In the Land of the Nachos

To get Uruguay, we took a high-speed ferry across the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires to Montevideo, which was a three-hour trip. Another (cheaper) way to get to Montevideo is to take the ferry to Colonia, Uruguay, and then take a bus from there to Montevideo. However, that’s a trip of at least five and a half hours, and while it would have been interesting to see the Uruguayan countryside, we decided that in the interest of time it was better to take the ferry straight to Montevideo.

High-speed ferries may just be my new favorite form of transportation. The seating area was entirely enclosed, and though I wished there were an open deck on top from which to take pictures, other than that I didn’t really have any complaints. Seats were arranged mostly in groups of threes, and they were cushier and more comfortable than airplane seats. There was a decent amount of space in which to walk around, including right at the front of the ferry so people could watch the progress across the water. Unlike in the United States, the onboard café actually served very reasonably-priced food. There weren’t seatbelts, and the rocking of the ferry on the water was only the slightest bit perceptible when walking, so overall it was a very comfortable way to travel.

I couldn’t believe how relaxed the border between the two countries was. Tourist visas aren’t required in either country, and we basically just walked straight through, pausing only to get our passports stamped and to turn in our entrance/exit forms. After going through the huge hassle of acquiring a Brazilian visa, this process seemed wonderfully simple. Brazilian officials always carefully scrutinize my passport and visa, which always makes me slightly uneasy, but these officials only glanced at it long enough to put stamps in it. Another guy at our hostel said he had about US$2000 of “devices,” as he called them (he was a salesman making some sort of delivery), “confiscated” (that is, STOLEN) by a corrupt customs official going into Uruguay, but we didn’t have any problems.

Getting money, on the other hand, was another story. We need to do that first thing, of course, in order to pay for the taxi that would take us to the hostel, but the ATM at the port didn’t work right. We then proceeded to wander all around the neighborhood outside the port looking for a usable ATM. Nothing says “target” quite like a couple of lost-looking tourists toting huge backpacks, but luckily for us, Montevideo’s crime rate is also pretty low. I quickly got well-acquainted with Montevideo’s police force, as I repeatedly questioned, “Good morning, Sir. Do you know where there is an ATM?” That’s one Spanish phrase I certainly learned well. Even after all that asking, the ATM that finally ended up working we found on our own. Apparently Uruguayan ATMs don’t like American and French cards.

While in Brazil the exchange rate is about two reais to a dollar and in Argentina it’s about 3.5 pesos to a dollar, in Uruguay the rate is something like 23 Uruguayan pesos to a dollar. That meant that we were always dealing with ridiculously large sums of money. I bought four magnets at a street vendor for UR$140, and dinner that night cost us over UR$500. It was slightly unnerving to be paying 500 anything for a meal, though in reality it wasn’t really that expensive for the amount of food we ordered. I can divide by 2 and 3.5 pretty easily in my head, but it didn’t take long to realize that dividing by 23 is beyond my abilities. I soon gave up trying to figure out what prices were in dollars, and just hoped whatever I was buying was cheap. Even though there are notes of more than 1000 Uruguayan pesos, coins go down to at least 50 cents. That’s a pretty huge range of currency.

Why is Uruguay the Land of the Nachos? Simply because not one, but two of the workers at the hostel were named it. I needed a title for the post. I knew that Nacho was a male name in Spanish, but I’d never actually come across one before. It seems that the name is very much alive and well in Uruguay.

Our hostel was located in the neighborhood of Pocitos, which was a ways from the Ciudad Vieja (Old City), where we spent most of our time. Pocitos has an ugly beach, but other than that, there isn’t much to do there. We only had a single afternoon in Montevideo, so we spent it in Montevideo’s most well-known neighborhood.

There’s a gate that separates the Ciudad Vieja from the rest of Montevideo, and when the guy at the hostel told us about it, I envisioned something grand and imposing. Nope. In reality, the gate is really ugly and awkwardly situated on the edge of an otherwise nice-looking plaza. It doesn’t even serve its purpose as a gate, since one can just walk around to enter the Ciudad Vieja.

