At the bus terminal in Montevideo, I grabbed my bags and looked for an ATM to take out some Uruguayan Pesos. I found one near the entrance of the bus station, took out 6000 pesos (almost $200), then popped out front and waited in line for a cab. I headed to Hostel Pocitos in the neighborhood of the same name, about 10 minutes from the city center near the eastern, Atlantic coast of the city.
I arrived at about 10:30pm, checked in and laid down for a moment. After getting only a couple of hours of drunken sleep then night before, then a day of running around and travel in dismal, grey, damp, windy weather had me feeling a bit ill. I wanted to just go to bed, but my stomach was growling.
I put on jeans and a sweatshirt and ventured out into the windy, spitting rain to find somewhere to eat. It was Saturday night and things were starting to liven up at a couple of small bars I passed. I went into the first restaurant I found, which was really more of bar. There were a lot of young people, several who didn’t even look 18, mingling in groups. At first I felt a bit awkward sitting at a table in the corner by myself, but I was feeling low and didn’t give a damn. I just wanted some quick grub. I ordered a burger, and kept to myself while eating, thankful for some nourishment. I paid up and got the F out as soon as possible.
I braved walking into the wind back to the hostel, then chugged some water and Emergen-C and headed to bed.
The next morning, I woke up (predictably) feeling warm, feverish in the forehead, with sore eyes and a scratchy throat. Great. My last few days in South America and I’m sick, debilitated. That’s ok. It was Sunday, so I could spend the day resting, playing poker, and hopefully get to bed early. I took a nice, long warm shower then went out in the grey, damp morning to find a Supermarket a few blocks away. I grabbed some supplies, crucially a leg of chicken, which I simmered on the stove all day to make chicken soup. It was a perfect day to play poker as it rained with gusting wind nearly all day. The people at the hostel made a fire in the fireplace of the common room, which was a nice touch considering the drab weather, and I sat in the adjacent dining room playing poker all day.
I don’t really remember what happened poker-wise that day, because at about 9pm, as my tournament session was winding down and I had only one or two tables remaining, an attractive girl came into the dining room and sat across from me. We got to talking and I met Claudia from Concepcion, Chile.
After talking for about 30 minutes, I had all but forgotten about the poker tournaments. There was a palpable attraction between Claudia and I. She asked if I wanted to share a beer with her. I knew I was under the weather and shouldn’t, but my little head said yes. She bought a big, 750ml beer at reception of the hostel, got two glasses from the kitchen, then sat next to me at the table. From the moment we toasted, I knew it was on like Donkey Kong. We sat drinking a couple of big beers together, talking about the places we’ve been and quirks of different countries, laughing a lot together, looking deep into each other’s eyes. Soon she had her hand on my thigh, and mine on hers, and we were kissing. Then rubbing and making out. We decided to try and find somewhere more private. We went upstairs, but her friend was already asleep in their private room. I had two roommates already sleeping in my dorm room. We went to the room at the end of the hallway, and to our surprise was a four bed dormitory completely vacant. We went in and shut the door behind and started making out and undressing like animals. We made love, being sure not to make too much noise and be discovered, then paused for pillow talk before going at it again a couple more times. At about 4am we decided we should go sleep in our own beds. We got dressed and cleaned up the room, before tiptoeing down the hallway, kissing goodnight, and disappearing into our respective rooms.
The next morning I woke up at about 10:30am feeling (predictably) sick. I pulled myself up, showered and worked my way downstairs for some tea. Shortly thereafter, Claudia and her friend came down stairs, bags in tow, and checked out. Last night she had disclosed was she would be leaving for Buenos Aires the next day. She popped into the dining room to say bye, which was both cute and awkward as we both played coy like nothing had happened the night before. A few moments later, her cab arrived and, just like that, she was gone.
As an aside, I believe Claudia was a direct manifestation of the Law of Attraction. A few weeks earlier, in Cordoba, as I realized I had less than a month of travel remaining, I resolved to get laid by a beautiful (hopefully South American) girl one more time before I returned home. I had a few close calls with Emily and Leticia along the way, but hadn’t closed the deal. Still, I had kept my resolve. That morning, when I was realizing I only had a few days and was feeling ill, not able to go out partying, was the first time my hope had begun to waver. Yet, I said to myself, maybe, somehow, I’ll manage to get lucky. And out of the blue came Claudia a few hours later. From the moment she appeared, it was on. I manifested her and our encounter. No doubt in my mind.
