I realized that before I came Uruguay I did not imagine that such a highway existed in South America–I was just an ignorant Gringo! My readers are undoubtedly more knowledgeable and sophisticated than I, so they certainly will not be surprised by this fact.  However, for that insignificant minority who are as ignorant as I was, I’ve attached the following picture, by saving myself (and you) 833 words.

We left the house about 2 p.m., topped off the tank with Esso premium, and headed north. Our trip took us through parts of the city we had never seen before north and west of Parque Prado–I suspect we were the only gringos around: I am sure we were the only gringos driving around in a Ford minivan with Florida (the state of, not the Departamento of) license plates.

We actually went on streets and roads north through the city, into the nonurban area of the Departamento of Montevideo, and then across the border into Canelones; through its campo and into its city. The Departamento of Montevideo and of Canelones have the biggest speed bumps I have ever seen! In the West Indies, they called them sleeping policeman. If these were policemen, they’re fatter than me. We finally connected with the main highway, Ruta 5, which was four-laned in a vast improvement over the side roads.

The highway north was very similar to the road to Salto, about which I wrote last September. The entire affect was to reinforce the fact that Uruguay is indeed an agricultural powerhouse.

Borko when I had an argument about whether or not the countryside was boringly the same in every kilometer. He was wrong. It was not the same. Sometimes the trees from the left, sometimes the trees were on the right, sometimes they were in the back, sometimes they were alongside. On some farms there were brown and white cattle, but others there were black and white cattle. Some had sheep, others had horses. Sometimes the ponds were square, sometimes they were round.

Maybe Borko was right…

We continued north through Florida, and Durazno, and even cross the border into Tacuarembó at Paso de Toros. We didn’t spend much time there, and we turned around and came back, making sure this time to take the Ruta all the way into Montevideo, bypassing the back roads and side streets.

I am not going to give you any more details now, because on the next trip I will take you my laptop, camera, and digital cell phone modem (assuming Antel gets them in as promised) and Outlook in my blog in real time as I travel. So stay tuned, for the next adventure of the Blue Bullet and her crew.

A few hundred meters from the river was the rental agent from whom we had arranged our accommodations. We had 4 cabañas and a house, all within a short walking distance of the Springs (but a considerable rolling distance in the wheelchair. The house was closest to the Springs, so Harry the Westie, Lucy the German Shepherd’s dog, Borko the Serb, and yours truly, the Southron took up residence there.

Each of the 5 units we rented was fully furnished, had a full kitchen and had two bedrooms with two beds per bedroom. (They also all had bathrooms—there were no comfort stations out back—this may be the interior, it is not 1920.) Everything was very nice and lines and towels were included. Since it was the edge of the high season, the rental cost about US$200 per unit for the three nights.

Because we were on holiday, which is always a cause for celebration, we had asado on Friday night at my house. The yard was large and fenced, and the back patio had the traditional Uruguayan parrilla (barbecue grill) and plenty of space for chairs and a table. Sueco is our official company asador and was in charge of the grill. Everyone else pitched in organizing chairs, the table, and the condiments.

I do not mention the bar being organized, because that was the very first thing that was done, even before lighting the fire.

We ate and drank well into the evening. At that point, being old and feeble, I went to bed. That however, was not the majority point of view. Those who were younger and with weaker morals (or morals they hoped to weaken) headed out to the nightclubs and drank and danced until dawn, primarily at the W Lounge in Salto.

One of the little things I like so much about Uruguay are their roll-down window shutters. They blot out the light so effectively then it becomes very easy to sleep late. I slept in until 11 a.m. on Saturday, and I was the first one up. People started straggling to my house for “breakfast” about 1 p.m.

A bit later, we all made our way to the Termas de Dayman (Dayman Hot Springs). Amazingly, they actually had handicapped parking, so I pulled out my Crip sticker from Florida and stuck it on the rearview mirror. These were the public Hot Springs, not to be confused with the private “Spa Hot Springs” next-door.

I think the admission fee changes during the course of the day, so we may only paid for afternoon and evening access—whatever it was, it only cost a bit more than two dollars per person. The park itself was huge and sported at least a dozen swimming pools, which were I am told, of varying temperatures. A few were even covered.

