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Published: November 16th 2010
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This entry covers a couple of my weekend trips around Uruguay as well as some more pictures from Montevideo. On the weekends, I’ve tried to find a balance between hanging out in Montevideo and seeing things outside the city. Over the last couple weekends I went camping along the Rio Negro (in the center of Uruguay) and to Colonia Del Sacramento, which is an old colonial town established by the Portuguese in 1680. Last Sunday, I also had the chance to go watch a Candombe practice which is an experience that most tourists don’t get to see.
Candombe is a type music that originated from Uruguayan slaves and has progressed into a traditional performance that is desplayed on the streets during Carnival and certain other holidays. There are 3 different types of drums that are used in the performance and typically around 60 drummers in one cuerda, which is the unit that practices and performs together. There are many cuerdas in the actual performance and each cuerda has a bunch of dancers and other characters that are positioned in front of the drummers. In the attached video below (click on the link), you will see that there is an old
guy with a cane that is staggering along with the dancers. At first, I thought he was just an old dude that wanted to participate but it turns out that he is actually one of the characters called the "Medicine Man." The video quality isn't great because it was dark, but you can probably get the idea better than looking at pictures. I ended up watching this performance until around 11 pm on Sunday night and it was one of the highlights of my trip, not only because I like drums but also because it felt like a unique community experience that I was a part of. There were a bunch of people, young and old, from the surrounding community that came out to watch the performance but I was certainly the only “gringo” in attendance. As a side note, they actually do call me a gringo which I find really funny considering that I have darker skin than most Uruguayans. I guess they use it more as a term to describe someone who isn't fluent in Spanish.
The local feel for the Candombe experience was the exact opposite of the touristy feel of Colonia del Sacramento. Colonia is
a town that is known for its old buildings and cars that line the cobblestone streets. It is a common destination for many people staying in Buenos Aires since it is only a 1 hour trip across the Rio del Plato. I had actually done this trip a couple years ago while I was staying in Buenos Aires. But I decided to go back because Anne, an American who is working for Endeavor for a year, and Jen, who is also on a fellowship through Ernst & Young, were planning to go so I figured I’d check it out and since I didn’t go to any of the town's museums on my prior trip. As it turns out, I didn’t miss much on the prior trip since the museums were primarily comprised of old Portuguese antiques that weren’t all that interesting. It was still cool to walk around the old streets and see the scenes. It is also starting to feel like summer here and it was nice to finally get some sun while checking out the sights.
On another weekend, I went camping with Federico and 12 of his friends about 3 hours north of Montevideo. From the
start, the trip was interesting since everyone seemed really excited but no one could explain exactly where we were going. On the drive there, I figured out why. Because we were camping in the middle of nowhere! About 2 hours into the drive and about 1 hour since I’d seen the last town, we pulled off onto a dirt road. On the dirt road, we kept driving for about 40 minutes and every time we’d get to a fork in the road there would be some debate in Spanish about which way to go. Finally we made it to this little farm and drove past the farmhouse and further into the country passing cows, sheep and ostrich. At this point the road had completely disappeared but we drove another 30 minutes, sometimes having to turn around to find a place to cross a stream or get past a rocky area.
Once we arrived at the campsite, it was chaos. 10 of the guys had already been there one night and they’d been drinking whiskey all day and were throwing each others chairs into the trees while another one would be climbing up the tree to retrieve them. Others were
chopping wood and throwing huge branches and at times full trees into the fire. As it turned out, the person who planned the trip had accurately estimated the amount of booze that was needed but didn’t bring enough food. On top of that they completely forgot to bring water. We ended up grilling all of the meat that night and had almost nothing left over for the next day. Federico and I were only planning on staying one night because we had to work on Monday but these guys were planning on staying until Tuesday! Since we were so far away from a store, everyone had to leave Sunday afternoon. Regardless, it was still a cool experience being along some river in the middle of Uruguay with no other people or roads for miles all while trying to pick up on what a bunch of drunk Uruguayans were saying in Spanish. By the time we took off on Sunday, there were only 6 bottles of whiskey left and we ended up eating potatoes with onions and tomatoes with a little left over chorizo for lunch. It actually turned out to taste pretty good but it was funny because everyone looked
miserable since they were hungover and had nearly no meat for lunch. Federico and some of the other guys were complaining the whole way home about the poor planning and made sure that I realized that this wasn’t a true Uruguayan camping experience. Regardless, I found it funny and poor planning just made the trip a better story. I didn’t take many pictures from the weekend, but I do have a couple from Sunday morning and the drive.
So at this point, I only have about a week left in Uruguay which I can’t believe. It seems like it’s gone by so quickly. I’m wrapping up my project at LynkOs and have my presentation with the Board of Directors on Wednesday. This last weekend, I also went to Punta del Este and watched the Classico, which is the biggest soccer match in Uruguay. I’ll send out some pictures on that later in the week from those trips.
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