After tea and a light breakfast, I headed out to explore Montevideo. It was still grey, but not as unpleasant as prior few days. There was even some sunlight poking through the clouds periodically.
Montevideo is the capital and largest city in Uruguay. That said, it only has a population of about 1.4M people. It lies on the north side of mouth of the Rio de la Plata, directly across the bay from Buenos Aires. The east side of the city is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. This makes Montevideo a port, shipping, and industrial center of Uruguay. Well, to be fair, it’s the center of everything in Uruguay. Montevideo is similar in many ways to Buenos Aires–both cities are the culturally rich cosmopolitan centers of their countries. Indeed, owing to the early Spanish and Italian immigrants of the region, both cities share several cultural quirks including the beepa-boppa-boop cadence of their Italian accented Spanish, a similar complexion and look of the residents, tango, and the ubiquitous drink yerba mate. Despite the similarities and mutual acknowledgement that Buenos Aires and Montevideo are friendly sister cities, the residents share a healthy rivalry, often talking foul of or trying to outshine the ‘imbeciles’ in the other city. Montevideans have reason to brag–their city is widely known to have the highest standard of living in all of South America. I don’t think I saw a single homeless person during my short stay in Montevideo. I even heard some wealthy, older travelers describe Montevideo glowingly as reminding them of Europe in the 1970’s–civil, progressive, and culturally vibrant.
I walked down to the Rambla, a long boardwalk that spans the entire coast of Montevideo. I headed to Pocitos beach to the northeast, and took a nice long walk on the beach, hand in hand with myself. I found dozens of translucent balls with holes in them on the beach and in the tide. They were strange looking, almost alien. I still don’t know what they were, but suspect they were hatched turtle eggs. At the north end of the beach I stopped at the Montevideo sign, which is featured in many photos of the city. Wasn’t the greatest, most photogenic day though.
Later, I walked for a mile or two west towards the Ciudad Vieja. The wind started picking up, and weather was turning nasty, so I hopped into a cab to take me the rest of the way. In the Ciudad Vieja, I wandered around for a bit admiring the lovely, enduring stone architecture. I stopped in small trendy eatery for a pita and a rest where I watched several staff members take a break to go outside and smoke a joint. A few weeks before my arrival, Uruguay had just passed a law making it the first country in the world to fully legalize cannabis. Anyone can walk into the pharmacy and buy government grown weed. Oh yeah, and since legalization, the crime rate in the country has plummeted. Small sample size, but… decriminalize all drugs NOW!
I didn’t get to explore too much because it started raining. Combined with the gusting wind and the rain was coming down horizontally, making for a really nasty afternoon. I hopped in a cab and headed home where I had a ginger tea before laying down for a much needed nap.
In the evening, I chilled in the living room of the hostel with Guillermo from Venezuela. He was a cool guy–guitar playing hippy with a good vibe about him, who spoke pretty good English. He was a volunteer at the hostel, and another young Venezuelan that fled the collapsing socialist dystopia of his homeland in search of greener pastures. He asked me if I wanted to smoke a joint with him, which I declined. Then he asked if I wanted to do a beer which I also declined. He was surprised. “I’m not feeling well,” I explained. “Well, then, at least let me make you something to eat!” he demanded. I said sure, and he proceeded to whip up a homemade batch of pizza dough which we let sit and rise for a spell while we went for a walk to a supermarket for toppings and a bunch of tomatoes. Back at the hostel, he used the tomatoes to make his own ‘special’ tomato sauce. He then cooked three awesome pizzas, which were shared among the staff and guests of the hostel. Guillermo really made my night. Such hospitality. Where ever you are buddy–you’re the man!
I hung out for a little while after dinner, but then went to bed at 11pm, glad to get some rest and hoping to feel better the next morning.
The next day I got out of bed at about 10am, but still didn’t feel much better or rested. My bed squeaked every time I moved about, so I’d wake up when rolling over in my sleep. I couldn’t take it another night, so decided to move hostels.
During breakfast, I booked my final two night for Buenas Vibras hostel, about six blocks away. I hung out until checkout time at noon, paid up, said goodbye to Guillermo, and then walked over to the new place.
There was a free walking tour of the old city starting at 3pm, so I walked to the Rambla and started heading west towards the city center. The weather was nicer that day. Cloudy and not warm, but the sun was shining for a while. I think the people of Montevideo were even glad for a reprieve in the weather as many were out walking, jogging, biking, rollerblading along the Rambla. I stopped in a little grassy park on the water and laid down for a 20 minute power nap to the sound of the ocean lapping the rocky coast.