Signs informed us that health regulations required that we had to shower and use soap prior to going to the pool. Borko rolled me to the showers nearest the pool we had chosen—it was either the hottest, or the second hottest. I understand my swim trunks and hobbled under one of the showers. The water was scalding! I can’t imagine why soap would be required, the water itself took off the top three layers of my skin, and more than one of the guys was seriously worried about his ability to father children in the future. I quickly got wet all over, and got the hell (the water seemed like it had been directly piped from there) out of the shower and into my bathroom.

We then made a very quick trip to the chosen pool; Borko rolled a right to the steps, and I gingerly went into the water. It was right around 38° C. (100° F.). But after the shower didn’t seem all that bad. I was the last one in the pool, save only for Borko. One of the nice things about being fat is that fat is lighter than water, hence it is easier for a fat person to float and swim than for a skinny person. If I ever succeed in losing a bunch away I may drown!

The water was wonderful and relaxing, but also enervating. After a bit, most of the gang got out and went to get something to eat and drink. I stayed longer, because it takes longer for the heat to penetrate all the way inside. Eventually however, even I gave up when I reached the point that my legs felt like spaghetti and I was mightily unsure of my ability to get out of the pool without a crane. Somehow I made it, with only hand from Borko, and I joined the gang for lunch.

The weather was perfect. We sat outside in the bright sun warm and content. Mono’s wife is a doctor, and she warned me to keep my un-bandaged leg wound out of the sunlight because of a hole in the ozone layer over Uruguay—apparently too much sun here works about the same as kryptonite on Superman.

After lunch, I had Borko taking home, and passed out until dinner.

For dinner, we went to an all-you-can-eat buffet called El Rancho, between the Hot Springs and Salto city. The food was pretty good and plentiful—the usual meat heavy Uruguayan diet; you can even order directly from the grill. The cost was ridiculous, it was only about six Yankee dollars per person.

After dinner, guess what? I went to bed, and everyone else went partying until sunrise as they did the night before.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of this adventure—coming soon.

The Termas Dayman (Hot Springs in Dayman) is at Kilometer marker 480—all highways are measured from Kilometer Zero at Plaza Cagancha in Montevideo. (The US has a Zero point as well. It is called Washington, but nothing ever goes anywhere from there.) We were 14 people and 3 dogs in 4 vehicles. We actually went by Kilometer Zero as we wended our way out of the city using one of Santiago’s famous “short cuts” that usually take longer than using the main streets.

Nevertheless, we made our way out of town at in good time—about 10:30, which is incredibly early here and headed West on the Ruta 1, the main highway. Ruta 1 West connects Montevideo to Colonia del Sacramento and it is a splendid 4 lane divided highway for much of the way. Forty or fifty kilometers West of Montevideo we turned North on Ruta 3; on which we would stay for the rest of our trip. Ruta 3 is a two lane highway, but it is well paved, wide, and amply marked. Since the countryside is gently undulating agricultural land, there are no sharp turns on the rural sections of the highway, and very few in the small towns through which we travelled. The traffic was light and we moved at a faster pace than would have been acceptable on a US Interstate—but perfectly permissible on the German Autobahn…

There are several Police Stations along the route, but none of them had a police car in evidence, and I doubt they make many traffic stops using the mopeds that we did see. Maybe there are doughnut shops on the side roads where the local constabulary hang out?The first thing I noticed was that the countryside was rich and well-kept. The fields were fenced and the pastures were stocked with cattle or sheep (or sometimes with both). The majority of the time the road and side roads were tree lined. Some of the trees had been there for a very long time. I could have been travelling through the rich farmland of Illinois or elsewhere in the Midwestern US—except for one thing—there were no barns! What kind of farmland can there be without monstrous red, white, or brown barns replete with chewing tobacco ads painted on the side most visible from the road? Then I remembered that Florida is similarly barn less. I am guessing that the lack of barns is due to the lack of a seriously cold winter here. If the cows don’t have to stand in snow up to their udders, or the pastures aren’t covered in snow so they can’t graze, then a farmer probably doesn’t need a barn.