The Ciudad Vieja is mostly just a collection of photogenic buildings. Some areas off the usual path look a bit worn-down and sketchy, but the main sections of it are very nicely maintained. There are several good restaurants around. We also came across a Carnival museum, so we stopped in for a look around. I wasn’t particularly impressed, but at least now I know a little more about the history of Carnival in Montevideo. I didn’t even know that there was such a thing as Carnival in Montevideo, but apparently there is. They have elaborate costumes and floats and parade down the streets, not unlike what they do in the Sambodrome in Rio.

I was happy to have the opportunity to visit Uruguay, and Montevideo was cool, but the city is fairly small as far as national capitals go, and I really didn’t feel like we needed much more than an afternoon to explore it. We tried to go to a gaucho museum, but it was closed by the time we got there. Other than that, even though I was only there for about 24 hours, I really don’t feel like I missed out on much.

the coast near our hostel

a beach that looks uglier in real life...the darker area near the water was pretty gross-looking

near our hostel

a cool building downtown

General Artigas...as you can see, the statue was HUGE!

Teatro Solis / Solis Theater

time-honored transport method vs. the modern version

gate in the the Old City

the Old City

the Old City

the Old City

the Old City

fishing along a jetty

Montevideo from out on the jetty

The Eternal Quest for Coins

One thing that I definitely like better about Rio than Buenos Aires is its transport system. In Buenos Aires, the buses only accept coins. This would be perfectly all right, if only coins were easy to come by! The first day we went to ride the bus, Paul and I walked all over our neighborhood looking for someplace to get coins. There were several little stores around selling candy and other small food items, but when we tried to buy something, we were told they didn’t have any change. Some shops even had signs by the cash register saying they didn’t have coins. They’re losing business that way, since anything under two pesos (the smallest bill) is off-limits to anyone without exact change. I think it’s ridiculous. We finally went back to the hostel, coinless and annoyed, and luckily the girl at the front desk was nice enough to take out her own purse and trade us two-peso notes for coins (she only rode the subway, so she didn’t need coins).

Most prices are arranged so that the stores don’t have to deal with single pesos. For example, something would cost six or eight pesos, so that when a person gave the cashier a ten, he or she would get one or two two-peso notes in change. Seven pesos, however, was quite rare, since that would necessitate a two-peso note and a one-peso coin. I caught on to this unfortunate trend very early on, since for the rest of our stay in Buenos Aires, I was always on the lookout for any coin-receiving opportunities. I discovered that the best way to get coins is to take the subway. A ticket costs AR$1.10, so if you use a two-peso note, you get AR$0.90 in change. Two subway rides earns enough for one busride (AR$1.20 or AR$1.25).

Another frustrating thing about the bus system is that you have to tell the driver where you are going, and then he’ll punch a keypad and you’re charged the correct amount for the bus ticket. That in itself is not so hard, but nobody told us to do that. We’d get on the bus, feed our money into the ticket machine, and then wonder why it wasn’t working right (though I just assumed that the machine was faulty, as would probably be the case in Brazil). When we’d finally get our tickets, we’d usually be charged two different prices for going to the same place. Apparently the bus drivers just punched random buttons when we didn’t tell them a specific location. Would it really have been so hard for the bus drivers to simply ASK us where we were going? Sure, we probably looked like clueless tourists, and the bus drivers probably assumed we didn’t speak Spanish, but still, they could have at least asked! Bus drivers in Rio tend to be much more helpful. It took me three or four bus rides before I finally figured out the system, and from then on, I had no more problems, but it was certainly a source of frustration at first. In Montevideo, as in Rio, the bus drivers took bills, which made for much less hassle.

The good part about the Buenos Aires bus system is that the buses stop at designated locations. This is really helpful when you’re new to the city and don’t really know where you’re going. In Rio, you have to pull a cord to get off a bus, which means you have to pay extremely close attention to the street names if you don’t know where you’re going. There is also a bus guide in Buenos Aires that explains all the routes. Rio, on the other hand, has a crazy and complicated bus system with no guide to explain it. I think it’s kind of fun, though. Riding a new bus is always an adventure, since you never really know exactly where you’re going.

