Panama versus Uruguay
Posted by southron on May 4th, 2008Very early this past Thursday morning I returned home to Uruguay after a 12 day trip to Panama. I had not been there in four years and was interested to compare it to Uruguay since it had been the prime alternative to moving here.
Panama was incredible! It was the most dynamic city I have visited in years. It is clearly replacing Miami as Latin America’s primary financial center. There are more banks in one small barrio in Panama City than there are in Uruguay. More business is done every day in Panama than is done all year in Montevideo. Everywhere I looked new buildings were going up: not little buildings–20 to 40 story concrete and steel towers. Real estate values are soaring. One of my business associates bought office space on Avenida Balboa (Panama’s version of Rambla) a few years ago for US$73 per square meter. Offices in his building are now selling for US$3000 per square meter.
One solution turned out to be G3 wireless modems. We’d previously gotten one from ANTEL (I know, I know: I should’ve known better) because I wanted one that would work throughout the entire country. It does work, but the bandwidth isn’t very good. So, during the crisis, we decided to explore other options.
Over the last 5 days ANTEL managed to sink even below the abysmal standards of ICE. A whole area of the city, including our offices had their telephones and Internet connections turned off for 5 days without any real prior warning. I admit, there was a recorded announcement left on our answering machine several hours after our office closed last Wednesday night informing us that everything would be turned off Thursday as of 8 a.m—90 minutes before our offices open. Of course, we didn’t find out about it until nothing worked when the office opened at 9:30 a.m.
Despite the fact that Uruguay is the least Christian country in South America, I am amazed at the increase in piety whenever there is a Christian holiday to be celebrated. Its seems that even communists and atheists are converted, at least for the duration of the holiday. To show this piety, the majority of Uruguayans who are able gather in those parts of the country nearest to Jerusalem where the holy week events first place. This means that they force themselves to do penance in the hot sun on the beaches of Punta del Este and La Paloma.
Holy week, which is also known as Tourism Week (because everyone in the country tries to be a tourist this week), and by three or four other names I cannot remember, is the Uruguayan equivalent of US Labor Day weekend–it is the summer’s last hurrah and everyone tries to take a four-day holiday, if not the entire week. For the last time until Christmas Montevideo will become a virtual ghost town. Stores and restaurants will be closed and services will be hard to get.
Providentially for me, I enjoyed decent health until the accidents that crippled me in 1998. By that time I was living outside the United States, so I was able to afford health care even without insurance. (Admittedly, some of the health care was provided by practitioners whose credentials might be considered by some–anyone with an IQ above 30 –as suspect. I remember that on the island of Nevis they only had one class of physicians, and consequently even Chiropractors could prescribe drugs- “take two of these pills daily, and return three times a week forever”. The the university degree of the chief health officer of the island, a doctor whose name I do not remember, was R.N.)
As of tomorrow, Uruguay will go off of summer time in the United States will go on daylight saving time; which means that we will become two hours closer to the US than we have been for the last 6 months (this is undoubtedly the most important result of the visit of King George II to Uruguay–without him, time might have stood still).
Last year, in a desperate search to get sufficient bandwidth we bought an expensive router that would aggregate Internet bandwidth from two sources. We connected an ADSL line from Antel and a microwave link from TelMex. The Antel line cost about $84 per month, and the TelMex link cost $850 per month (that was because we bought “guaranteed” bandwidth). I must tell you, that the TelMex service was HORRIBLE! Despite the “guarantee” there were many times when my total bandwidth was less than 128K, even when no one else was in the building. We called to complain almost daily, but with no effect. 
Perhaps the best news is that Antel has committed a significant investment to build a huge new fibre optic pipeline that will connect to the Internet backbone through Brazil–this will effectively obviate Argentina’s policy of choking off Internet access in Uruguay by limiting the bandwidth they allow us to buy from them.
One of those mistakes is being caught in the language bait-and-switch. This happens when you visit a company or professional firm to discuss doing business with them. The person with whom you meet speaks good English and you have no trouble communicating with him. You leave with the impression that this person will be the one with whom you are working. 
On Monday I collected my new permanent Cedula at the DNIC. On Friday, exactly 1 year after arriving in Uruguay, or go will get his permanent Cedula. The Copperhead has been notified that his permanent residency has been granted, but he does not yet have an appointment to get his permanent Cedula.