I made it to the main plaza, Plaza Independencia, by about 2pm, so I killed an hour having lunch and reading the news in a nearby cafe while waiting for the tour to start.
At three, I met the tour group in the plaza. It was just two other girls (one of the girls was from Wisconsin – Cheesehead!), myself, and our guide Juan Pablo. We all spoke Spanish, so the tour was in Spanish with occasional clarifications in English. He took us to many stops all around the Ciudad Vieja, including the Palacio Salvo, Solis Teatro, Plaza de la Constitucion, the Gateway, etc. We walked through the narrow cobblestone streets, and Juanpy showed us several places to eat, including a couple gaucho style parillas. Interestingly, he claimed the beef from Uruguay was superior to that of Argentina which is widely regarded as the best beef in the world. He implored me to go to a quality parilla (steak house) in Montevideo and compare it to that of Buenos Aires.
Near the end of the tour we stopped in a park where Juan gave us all a shot of Grappamiel, a customary drink in Montevideo. It’s what it sounds like–Grappa, an aromatic Italian grape liquor (I think it’s a digestif) mixed with honey to smooth out the taste. It’s mostly drunk in wintertime to ‘warm the throat’. I liked it and had a second serving. It did indeed warm me up a bit.
The tour wrapped up at about 5:30pm. By that time the weather was turning nasty again with the wind picking up and spitting, sideways rain coming down. Juanpy told me he was taking a bus east, so we both hopped aboard a crowded bus. We shot the shit for the ten minute ride back to Pocitos and he instructed me to get off tree blocks from my hostel. I ducked into a small carniceria (butcher shop), and bought a quarter chicken, then stopped at a shop for vegetables, and finally made it back to the hostel, out of the inclement weather. I made another batch of chicken and rice soup hoping it would help cure my funk before I had to head back to the US of A in about 32 hours. The hostel was pretty chill, not many guests. That was fine by me. After, my soothing soup, I posted up on a couch and read for a couple of hours before getting to bed early again.
The next day I woke feeling better. Not 100%, but decidedly better. I slept late, going back to bed a couple of times after rising to get some water and pee. I finally got up at about 10am after 11 hours of sleep. It was my last day in South America. I would be flying home to Chicago for JHill’s wedding at 6:30am the next morning.
I only had one hope for the day and that was to have a really nice dinner. I had the idea in my head I was going to head up to Parque Prado, a big, scenic park in the north of the city, but after having breakfast and hitting the streets at about noon, I wasn’t feeling it. It was another overcast, grey day with an unfriendly wind blowing off the ocean. Didn’t seem like the best park weather to me. I didn’t know what to do, so I just set out walking. I found my way to Parque Rodo, where I had a walk around and looked at some outdoor artwork and sculptures.
Then I kept walking south down to Punta Carreras and had a look at the famous Punta Brava Lighthouse, built in the 1800s. I sat on the protected west side of the point, out of the wind, and had a nice long rest while staring at the ocean, watching ships at sea and seagulls, and daydreaming.
Later, I took a walk back northeast through the Punta Carreras neighborhood, a wealthy part of town, admiring some of the old villas and cushy looking high rise apartment buildings. I found myself in Hemp-T, a small tea lounge and eatery. I needed something warm as my nose was running and snot was leaking due to the wind. I was one of only two customers in the place. I made friends with the girl working behind the counter after commenting on the book she was reading about aliens. I had a little snack and a tea while reading my book. The two other staff members and the girl displayed a big fat joint to me and asked me if I wanted to smoke. I had to decline, “No puedo hoy, estoy enfermo.” Dang it! I felt so lame, as I watched the three staff members of the cafe step outside for a smoke break. The other customer, a middle aged women, didn’t even seem to notice or care, but I watched with glee as they openly blazed up in front of the store during their shift. I guess that’s how you roll when marijuana is fully legalized. And you work at a cafe called Hemp-T.
I spent the rest of the afternoon, walking down Avenida 18 de Julio, a main street running east west through the whole city. I stopped at parque … and also saw the Obelisk.
It again started to spit rain in the late afternoon, which was quite unpleasant mixed with the wind. I found my back to the hostel by about 6:30pm. I asked the guy working at reception for a good parilla and he mentioned the same place as Juan Pablo, La Pulperia. So that was settled. I found it on my phone, put on warmer clothes, and headed out to find La Pulperia.