I also prefer Rio’s subway system. Though the lines don’t access as much of Rio as would be convenient, Rio’s subway system is modern and well-organized. Buenos Aires is a different story. There are several different subway lines in Buenos Aires, and different lines have different kinds of cars. The first line we rode on was ancient. The cars almost looked like the historical type you’d take on a tour of an old mine. The doors had to be opened by hand, and the seats were made of wood. It probably looked quite similar about a hundred years ago. Other lines had more modern cars, but that first line sure gave us an interesting introduction to the Buenos Aires subway system.

The stress of the transit system was worth it, though, since we visited lots of interesting places. Our hostel also happened to be in an ideal location, so a lot of the most popular tourist destinations were within walking distance. Some of the most interesting areas we went to were El Caminito, Puerto Madero, and the cemetery in Recoleta.

El Caminito is the name of a street in the neighborhood of La Boca. La Boca was the only dangerous neighborhood anywhere near where we were staying, but the area around El Caminito is extremely touristy and, for some reason, pretty safe. Another friend of mine that had also been to Argentina said this is because El Caminito provides a lot of income for the neighborhood, so everyone leaves it alone. Makes sense, I guess.

El Caminito is famous because the houses there are painted bright colors. I’m a huge fan of bright colors, so I thought it was really cool. Originally the area was very poor, and the story goes that people had to scavenge paint from the dockyards in order to paint their houses, which meant that they had to make do with whatever colors they could find. The brightly-painted houses are still there, but now the street is full of vendors selling paintings and photographs of the area. The other streets near El Caminito are filled with tourist shops, restaurants, and tango dancers performing outside for donations.

Whereas Carnaval in Rio didn’t faze me in the least, I found tango to be a bit too risqué for my taste. I preferred to watch a gaucho dance that was being performed on an outdoor stage. It was a stomping, tapping sort of dance, almost a little like Riverdance. I really got a kick out of the costumes the men were wearing, which I assume were modeled on traditional gaucho dress. Their shirts were plain, but they were wearing balloon pants (probably where the clothing term “gauchos” originated) tucked into boots. Clearly they were supposed to look very manly, but I thought they looked rather funny and found it hard not to smile while watching them. Lucky for them, their dance was impressive enough to overshadow the silliness of their costumes.

El Caminito

awesome colors!

from a distance

El Caminito was positively brimming with tourists, but Puerto Madero, on the other hand, hardly had any (at least that were noticeable), apart from on and around the Puente de la Mujer, the neighborhood’s most famous landmark. The Puente de la Mujer is a beautiful bridge that spans one of Buenos Aires’s several dikes. Though the bridge itself brought to mind the artistically-crafted bridge in Milwaukee, the neighborhood as a whole reminded me a bit of Galena. The area has been newly restored, so almost everything is in excellent condition. Lots of classy restaurants line the path along the water, and sunny skies and beautiful weather made for a really lovely afternoon stroll.

Puente de la Mujer

a cool old ship

some of the many sailboats in the area

We also took a nice stroll through the neighborhood of Recoleta, though the scenery there is completely different from Puerto Madero. Recoleta’s main attraction is its cemetery, in which the rich of Buenos Aires have rested in peace for more than a hundred years. Most of the graves there are contained in giant mausoleums, so wandering down the paths felt more like walking through a regular neighborhood with houses than a cemetery. Some of the older tombs have fallen into disrepair, but the more recent ones are still lovingly cared for. Eva Perón, on whom the movie Evita is based, is among those buried there.

