Montevideo Madness

Montevideo Madness

So yeah.  the hostel I'm staying in has a nice balcony the gets the morning sun overlooking a busy boulevard closed off for pedestrians.  So I chill out there a lot watching the Uruguavas.  There are people who go through the rubbish here, tearing into bags for goodies, I saw this a lot in Buenos Aires too but here they're more a part of a system.   There's no recycling etc, so I guess it works for everyone.  Some seem to sweep up rubbish in their spare time. Perhaps these are a kind of enthusiast.  Its kinda strange 'cause people are just keen as on throwing their rubbish on the ground no matter how close to a bin they happen to be, I guess not vastly different from some kiwis, it's just the amount of rubbish and filth on the streets=eets here, you'd think they'd have made a connection.  Maybe it's a kind of blanket statement that says "well its so dirty already, now I wanna see how far we can take it"  "whahooooo!".  And it is, rubbish all over the beach, …just so much plastic etc.  But it seems to have far less kaka on the sidewalks.  They seem to wash it off here.  Probably just to be different than Argentina in some kind of nationalistic effort to assert their identity. Anyway a couple of, I think bank employees, send a good 1-2hrs every morning scrubbing down the footpath outside their bank opposite the hostel.  Yeah efficiency isn't really the name of the game here, I'm guessing people need work, so it's cheap as to get someone to do something - cheaper then blah blah, I don't give a crap about economics for now but each bus has a driver (thank god) and another person dressed like a driver (so you know they're important) selling the $18 peso tickets - roughly thats $1.50 each.

Some of these rubbish guys, Im guessing the high-rollers, have horse and carts and just wander round all day going through the rubbish.  turns out they are the garbage men.  Thats right guys, I'm taking the word man & men back, correcting it to the androgynous word it has been for hundreds of years.  F*uck you wares.  Anyway the sound of horses on cobblestone streets is lovely, just try not to associate it with the inequality of the poor, and the malnutrition animal working for them.  I didn't see anything close to what I imagine a happy or even contented horse would look like.

But I sound like a real smart-ass, I could rip NZ to hell this way, and its kinda a cop out, cause I loved Uruguay.  With a population roughly the same as NZ, the people are really friendly too, very similar in that way to kiwis, and they don't rip you off.  Turns out that taxi driver didn't overcharge me,  and in fact, no one did while I was there, and they didn't look at me like a busted gut when my spanish failed - in fact most of them spoke enough english communication, all though extremely clumsy was possible.

Staying at the hostel was a great idea.  Now there wasn't any stress about where I was going to sleep, I enjoyed a strolling through the markets, and waterfront, city etc.  Montevideo is nice, and it might sound strange, but a little paint would make it amazing.  All these beautiful buildings etc,  still in raw concrete, no paint.  Everything's just grey.  I dunno, it would just look so amazing to have some paint on the colonial and art nouveau buildings next to thew cobble-stone streets etc. A few creeping vines.  I know its strange, but it's 1 step away from being an astoundingly beautiful place, instead at the moment, you have to kinda see the beauty in between the tip.  This I notice about the beautiful artwork for sale around the city, the artists bring out the beauty, instead of in NZ, where they struggle to capture it, if you follow me.

First thing I do is take a shower at the hostel.  The delay on the water mixer is about 30sec which sounds like nothing, but remember if you try 4 settings that's 2 min! I finally get the hot/cold ratio right. Remember this guys, you WILL be tested on it later.  Then I discover what will come to be a fun fact, there's roadworks on the street outside and we only have pressure after 10pm and before 8am.  Get up early and take a shower, then go back to sleep if you have to.  Come dinnertime, cook it first, and if you have a shower, no one will have water for cooking…or dishes….hmmmm.  At least never admit if it was ever you who did that. The toilets are not the safe-haven you'd want them to be, and when you travel, paying for a backpackers is offset by enjoying a good shower, now thats out I hoped for a quantum of solace in the kings chair, but no dice.  The floors are always covered in water, so you've gotta choose the half-mast-pants-around-calves wrap, the shower style bare-all-and-hang-em-from-the-door trick, or some other form of not getting them wet with backpacker toilet floor water trick.  Cubicle are so small you knees touch the doors which do not lock - though you can guess that is hardly relevant, or the other 2 toilets which have larger cubicles and look nice, but smell horribly because they don't flush properly and are almost always full of someone else's last dump. Adding to that those toilets are also permanently high tide with about 3" between your rear and the water.  You wouldn't want to lay a clumsy brown trout from that distance into that broth.  Hmmmmmm

At the backpackers I quickly make friends with a Danish guy and have dinner with him and martin the somewhat elongated Westley (princess bride) look alike.  Martin hates Germans.  but seems nice enough otherwise, just a little xenophobia and racism, probably ironically because of hitler.  How many people missed the boat on that one? Isn't it great we all know racism, xenophobia and thinking you're better then everyone doesn't work? Isn't it great we now all have a clear reference for how a state can be manipulated, and how only through caring for each other and standing up for love can humanity avoid all that again.  How the media can be used to warp peoples perception, control those who disagree etc, how a government can begin wars to avoid threats to capitalism ( 1st world war, which of course was the basis for the second)?  So now everyone thinks for themselves huh? And doesn't attempt social change out of fear, and wants to love everyone else and doesn't listen to the media.  Ok I'll stop.

Anyway the next morning the danish guy sounds like he's wrestling goliath with his tongue, babbling no specific language, and punching himself in the head and making straaaaange sounds while sitting at the computer jerking around etc.  We all just look a bit worried, but he goes away.   Hmmmmm.  Funny how in my life, I've never had almost anything to do with people with serious mental illness.  It's always handled, by experts eh?…hmnmmmm.  I find myself really not knowing what to do, like a child waiting for mum to come put it right.  Hmmmmmmm.