The next thing I remembered is that all of Uruguay lays North of Montevideo—and in this hemisphere, North is the warm side—the side nearer to the Equator. This was driven home to me as the number of Sabal palms was increasingly interspersed among the omnipresent Eucalyptus trees. (I am afraid that I still carry a Northern Hemisphere bias—I remember wondering to myself, “how far north is the Palm Line”; and then answering myself, “you dummy, the Palm line is somewhere South of us in Argentina”.)

Every few kilometers the road is bridged to cross a stream or small river. Most of them here are called “Arroyos”, which is pronounced ar-roh-shows. About halfway through the trip there is a beautiful recreational complex built alongside a large obviously artificial lake (being an expert on such things I immediately noted the dead bare trees sprouting from the lake—reminiscent of South Carolina’s Lake Marion)? The road signs called it “Arroyo Grande”, but the attached map makes it part of the Rio Negro…

Some of the Arroyos were “menos grande” (smaller), and I am told that is the summer, many of them will also be “sin agua” (waterless).

One other thing that struck me were the tree farms which stretched as far as the eye could see. There were tiny trees in tree nurseries, then larger one in tree kindergartens, all the way through Junior High, High School, university and even tree graduate school—where they turn them into pulp—exactly like what many universities do to the minds of their students…

The trip took us through three towns of note: San José, Trinidad and Young. San José has a population of about 37,000, Trinidad of 22,000, and Young about 18,000. San José and Young struck me as very nice small towns and—apologies to the Trinidadians—Trinidad as somewhat less so. (After this I may not be able to show my face in Departamento Flores—Trinidad is its capital city…)

Between Trinidad and Young there is a “Puente en obra”, a bridge under construction. It looks like it has been “en obra” for a very long time. There were a few men in evidence-presumably workmen, though none of them actually did anything concrete to prove the point. The bridge had only one lane open—the other lane precariously open to the arroyos in a jagged concrete and steel pattern most noticeable for its lack of any railing or other impediment to going over the side. In a country where maximizing the number of jobs is a national mania, one would have assumed the presence of at least two flag waving traffic controllers—but that was not so. Instead there were traffic lights on either end of the bridge that periodically changed color to let traffic flow the other way. The interval was set to a number of minutes—when we crossed on the way back it was long enough for everyone to get out of their cars, smoke a cigarette, take a short walk, and be back inside for the green light.

Two-thirds of the way along the route we stopped for lunch in Young—pronounced “shunggggg” like the sound of a giant sling shot. Our newest staff member, Rodrigo, is from Young, so he called ahead and made reservations for us at a place right on the highway call El Rancho. It is a “tenedor libre”—an All-You-Can-Eat buffet. The food was great, and I thoroughly enjoyed the first onion rings I had seen in Uruguay. We ate in a leisurely fashion, and then allowed the dogs a free run in the fields behind the restaurant.

About 90 minutes ( and several dozen arroyos) later, we crossed the Rio Dayman and were at the hot springs.

The fact that we had rain driven by intermittent gale force winds did not deter us. After all, we would be snug inside the Land Rover. The fact that there was no sun was a positive bonus because we didn’t have to worry about getting a sunburn. The standing water on the streets were an added boon because it reduced the amount of traffic. And, the 15C temperature meant that we could dress up a bit.

Frankly, I was so stricken by cabin fever that I would’ve gone out despite a hurricane, tidal wave, or almost anything else short of another US presidential visit.

Just to keep things interesting, we decided to bring along Harry, my seven-year-old West Highland White Terrier.

Harry loves to ride in a car. When we’re moving slowly he stands in the window so that he can look out and smell all of the interesting smells. (His preference would be for us to spend three or four hours creeping through a garbage dump while he savored all of the delectable smells arising from the various stages of decay.) Of course, when the speed picks up, he prefers to watch the world racing towards us through the front window. This is usually accomplished with a cushion stretching from the dashboard to my lap, on which Harry pivots in order to look out the side or front as required.

Thus, with a full complement of indomitable explorers, we began.

