All I want for Christmas is a real good tan

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Montevideo is pretty quiet today. We aren´t sure whether Montevideo never get crowded in general, or because it is Christmas that everybody is staying home with their families. Either way, the city is very enjoyable and surprisingly have a lot of pretty structures, although there are many trash everywhere and some of the ornate buildings seem to have seen their better days. We had to do our best of not stepping on dogs poo, which were visible ranging from the fresh warm ones to days old ones, dried off under the Uruguayan summer sun.

From what I was told, the majority Uruguayan live in Montevideo, a three quarters of the population. The other twenty percent live along the coast line, leaving a small minority living inland. There is one university in the whole country, and we walked pass the university campus. Uruguay has one of the highest literate population in South America, and is considered to be having one of the best quality of life in the continent.


Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay

After purchasing our bus tickets to Punta del Este for this evening, we started the day at Plaza Zabala by the Rio de la Plata, and walking our way to the bus station, around three miles away. In many ways, Montevideo reminds me of Eastern Europe, with run down areas and pretty architecture, including the Palacio Salvo, the tallest structure in South America when it was completed in 1927.

We managed to pay off our debts by attending our humble Christmas mass at the Inglesia Matriz, which is very European decorated. As Christmas day, there are many homeless and beggars in front of the church, who almost attacked us foreigners for our change. Unlike Americans Christmas which is very commercialized, Uruguayan Christmas is a very humbling experience. Except for fireworks last night at Christmas Eve in downtown Montevideo, which from our hostel, sounded like a mortar ambush in the Middle East. There are minimum colors and ornaments in the streets and stores, and today seem to be just another day for Uruguayans, except the spending time at home with family.

We encountered one incident in Plaza Cagancha, where we took a stop from our walk for snacking. As we were sitting down in a park bench, we noticed several drunk homeless people were hanging out and very loud within the same area. As couple of minutes pass by, I saw one of them started to approach us. I stared at him and prepared to react appropriately, and when he started to talk, we just said no politely. He lifted up his shirt, and pulled down his pants, revealing his genitalia. WTF? First I didn´t get it, I thought that he tried to illustrate on how hungry he was with showing off his belly, so I gave him couple waffers. After a firm ¡No, no estiendo, gracias! (no, I don´t understand, thank you), finally he walked away with his findings back to his friends. We started to feel uneasy about the situation, but I wanted to finish my journal entry, so we still sat there for a while, until the second person approached us, and now I felt threatened. Not until he attemped to touch me, I finally got up my bench and started to talk in English on how I don´t want to deal with this. Fortunately I am bigger and taller than him, so he stopped, as we continued our day.

Not all Montevideans are bad. Most of the time, we came across very friendly people who unfortunately for us, don´t speak any English. Mate (pronounced muh-te´), a national drink from this region, seem to be very popular with many men holding their mate cups with a thermos set. I managed to stop one of them and shot a pic of the couple with their mate, and had a short conversation (in Spanish) whether mate is Argentine or Uruguayan trademark. They were so firm that mate is a hundred percent Uruguayan, and for the first time, I noticed the difference between Mexican spanish and Uruguayan spanish, with a "sh" sound.

Taxi is very convenient in Uruguay. Taximeter shows numbers instead of price, and the number correspond the price shown at a chart attached. So far, we have taken taxi many times in the country, as some of the areas are not accessible on foot within our limited time. Oh, and we started to have blisters as well by continuous walking for four days.


Punta del Este

Our bus ride to Punta took us two hours from Montevideo. Punta is a very famous beach resort of South America, and many rich Argentines owns a property in the otherwise sleepy fisherman´s village. From what I´ve been told, many Argentines refer Punta as "small Argentina", which of course always becomes a big debate with the unhappy Uruguayans.

One of the famous landmark of Punta is the Casa Pueblo, a Gaudi looking style hotel resort in outskirt of Punta. As soon as we got off our bus in an unknown place, we took a cab to this deserted location, with a little uneasy feeling on what would happen if we get stranded here without any source to get to Punta. But the white structure is georgeous, and I can always appreciate a nice place.

Our museum lady helped us by calling a taxi, which turned out to be a pretty expensive ride. Punta itself seems to be pricey for everybody, as most of the visitors are happen to be from the higher economic strata. As a typical beach tourist resort place like Myrtle Beach, Panama City or Cancun, Punta has many tall structures that serve as overpriced hotels for tourists.

El Mano, a hand (or shall I call it fingers?) sculpture sticking out the beach, becomes a symbol of Uruguay. Ironically, it was designed by a Chilean, representing the last view someone would see of a drowning person. Why is it so famous, I don´t know, but I always had this image on my mind if I thought of Uruguay, apart from its famous flag.

We walked along the Atlantic Ocean and Rio de la Plata beaches, and as the weather is perfect for beach goers, I decided to catch some sun. Spending Christmas here in a warm, sunny day helps me to understand what Kenny Chesney had in mind when he sang "All I want for Christmas is a real good tan". I sang "Silent Night" with the palm trees blowing, a thing that many is wishing to do at this time of the year in the northern hemisphere. Unfortunately Kenny failed to mention how painful it is to be sun burned, as what I experience right now. I am guaranteed to be tan, o well, exactly what I wanted for Christmas.

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