It was about a 10 minute walk. I almost couldn’t find the place, and thought Google maps had led me astray. There was no sign, but I found the restaurant turned out to be a small, hole in the wall type of place. The capacity of the restaurant was about 15 people. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, considering most of the recommended parillas in Buenos Aires were white-tablecloth-type fine dining restaurants.
I opened the door and walked into a wall of heat. A pile firewood was stacked floor near a big grill that took up half the establishment. All the tables were occupied, so I sat at the bar directly in front of the grill. I immediately removed my jacket and hoody. After getting more comfortable, it was quite a nice, cozy change of pace to be by the warm fire, out of the elements.
To further warm myself, I ordered a 375ml bottle of Tannat, a red wine typical of Uruguay and known for going good with steak. I ordered a ribeye with green beans and baked potatoes. I got to watch El Maestro work the grill and cook my food. This guy had command of his grill like Yoyo Ma a cello. He knew exactly where to place each cut of meat for the perfect temperature, and stoked the coals and fed wood into the fire with artful mastery. He had a perfect internal clock for everything that was on the grill–and everything is cooked on the grill: meat, baked potatoes, veggies, etc.
My giant steak was a perfect medium rare with the slightest wood fired bark on the outside. It was amazing. I was literally taking bites and chewing it with my eyes closed thanking the universe for my good fortune to receive such a meal as I washed it down with Tannat. Being my last night in South America, I decided to overdo it and ate every bite on my plate. And then I ordered flan for dessert after seeing nearly every other customer get it. I’d never had flan, so it was good to try something new. Not my favorite dessert, but it was still creamy, caramel delicious.
After that, I was properly stuffed, had a nice little buzz, and was feeling like a million bucks. I thanked my waitress and El Maestro profusely, left a fat tip, and walked back to the hostel, content.
As for the verdict: I couldn’t say if this steak was better than the one I had in Buenos Aires, they were both superb. Call it a tie I guess.
Back at Buenas Vibras Hostel, I spent an hour packing my bags and getting everything ready. I set redundant alarms on both my normal phone and my burner phone. Finally, I got to bed at about 10pm. I was a little anxious about the day and a half of travel ahead of me, and going back home after being away so long. Sleep didn’t come easily, but eventually I drifted away.
The alarm went off at 4:15am, but I had already waken up about 10 minutes earlier, Kramer-style, eager with anticipation of my trip home. All my stuff was prepared. All I had to do was shower, change, and pack up my toiletries and towel, and I would be ready. After doing all that, I went to the kitchen to make three eggs and some avocado, and a couple of cups of coffee which I put in my Contigo travel mug. I called an Uber at 5am, and was on my way to the airport at 5:15am. The airport is about an hour to the northeast of the city. I arrived at Carrasco International at 6:15am and enjoyed a mostly empty airport for my check-in and pass through immigration and modest security. I was at my gate by 6:45am and had a nice bit of time to kill before my 8am flight. I relieved my bowels–key before embarking on a 3-flight, 2-layover 38-hour odyssey to make it back to Chicago–then chilled at my gate, sipped coffee and read before they called my flight for boarding. The flight took off on time, taking about four hours to arrive in Bogota, Colombia. Everything was going swimmingly so far. I found a decent looking pub and had a seat. I was about to order lunch when I noticed I had forgotten a souvenir in the overhead bin on my flight. It was a painting rolled up in a cardboard tube that I had bought in Lima, Peru, and had been traveling with for several months. I had already went through so much trouble to travel with this damn thing until now, I wasn’t ready to just mark it lost. I excused myself and headed out of the pub and found a VivaColombia (my previous airline) customer service booth. They put in some walkie-talkie calls, and after about 10 minutes reported that they had found it, but I would have to pick it up in a lost and found depot located near the entrance of the airport. I had a 14-hour layover, so time was no concern. I went through immigration and then went and found the depot. It took about 30-minutes for the painting to actually be dropped off by VivaColombia staff to the depot, then another 15-minutes of paperwork, but eventually I got the painting back. Then I went back through immigration and security, and found my way back to the pub.
At this point it was about 3pm and I was hungry. I put down a big cheeseburger and fries, and two pints of beers. I found a nice business traveler standing travel booth, then whipped out the laptop and put in a four hour marathon writing session, churning out about 4500 words–pretty damn good, for me. By time I got done, it was about 8:30pm, and I still had another eight hours until my next flight to New York.