Anyway walking around, there's a lot of poverty, but its not like, "oh No!", people seem to be chilled out with their lives, poverty seems to be the wrong word we're all taught to use. I guess you only live in poverty if you think you do.  The reserve bank (equivalent) here is MASSIVE.  When they want to make a statement of national identity here, it seems that scale is how.  They have this statue of a horseman in presidential square, it's head alone is like nearly 2 meters long down the nose.  Here they have areas where everything's clean, green grass, fountains.  Like these little oases usually surrounding a statue of men on horses.  Dead keen on them over here. But the rest of the place is pretty run down.  It's like 0-60 in a few footsteps.

Service takes hours here, its a part of life that the bank queues go down the street at nearly every bank. In fact it comes to be how you spot a bank.  Oh theres a huge line of people, dressed well, lined up looking content, never catching eyes getting dripped on by air conditioners.  This is my impression of Montevideo, no paint, horses, bank queues and air conditioner rain.  Every 4th-5th person has a thermos under one arm and a Mate by far the best pick-me-up drink I've ever come across) cup in the other.  It seems not to have occurred to anyone to put a strap on even a single thermos, no, they would rather carry them around for hours under their arms nearly managing to make it look comfortable.

Turns out the hosteller dude, Frederico is a guitarist and we plan a jam, hopefully with my friend whom I've come to see.  The next day my mate the danish guy is fully freaking out again after going on the computer.  I don't know about epilepsy, but this isn't how I imagined it, this is more like depictions of schizophrenia (no guys that has nothing to do with multiple personalities) I heard and saw in my university studies.  Fredericos sister, hemaina (I have no idea how to spell it) is simply one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen, and as is the custom here, completely friendly even so. NZers could learn a fair bit from these guys.  Anyway we debate what to do with this guy as people are getting really anxious.  what is he going to do?  he's locked himself in the bathroom and making strange noises.  No one, no one knows what to do.  Very few are actually concerned for him.  He's upsetting them, …who knows what he might do.    I hope you get my point, he's done nothing but show us he's having a hard time.  Anyway, because you really never know how someone who's already acting so differently, will act, we are all worried too. How different will it get? it's unpredictable.  oh shit.  Anyway Hemaina says her brother is coming and he'll handle it. so I head off to get a phone working etc. Its best I have nothing to do with this I say to myself, I have not experience.  funny that.

I still haven't been able to meet up with my friend. I go to change some money and get such a great illustration of why banking services take so long.  In a tiny office, behind something-proof plastiglass, 3 men stand, and behind them, (they have just enough room to squeeze past each other) is more plastiglass and a man in-front of some sort of computer.  I give them my NZ and Argentinean currency, and with well practiced, dramatically jerky motion, they form a machine, one takes the money, hands it to the other, who runs it though a machine, handing it to the man behind the 2nd plastiglass with a printout from the machine delivered to him by the first, while another man watches with the skilled intent of a trained looker.  Then the same for the second currency, while the man behind the 2nd plastiglass puts the money onto another machine, gets a printout and hands it back at which point he is handed the second currency.  The 1st lot of money is then counted, while 2 men watch, a computer is tapped at, another printout comes, carefully folded into the money and returned to me, and the men stand at  attention awaiting the 2nd lot of money which sees the same treatment.  You hardly notice how long it's taken.  Its just kind of mesmerising to watch there guys, like some sort of synchronized money dance ritual.

Back at the hostel our Danish friend has been kicked out.  No one asks where, or if he'll be ok.  He's just gone, YAY! everyone left breathes a sigh, we all act similar and don't have problems, we are good company.  Why spoil it.  So anyways Frederico and I arrange to put on a small concert when we realise we have all the equipment we need, I have 2 mics, cables and a pickup for my guitar, he has an electric acoustic and 2 mic stands, and amp, mixer & speaker.  For now I just make dinner with the three lovely canadian girls I've met.  I've also made friends with a great Chileno who speaks about as much english as I do spanish - ok a wee bit more, but not a lot.  We hang out a bit and the next day we all go to the beach together.  I stand out a wee bit, with my hippie pants, get the Hesus call and people staring at me all the time.  Everyone has the idea those pants are for girls and as I look around all the guys pretty much wear the same thing and the girls have their system, almost no variation, and as  try to wonder why this happens here I realise it's exactly the same in NZ.  Im just more aware of everything here. All the monkeys stare- that's not what everyone else does, TV doesn't support that, ou ou ou ou oaaaahaha. It's really amazing if you think about it.

The beach is a nice change of scenery, but filthy, and with the reassuring occurrence of a lot of dead fish.  That is actually good, because at least something can live in this water.    then I realise that maybe it means just the opposite.  I don't go swimming.  While there I ind out one of my mates has started experiencing paranoia, cant leave the house sometimes and has lost some memory.   I have no idea how to help him either.

That night a whole bunch of chileans turn up and sing songs all night, we cook a huge roast and rice and stir-fry (kind of) dinner and I sing songs 'till the early morn, while poor canadian girl number 3 (Jess I believe her name is) gets more and more sick.

The next day unfortunately she is worse and they start getting busy with doctors.  My Chileno amigo Felipe wants to go to La Pedrera for Carnaval and I decide to pack up my HUGE load of gear (which I was planning to reduce that day) and leave a day early.  The 3 girls were planning on going there, but are staying to care for their friend and say goodbye with an obvious air of disappointment.

The way the buses work here is that you're never sure you can get a seat, and you get in quick or you'll have to wait another hour or two until the next bus.  It's Almost like they had a big event a few years ago and are still clearing the backlog.  The bus ride is nice, and I try not to fall asleep watching what is essentially, the dead boring terrain.  What if I miss something?  yeah, sleep.