, as arranged, and within 24 hours of leaving home we were back in the same cabana that we stayed in just before we returned to UK last April.  Nothing had changed and we were soon re-acquainted with the screeching of the parakeets in the trees, the short walk to the almost deserted pristine beach, and the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore. This place isn’t called Paraiso Suizo for nothing.

The beach at Paraiso Suizo

We have come to learn from our travels that if things appear to be going too well, then they probably are.  We weren’t wrong.  Footloose Lucy was neatly parked next to our cabana but Heinz had bad news.  As with people, it appeared that 10 months immobility had taken its toll on Lucy who was now anything but footloose.  Heinz reported that the battery wouldn’t hold a charge and there were no brakes.

The next morning, Wednesday, a recovery vehicle turned up and poor old Lucy was duly loaded and taken to the Dos Hermanos car mechanics at the nearby town of Piriapolis.  We heard nothing for a day and then the news came back that a new battery had been fitted but that the seals on the hydraulic brake servo pump had perished and needed replacing. We went along to the garage in the hope that we might have the proper bit in our spare parts box to fix the pump.  Indeed, Alan pulled out a piece of kit which said Master Cylinder Repair Kit and, filled with triumph and delight, he gave it to one of the brothers who scratched his nose in the South American manner and said “No”.  So, it appeared that the only way we were going to get Lucy fixed was for the replacement part to be ordered from Montevideo and this was unlikely to happen until the following week.

While we waited for a new set of seals to be sent by ox cart from Montevideo we amused ourselves as follows:

On alternate days we walked down the beach or up the beach.  Going down the beach was much the same as going up the beach, but the sea was on the other side.  There were stones to amuse us, pretty stones, all different shapes and sizes and there were also shells, mostly small mussel shells which made a crunching noise when you walked across them.  Then there was the high point of the walk, discovering a dead fish.

We enjoyed having a swim in the sea, but that pleasure was short-lived after a woman was seen being carried off the beach with a bleeding foot and clearly in agony – a gift from a sting ray lurking in the shallows.  Sue could not be persuaded to enter the water thereafter.

The rest of the time we sat on the porch of our cabana and watched the Mockingbirds and the Monk Parakeets and the Southern Lapwings squabbling over insects in the grass.  Occasionally, to relieve the boredom, we caught the bus into Piriapolis and walked up and down the beach there.

Wednesday 13^th February was a good day.  News came from the garage that the new seals had finally arrived and they were in the process of being fitted, so armed with this knowledge we went for a celebratory walk along the beach.  After about two miles in the searing heat we finished up in a little village called Santa Ana where we discovered a restaurant. They cooked us some delicious fish and produced some ice-cold beer and after stuffing ourselves nicely we walked the two miles back again.

A call to the garage on Thursday revealed that the repairs were not quite finished yet. Maybe Manana?  And on Friday morning the work still had not been completed.  However, we had already arranged to go and stay in Montevideo so we departed without Lucy and left Heinz to continue liaising with the garage in our absence.

By Friday afternoon we were ensconced in a very nice, if somewhat quirky, B & B next to the Parque Rodo in Montevideo and just a couple of hundred yards from the sea.  The change of scenery was exceedingly welcome.

Our penthouse suite at the B&B

Parque Rodo

Saturday morning found us taking yet another long, hot walk along the sea front to the Ciudad Vieja (old city).  We walked and we walked along the Rambla which is made of red granite and is quite beautiful.  Down on the seaside there were stretches of sand and stretches of rocks and on every available square inch there were Uruguayans displaying copious amounts of flesh.

On one side of the Plaza Independencia there was an amazing edifice which from a distance we thought was a cathedral.  It turned out to be a concrete palacio, the Palacio Salvo, and whoever Salvo was he obviously had a very grand idea of his own importance.  This thing sticks up in the middle of the Old Town with protrusions and lumps and would no doubt be described by HRH as a carbuncle.  

Palacio Salvo

Some of the streets leading from the square down through the old town have been pedestrianised where we found lots of stalls selling junk and jewellery.  There were various street entertainers including an exceedingly sexy young girl with blue tail feathers who was dancing to a drum band with what one can only describe as gay abandon.

Street Dancer

Ciudad Vieja

On Sunday we visited a couple of street markets selling the sort of stuff that our parents would have thrown out and probably their parents did.  We then caught a bus back into the Ciudad Vieja for some lunch.

On the way back things got a little more interesting.  It was decided that in order to stay out of the blazing sun we would walk back inland rather than along the Rambla.  Passing as we did through one slightly shabby area a young man with some ambitions to be a master criminal sneaked up behind Alan and grabbed his camera.  Alan turned around and grabbed him by the throat, but he was rather slippery and he let go of the camera and ran off with Alan stumbling after him in a fairly poor facsimile of a chase.  We are told that Montevideo is generally a very safe city but even this place has its opportunists.

Danger lurking on a quiet back street

On Monday 18^th February Alan flew back to London for a few days.  A week or so before we departed for Uruguay, we received the incredibly sad news that Alice, his 26 year old great-niece, had died.  The funeral was on 20^th February and Alan was there to join family and friends in saying good-bye to Alice whose young life was cut so tragically short. Our hearts continue to go out to Alice’s Mum and Dad.

Meanwhile Sue stayed on at ‘Una Noche Mas’ B & B, got to practice her Spanish with the friendly proprietors Eduardo and Carla, continued her exploration of the city and relaxed a great deal.

It is now Monday 25^th February.  We are back at Paraiso Suizo, everything is fine with the vehicle (fingers crossed) and we are packed and ready to go tomorrow morning. Our plan is to head west from Uruguay into Argentina, then Northern Chile, Bolivia and finally Peru. Well, that is the plan, let’s see what happens.

Time to leave Paraiso Suizo