I stopped in a little cafe and had some lighter fare–a salmon salad and cup of tea–while lingering for an hour and a half reading Twitter. At about 11pm, I went to the to-be gate for my flight. All the decent nearby spots to sleep were occupied. I found a not clean looking spot on the floor by the windows and decided to lay down using my backpack as a pillow. I set an alarm for 4am, but was still worried I would miss my flight. I put a bandana around my eyes as a sleep mask and soon dozed off.
Again, I woke up Kramer-style, about 5-minutes before my alarm. It took me a bit to come to, but I eventually realized my gate had been moved. In a hurried haze, I stumbled to my new gate. I got there right on time, boarded immediately, and the flight took off promptly at 4:30am. I tried to sleep, but was sitting in an aisle seat and wasn’t able to get comfortable. I managed to get an hour or two of shut-eye though.
At 8:30am, our plane landed at JFK in New York. The red eyed passengers shuffled through a maze of corridors like a mob of zombies to immigration. At immigration, we first had to feed our passports into self-serve computer kiosks then get a printout and shuffle into a roped off waiting queue. It was an absolute fucking nightmare. There must’ve been passengers for three or four Airbus sized flights in line, or about 500 people. There were 50 booths to process and stamp passports, but they only had staff in five of the booths. Not to mention the fact that the staff both directing the lines and in the booths were completely incompetent. After about an hour and a half in line, everyone was complaining. Some Indian man with a family whose kids had to use the bathroom started shouting at the staff. After traveling to a dozen different countries and never experiencing anything as degrading as this experience to enter the USA, I was embarrassed. And livid. It took another 45-minutes to get through and out of the airport. I had a five hour layover, and had previously arranged to have my 2nd Aunt, Angie, pick me up and take me into NYC for the afternoon. I’d told her to pick me up at about 9:30-10am, and it was not almost 11. We finally hooked up. I actually hadn’t seen Angie since I was little, so we hugged and reintroduced ourselves since this was our first time really ‘meeting’ as adults. She had been at a wedding with my Mom a month prior, when my Mom told her about my adventures in South America. Angie was immediately interested and contacted me to set up a layover hangout. We drove into the city talking about some of my experiences in Latin America. She was interested in Ayahuasca and had a lot to ask me about that. She was into discussions on consciousness and interested in mystical experiences, so we had fun talking about all of that and how the knowledge of these ideas effect our world views and life experiences. We went to the Rubin Art Museum near Chelsea, but had lunch at a Mexican food place across the street first. The museum had an exhibit on Eastern religion, particularly with many paintings and sculptures of Hindu gods and goddesses such as Kali and Ganesh. There was also a cool sound exhibit that featured a bunch of ambient, electronic drone sounds inspired by Buddhist philosophy, which was good for self-reflection, naturally. It was right up our alley.
Angie’s daughter, Shayla, her friend and who go to college in the city, met us after the museum. It was already 4pm, so we all jumped in the car and Shayla drove me out to JFK. It took nearly an hour and a half at rush hour, and I got to JFK at 5:30pm for my 6:15 flight.
Luckily, I already had my boarding pass from the prior flights, so I just had go through security. The line was ridiculously long and my heart dropped. I approached a TSA lady, showed her my boarding pass with departure time, and she took me through the ropes to the front of the line. As bad as the imbeciles were at immigration, this lady redeemed the lot.
I waltzed through security, stopped to take a whiz, and was at my gate as boarding was underway. Just like that, I was in the air on my way to sweet home Chicago. I spent the flight reading and chugging water because started feeling ill and weak again like in Montevideo a few days prior.
Soon enough, I was on the ground at O’Hare, picking up my backpack on the luggage carousel, and waiting at vestibule 7c for my Mom. By time I was out of the airport, I was feeling horrible. I got on the first plane feeling not too bad, a little less than normal after being under the weather for a few days. But now after three flights, airport food, a few beers, and barely any sleep, I was feeling like death. I honestly think the last flight was the worst factor in it all. I was feeling fine before I got aboard. The other two South American airline flights didn’t have wifi. The last one did. So you’re in a metal tube with countless connected devices and wifi careening through the tube irradiating everyone in a climate controlled environment that sucks water out of the body, dehydrating you so that the electromagnetic radiation does even more damage on a cellular level. We need to really rethink wifi aboard planes–we simply don’t need to be connected 24/7. /rant
So yeah, I was feeling like shit when my Mom showed up. She hopped out and we had long hug. She might have had some tears in her eyes, happy I made it back alive, in one piece. She made me take the obligatory photo, then I piled my shit in the car and we were on the way home–my first time home in a year. Feels good, man.