Recoleta Cemetery

view down a "street" in the cemetery

view down another "street"

well cared-for grave

neglected grave

the tomb of Evita

Nuestra Señora del Pilar Church, located right outside the cemetery

Other Interesting Sites in Buenos Aires:

the Obelisk, the most iconic landmark in Buenos Aires, which is situated in the middle of what is supposedly the widest street in the world - there are two smaller side streets which also run parallel to the avenue, and combined the number of lanes totals at least 18 - impossible to cross in a single light without running for at least a couple lanes!

the Russian Orthodox Church

in the Plaza de Mayo, the most important plaza in Buenos Aires, which is also right outside the Casa Rosada

the Casa Rosada (Pink House), Argentina's version of the White House, where the presidents works, but does not live

inside the Casa Rosada in one of the rooms where President Cristina Kirschner conducts conferences (at least that's what I could gather from an unintelligible, fast-(Spanish) speaking Argentine tour guide)

in the courtyard of the Casa Rosada

the Japanese Garden

Galerías Pacifico, a beautiful mall on Avenida Florida, one of the most famous streets in Buenos Aires

inside Galerías Pacifico

inside Galerías Pacifico

the giant flower status in Buenos Aires, whose petals are supposed to close at night

Plaza del Congreso, the plaza nearest our hostel

Journey into the Spanish-Speaking World

For fall break I went to Argentina and Uruguay with Paul, one of the French guys. We spent the majority of the week in Buenos Aires, but we also crossed the Río de la Plata (the river dividing Argentina and Uruguay) to spend a day in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.

It was certainly a good opportunity to practice my Spanish, though it took me a few hours before I could even remember to say “gracias” instead of “obrigada” when thanking someone. I’ve worked very hard to remove the Spanish from my Portuguese, but over break I had to work even harder to remove the Portuguese from my Spanish. The languages are so similar that it’s a nightmare trying to keep them straight in my head. Every time I went to say a sentence, I had to review it word by word in my head first to make sure it was actually Spanish and not Portuguese. It was an indication of how good my Portuguese has gotten because I was constantly thinking, “Gosh, this would all be so much easier if I could just say it in Portuguese instead!” We met some Brazilians at our hostel, and I was so excited to be able to just sit back and have a nice conversation in Portuguese with them. I’m still not fluent, but I can carry on a conversation fairly easily, and my listening comprehension has improved greatly. On the other hand, Argentine/Uruguaian Spanish is quite hard to understand because they have an accent that is very distinct from the rest of Latin America. I was able to ask for directions and order food and things like that, but idle conversation was more effort than it was worth.

eating pizza with the Brazilians from our hostel

Strangely, though, there were Brazilians everywhere in Buenos Aires. Apparently it’s a very popular tourist destination for them, which I guess makes sense considering they live in the country right next door. At one point I wanted someone to take a picture of Paul and me in front of something, so instead of dealing with Spanish, I just asked the nearest Brazilian in Portuguese to take the picture for us. Very convenient.

Even stranger was the fact that I ran into other people I knew from PUC in Buenos Aires. There was another girl from PUC staying in our hostel, and though I didn’t know her, she was traveling with a friend who was staying somewhere else, and when he came over to visit one night, I realized I knew him from the churrasco I’d gone to in Colégio. We also ran into a girl from one of my classes in a touristy area called El Caminito. Really crazy.

Apart from the language frustrations, Buenos Aires was a cool city. It’s called the “Paris of South America,” and it really does have a European feel, at least in the downtown area. Paul kept saying how at home he felt. I think most of this is due to the city’s architecture, but the cuisine is also heavily influenced by European styles. There was an excellent pizza/pasta place next door to the hostel; I ended up eating their pizza four times during the week, which was perfectly all right with me. It was great to have really well-made pizza for once. In Brazil, the attraction of pizzerias is that they have tons of flavors to choose from, but in general, the quality of the pizza isn’t that spectacular. Argentine pizza, on the other hand, is delicious. Even better was the fact that two big slices of cheese pizza cost less than US$1.50 – it’s hard to get much cheaper than that! In keeping with the Italian theme, I also had some amazing salmon ravioli at another restaurant we visited. It was a treat to actually have a full, regular meal, since in Brazil I live off salgados and assorted things I pick up at the supermarket - none of which come anywhere close to being a “regular” meal.

