Our First Week in Uruguay

Tuesday

Hi. I’m sitting here in another muggy hostel with a warm beer and a pen that is threatening to run out of ink, trying to keep my mind off the incessant heat, the sweat beads that are running down the tip of my nose, and the mosquito who is bound and determined to get himself stuck inside the depths of my right ear. I know we talked about hostels before, but I probably left out some of their less romantic aspects: like they’re generally pretty warm in the summer, and people don’t shower much. But, you know, I get to drink as much beer as I want tonight, and don’t have to go to work tomorrow, so what the heck do I care? 

We arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay this morning – by boat, no less; and no, I didn’t puke my guts out – and we made it all the way from the port to a hostel without getting mugged (I think word got out about the fire in Joy’s eyes in Buenos Aires), and now we are winding down the evening with beer, wine, and absurd attempts at making each other laugh. 

Early morning on the ferry

After traveling in Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Argentina (not to mention a kick-ass drive down the Alaska-Canada highway in the middle of December, and a pretty phenomenal wedding later that month) we have decided to take a break from planes, buses, boats, and wine tours for algunas semanas before we head up to Guatemala and then to the states to begin our western US tour in Florida. Yeah, I know, it probably makes more sense if you’re married. Wife says, “I think we need to start our tour of the western United States in Florida.” Husband says, “Okay, dear.” Even after only two months of marriage. Some might say we get trained quickly; I prefer to think of us as fast learners…

Anyhow, back to the beach. We’re here now, ready to find an apartment to stay in for a couple weeks. But we’ll stay tonight in this cozy hostel where I’m going to go find a cold beer, a new pen, and stick my head in the toilet until this damn mosquito drowns.

Wednesday

Hey! We found an apartment. An English man emailed us and said he was trying to fill a two-week vacancy gap, so he gave us a screaming deal until March 28^th. We’ll just have to find something else for the remaining two weeks because we don’t leave Uruguay until mid-April. That works for us; there are many different neighborhoods and beaches in Montevideo, so we’ll just mix it up a bit.

Tonight we’re going to celebrate our new apartment and our new ability to cook our own meals by going out to dinner, but first we have to wait for dinner-time, which in Uruguay, as in Argentina, is late. Most of the nice restaurants don’t even open until 8pm. And we heard that the good bars don’t start rolling until two or three in the morning – and close at 7am. I would be shocked and amazed if I were ever able to personally corroborate either one of those assertions.

985ml, to be exact.

I can, however, attest to the fact that Uruguay has big beers. It’s a little retarded how much beer I drink these days. I’ve gone from being the kid in the corner with his one-a-night 12 ounce bottle – complete with nipple – to sitting down in any restaurant we go to, waiving the waiter over, and saying, “me da la grande, por favor.” In fact, when we got to Buenos Aires, Joy, ever the great influence, talked me into ordering liters. It’s more beer than you think. And by the time we got done with dinner that first night in Buenos Aires with the bigger beers it was so late that I forgot to pee before bed. Big mistake. When I woke up later and staggered over to the toilet at two in the morning I found myself having to lean a hand against the wall after the first four and a half minutes because my legs were getting tired. “Should have sat down for this one,” I thought.

Thursday

This morning we started a small exercise regimen. It’s not much; I’m in really bad shape after my shoulder surgery and being on vacation for three months so I talked Joy into taking it easy on me. She drew up a nice little routine for the next couple of weeks that appears very manageable. It is also very consistent; each day says: “Beach, Beer, Run a little…; Beach, Beer, Run a little…”

The beach AND the running path.

Friday

Oh dear God in Heaven I promise to never take six months off from the gym ever again if you’ll just help my hamstrings and quads stop hurting enough to allow me to get off of this couch and make my way to the bathroom. I know they say that beer does not help with inflammation and lactic acid build-up and after this second liter I’m inclined to believe them. Hopefully I’ll be able to sit down once I get there – can you help me with that one too while we’re at it?

Okay, so I finally managed to get off the couch and now I’m trying to convince Joy that I am way too sore and a little too drunk to go to the Expat Social Dinner she RSVP’d us for tonight. She’s not yielding. Sometimes I really miss being a hermit.

But we went, and I, of course, survived. And while we’re walking home Joy asks me if I met the guy whose handshake resembles a limp, cold fish. “No,” I said, “And it’s a good thing too. It pisses me off so bad when people shake hands like that that it makes me want to pee in their faces.”

Saturday

Hoy es sabado, and I’ve resolved myself to not talking about peeing for the entire day. Of course, it’s better than talking about pooping, which has somehow become the center of many a conversation with my previously-discussed socialite brother-in-law. I would, however, love to talk about how incredibly awful my glutes, hammies, quads, calves, ankles, and feet feel in the off-chance that my lovely bride is feeling generous today and decides not to makes us run…along the beach…at sunrise. Yeah, I know I’m not getting much sympathy from you.

Nor from Joy, neither. She points out that besides jogging, we only have four things we have to do today, and three of those are eating. The fourth, predictably, is buying more beer.

Sunday

Joy loves dishwashers too.

Hey it’s Sunday! The essential end of our first week in Uruguay. It’s also the first week since entering Chile that we didn’t overrun our budget, and, congruently, the first week in which we have mostly eaten home-cooked meals. I love it. And Joy’s cooking, which is wonderful, and is almost worth the pain of having to listen to Jaime Oliver on the TV while Joy learns about how he cooks things in Britain or wherever the hell he’s at. I’ve also been reminded this week of how much I love dishwashers. Yes Mom, I know, no sympathy. I would really have a hard time making a case for some anyways seeing how these last few pages really do reflect the sum total of my activities this week – with the additional mentions of the one and a half novels I read, and the three times we went swimming in the ocean.

I am a little tired today, however, due to the neighbor’s car alarm that went off all night long. It goes off all day long too and you would think that he would get it fixed – if you had never been to South America, that is. It seems like we’ve been listening to car alarms non-stop since Quito. I wonder if the sound of a car alarm really draws anyone’s attention down here. I might test that theory and try to steal a car if I wasn’t so scared of driving on these roads. Montevideo doesn’t seem to be too bad but driving in many of the countries we’ve been to draws a close resemblance to a Death Race video game.

Anyways, by the time the sun came up this morning I was convinced that I needed to go find the owner of the current car in question and tell him what an idiot I think he is. I worry, though, that he might not understand English and that my true feelings will get softened in translation. I asked Joy to help me come up with a good Spanish phrase to use, but she just made me run again, so I’m sitting here with my dictionary trying to piece something together.

Besides that, it’s been a great week, and we’re hoping that the next will be just as good. We have stocked the fridge with food, and Joy has made sure I have enough dish soap. We also washed all our clothes today in preparation for the coming week whose agenda closely resembles the previous one’s: “Beach, Beer, Run a little…; Beach, Beer, Run a little…”