Montevideo, Montevideo Department, UruguayElenka and I caught a flight from Puerto Iguazu to Buenos Aires.
We spent four nights in the San Telmo neighbourhood (famed for its tango), then took the one hour speedboat across Rio de la Plata to the historic tourist town of Colonia de Sacramento in Uruguay. Colonia is a place where tourists visiting Argentina go so they can say they’ve been to Uruguay. All the restaurants serve the same tasteless food at high prices. While Colonia is pretty, we couldn’t wait for the north-bound bus.
We’re now in Montevideo, a three hour bus journey from Colonia. Montevideo is a city where almost all of the music you hear comes to you in English, and Cyndi Lauper rules supreme. By the time we’d gotten into our cab to go from the bus terminal to the Old Town we’d heard a couple of Cyndi tunes. One of them was a cover of ‘Time After Time’ by some Latina gal. But it wasn’t until our cab driver started humming ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’, that I thought we might have slid into some sort of alternate world. Stunned, I looked at the driver who said with a smile, “Cyndi Lauper.” I didn’t respond.
You could walk most of Montevideo’s Old Town in a couple of days. It’s on a peninsula where there’s a constant breeze, and from just about any point you can look down at the sea. Yesterday, we walked the perimeter, and last night sat on a pier watching the sunset as a lad played wonderful English-only tunes on a saxophone. When we returned to our hostel an electronica version of the old Rolling Stones hit, ‘Paint it Black’ was being piped over the sound system.
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Moving Forward … I mean Backward:
Back in Salta, I realized my Spanish vocabulary had increased insurmountably during our travels in South America. Elenka and I’d decided to end a particularly spectacular day with a bottle of Malbec at a cafe on the beautiful plaza square.
“Good evening,” I said to the waiter-woman in Spanish, “my lady and I would like to sit and enjoy this bottle of Malbec,” I said, pointing at an Argentine wine on the menu.
There was happiness in her eyes, that a gringo would make such an effort to speak so perfectly to her in her native language. She smiled, and uttered just a single word.
Embarrassed, I said in English, “I’m sorry, w-what did you say?”
“Malbec,” Elenka, chirped. “She asked if you wanted the Malbec.”
“Well of course I wanted the f#@&ing Malbec. I was pointing at on the wine list.”
“OK, OK, settle down.” Elenka turned to the waitress and said, “Sí, el Malbec por favor.”
When the waiter-woman came with the wine I was in a big sulk, pretending to be engrossed by a distant star.
Magnus
2018-03-18
Colonia pretty but only for a while. Try the water buses around Tigre. That's worth a go. Ben viaje amigos.
Stephaniez
2018-03-18
Great photos and stories! I feel the same way about my French speaking abilities.
Pablo David
2018-03-19
What a lovely looking place! Too bad the music sucked. )-:
Val Sonstegard
2018-03-19
Loved the story and the pictures. Looking forward to your return. Val
cg
2018-03-19
That is a funny post, Jack. You obviously needed a drink. The view would be enough to drunk me! I love the way you two ditch when a place/food/local displeases you. As for Espanol - keep trying, el guapo!
Guyl
2018-03-19
You crack me up Jack! Love the pics and the post - How DID you mispronounce M-A-L-B-E-C in Spanish? LOL
Margo
2018-03-21
You're funny! Hope the wine was yummy. The locals probably think the tourists will enjoy the English music. Good thing they can't read minds.
Renate
2018-03-24
Thanks for all the interesting reports and photos. It‘s so great, to see so much from the world, because you‘re travelling so much.