Part of the reason why there is so much European food in Buenos Aires is because Argentina was largely settled by European immigrants. Because of this, the population is much whiter than it is in Brazil, so I didn’t stand out nearly as much. In addition to not being as obvious a target, I didn’t have to worry as much about security there because Buenos Aires is also a much safer city than Rio (as is just about every other city in South America, I think). There are pickpockets around, but it was so nice to know that if we got robbed, it would be nonviolently by some sneaky person and we might not even realize it right away, as opposed to Carioca-style robberies, where we would be held at gunpoint or knifepoint and forced to turn over everything of value. It was wonderful to be able to come down off high alert and just relax for a week, and even in our less-vigilant state, we still made it back to Rio with all our possessions.

Whereas in Rio you can pretty much wear the same clothing all year long, in Buenos Aires you need different clothing for different seasons. It’s fall here right now, and while in Rio you’d never be able to tell, in Buenos Aires temperatures have definitely started to drop. I wore a jacket almost all the time, and even with it I was cold late one night as we were walking back to the hostel. I was actually anticipating uncomfortably cooler temperatures though, since that’s what had been predicted, so the fact that the air was generally just a bit brisk was a pleasant surprise. I love hot weather, so Rio suits me perfectly, but as hard as it is to admit, the crisp breezes of Buenos Aires did feel rather refreshing. It was the first time since leaving Wisconsin’s frigid winter back in February that I’d experienced anything other than hot and humid weather. However, a week of that coolness was enough for me, and I was more than happy to return to Rio’s warm and sunny beaches.

Argentina is an interesting country because, at least for me, it does not fit what I envision when I think of South America. The region’s far too diverse to cram into any single stereotype, but if I had to take a stab at how a typical American would describe South America in five words, I’d say: tropical, beaches, poor, mestizo (the blending of white and indigenous races to produce that golden “Latino” look), and rainforests. Argentina hardly fits any of that. It’s almost entirely outside the tropics, and Buenos Aires is far enough south that the climate is more temperate and probably equal to some places in the US. The region around Buenos Aires actually looks quite like the Midwest. Other parts of Argentina stretch so far south that there are penguins there. In fact, Argentina holds claim to the southernmost point in the world, excluding Antarctica. Not exactly tropical. There’s quite a bit of coastline in Argentina, so I assume there are lots of beaches, as well, but the climate is cold enough for much of the year that they can’t be fully enjoyed. While Argentina still lags behind the US and European countries, it’s quite developed by Latin American standards. Argentines have been dealing with an economic crisis for several years now, but overall, the quality of life there is definitely above the South American average. I’ve already said that the Argentine population is fairly white due to European immigration, and as for rainforests, the famous Amazon is way up in Brazil and Peru. Argentina has far more grassland.

Argentina from the air

driving into Buenos Aires

driving into Buenos Aires - almost looks like the Mississippi!

In fact, that grassland contributes to an important aspect of Argentine identity: the gaucho, or South American cowboy. Uruguay and southern Brazil also share this cultural feature because of geographic proximity. Gaucho culture has made at least two important contributions to the overall culture of the region: beef and maté (mah-tay). Delicious beef barbeques are prevalent throughout the entire region, as is the drinking of maté, a type of bitter herbal tea. Mashed up maté is placed in a drinking gourd, hot water is poured over it, and then the brew is drunk through a silver straw that has a built-in filter to keep out the maté flecks. When gone, one simply pours in more water to refill it. It’s usually consumed as a sort of social event, with multiple people sharing the same maté gourd.

I’d heard of maté in Brazil, and I’d seen it in Argentina, but never had I seen anything like the maté culture in Uruguay. I really found it rather fascinating. Everywhere we went, we saw people carrying a thermos of hot water in one hand, a maté gourd in the other. And I do mean absolutely everywhere. The closest thing I can liken it to would be the way people would carry water bottles in a desert. We saw people sitting in parks, walking down the street, sitting on doorsteps, anywhere you can possibly imagine, all clutching their maté sets like security blankets. To think that maté is nothing more than bitter tea – Uruguaians must drink more tea than the English! I simply do not understand how it can have cast such a spell over a people like that. I wonder at how much a typical Uruguaian must consume in a year – I can hardly even imagine!

a stand selling maté and maté gourds in Uruguay

enjoying maté in a park

more people enjoying maté in a park