Travels with Brent and Jaik in three parts: Part 1

Part One: Meeting in Montevideo

Well, we have arrived in Valizas, our final destination before we return home. Brent and Jaik left us here at our beach house on Saturday afternoon. We spent a very fun, sometimes funny, three weeks with them that passed all too quickly. It all started on February 16th at the very, sleekly designed Montevideo airport, when after travelling 24 hours their American Airlines flight landed, we, as well as the 5000 Uruguayans pictured on the floor, were glad to see them.

There is a blood, red champagne made with the Tannat grape, particular to Uruguay, and with two chilled bottles, and we celebrated their arrival. Tim and Taylor, friends of B&J from Toronto, happened to be in Montevideo on an excursion from Buenos Aires and so they joined us for a tour of the apartment and a late dinner at the port market. The six of us were visiting loudly in English strolling the deserted streets of the old city, when we were accosted by six youths who pushed Jaik and tried to pick pocket Taylor. I began yelling at them in Spanish, wishing I had said “I was going to tell your mothers”, (but this did not come to me till later in “post almost accosted analysis”), somehow the youths backed off without further hurt or incident due perhaps to our proximity to the market where the police were all hanging out together. This was not what we planned for our friends’ first evening; but the potential robbery and assault occupied our conversation and was an exciting beginning. Yvonne and I agreed that this incident topped the “bad things that have happened to us while travelling for a year in foreign places” list. It was scarier than the evil taxi driver in Istanbul who took us miles out of our way and tried to make us pay more by pulling the “you passed me this no good old currency trick”; and worse than losing an “s” of the scrabble game irretrievably under a closed deck; and not comparable at all to our former Montevideo lavadero not returning our laundry bag. Getting reacquainted with our friends was a delight for Yvonne and I, discussing music, books, movies, even TV, politics, artistic endeavors and Canadian happenings we missed out on like the polite way to sneeze and cough and the scandal of the human rights museum and other unfortunate government blunders.

All the while we explored Montevideo.

Our tour of the Joaquin Torres Garcia museum was a highlight, discovering his universal constructivist art that utilized the golden compass measurement of beauty. Most of Torres Garcia’s work was destroyed in a fire while on exhibit in Rio de Janeiro, but his influence can be seen in the work of Uruguayan crafts people and the pervasiveness of his design is such that even is our somewhat rustic beach house a Torres Garcia reproduction graces the wall. Especially famous is his drawing of the South American continent upside down, encouraging South Americans to look to themselves, not to the north or Europe, for inspiration and inventiveness. A student of Garcia’s, Jose Gurvich has a great little museum in the old city dedicated to his work. He was a South American Jew who lived in Israel and New York and did many paintings based on life on the Kibbutz. His paintings were fantastic! Tucked away in a bit of a scary square right off Plaza Independencia is the monument to sexual diversity “to honour diversity is to honor life”. It is a perfect miniature of the monument in Amsterdam. The graffiti around the monument was plentiful and colourful
and supported the message, BUT the location is somewhat underwhelming.

Speaking of diversity the Uruguayans are a pretty homogeneous group of 3 million, and our little group seemed to invite stares. The whole populous are avid, blatant, starers. (remember Uruguay all the freaky people make the beauty in the world).

Montevideo is full of street art and particularly stencil art, we captured much of it in countless photos that would make excellent t-shirt souvenirs…whoops copyright… but the art on the walls is plentiful. Travelling sharpens the eyes, I just don’t see the graffiti art in Vancouver but will now be more aware of it. Some of the stencils where ones we had seen in other places except this time instead of a bouquet of flowers I think the
former terrorist is throwing a rubber chicken?


We introduced Brent to the Chivito (Jaik always preferred the fish and salad) and returned to our favorite restaurant, Parada Sur, in Barrio Sur, several times.

The cuisine of Uruguay is limited; the salad (if you order the mixta) is always lettuce, tomatoes and onions, undressed. If you want hot sauce, which I always do, it is salsa ingles Tabasco. There is always a fish or shellfish option BUT grilled meat and potatoes are the norm. Vegetarianism seems to be discouraged as most of the veggie options include way too much cheese. I think a Uruguayan cry might be “Let them eat steak!”

Brent and Jaik brought some vital supplies with them from Canada, three kinds of Thai Curry paste and Tampons with applicators, these things, along with Ginger Ale, are just not available here. Yvonne cooked up three kinds of delicious curry (pork, fish, veggie) and we hosted a little dinner party at our apartment-Casa Sarandi. It was a pleasure to meet Danielle and Ivan, teenagers who, with names, dates and specifics, helped fill out the conversation with all the things that adults of a certain age seem to forget. Brent, the ultimate net worker, had made a connection with a dance choreographer in Montevideo, Martin Inthamoussu. We went to see his show at the beautiful Teatro Solis and this connection lead to Brent and Jaik meeting the person with the most interesting job ever! “The dresser to the president”. Now some of you may remember from “The Postcard Race” that the new president of Uruguay, José Alberto Mujica Cordano, who was inaugurated on March 1, was a former Tupamero guerrilla, and was imprisoned during the military dictatorship 1973 -1984, where he served 14 years, this included being confined to the bottom of a well for more than two years. He has recently purchased a plaid suit jacket, but he is really a jeans and t-shirts man of the people kind of guy. Will the dresser make a fashionista out of him OR will the dresser be dismissed? I will be following the story.

Since we arrived in South America there has been constant, torrential rainfall. We have heard tell of flooding in Peru. In Buenos Aires a street that had long ago been a river became a deep, fast flowing river again, right through the centre of town. It seems to be an unusually wet and stormy season on this continent. Dare I say climate change? We witnessed a magnificent storm from a bar near the Rambla….first the wind threatening to blow most of the outdoor seating away, the scurry of the waiters to retrieve the furniture, close the windows and bring everyone inside…..buckets of water falling from the sky in such a short time and making the street into waterfalls. Spectacular!

We saw tango music at Bar FUNFUN, the view from the top of the Radisson, a contemporary tango concert at the beautiful Puro Verso bookstore, Murgas at the summer theatre, shopped at street market stalls an, though Jaik was not quick enough to get the much coveted “monkey with a drum” Brent managed to find a beautiful watch.

I was even getting to like the ugliest building in the world BUT it was time to leave Montevideo and discover more of Uruguay.....??????