The trip to Minas was unremarkable: the roads were well paved and the route clearly marked. The drizzle managed to make the scenery looked just slightly out of focus, sort of like an impressionist painting (or whatever school of painting looks like that), or like viewing the world through an old pair of glasses that is one or two prescriptions out of date. The sky was fuzzy gray, fuzzy white and fuzzy blue; the scenery was fuzzy green and fuzzy brown; and the livestock was just fuzzy.

Shortly after leaving Montevideo we passed through the grubby little town of Pando–best known for its local cottage industry, which mostly revolves around motels which rent by the hour… Having traversed its Main Street, I cannot think of any other reason to visit it.

After leaving Pando we traversed miles and miles of agricultural land. One thing that truly impressed me was the tree farming that we saw. Literally hundreds of hectares of trees have been planted along the highway for future harvesting. They were so neatly laid out with such precision, that for a few moments I thought that we’d gone through a wormhole and were in Switzerland.

The altitude gradually, ever so gradually, rose towards the big hills, or from a Floridian’s point of view, the mountains, in the East. Their outlines certainly looked like mountains to me. Although I admit that compared to the terrifying precipices and humongous gorges in Montenegro, these highlands were pretty tame.

Before we got into Minas we encountered the turn off to the Salus plant whence our bottled water comes. Borko and I speculated on whether the water came from a spring or was produced by chemically combining hydrogen and oxygen in a laboratory. Further along the road was another turn off to ANCAP plant. I have been told that ANCAP is involved in both petroleum products and cement, and couldn’t help but wonder on which one they worked so close to the pure water source at Salus.

When we finally arrived at Minas, the rain fell harder. We drove around a central part of the city in the main square looking for someplace to eat–nothing invited. We finally drove into a very nice park along a small river–they call the park Rambla– where Harry commemorated the high point of the trip by relieving himself in the park several times.

As we were getting hungry, I decided to call Santiago and see if he could suggest a restaurant. In a few minutes he called back is and told me there was a great restaurant in a vacation area called Villa Serrana, about 20 km east of Minas.

We headed there and easily found the sign along the highway. We turned right, and headed up into a hilly area on red clay roads. After four or 5 km we really were amongst what felt like mountains, they even had a huge outcroppings of native rock, which made the Borko feel as if he were back in Montenegro. The whole area was laid out in the streets and avenues, but was almost entirely empty. If a block had two buildings on it, it was crowded. There were several signs for hotels, restaurants, bars, and even a “salon de te”. But we couldn’t find any of them. After wandering around, not quite lost, for more than an hour we gave up and decided to head back to Montevideo forthwith.

Had it not been raining, I think both Minas and Villa Serrana would have been interesting places to visit. Minas would be especially good to tour by bike and Crip scooter, and I plan to do so as soon as I get a trailer to carry them behind the Land Rover. Villa Serrana may only function seasonally, and I need to investigate further before trying a return visit.

What Uruguay really needs me is that some natural wonder that works in the rain: perhaps they could discover a Mammoth Cave under Sugarloaf Mountain…

The gentleman who sponsors that website, Steve Bowman, was kind enough to write me and tell me about.  I took a look at it and realized that it has some useful information in an area where our own it information is pretty light, the eastern coastal region of Uruguay. 

While I am confident of the quality of the work we’ve done regarding Montevideo, we have certainly given Colonia in the West and all the beach communities in the East less than their due.  I plan to correct that in the second edition of “The Southron’s Guide to Living in Uruguay”, but in the meantime this information needs to be available.

I commend Steve Bowman for his great work and I commend his website, www.coastaluruguay.com to all of you.

This is a full-sized, 8½ x 11 inch paper back, with color covers and black-and-white inside. Because of its large size is much easier to read than the pocket-sized edition produced locally.  The price for the full-size paperback is the same as the retail price for the e-book, US$30. For payment, lulu.com accepts Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express and PayPal.

One other note: there was a Yankee Naval vessel holding station a few kilometers offshore for my house–obviously they were here in connection with that politicians visit.  I didn’t mind the ship that much, until I noticed that as I went from room to room its weapons readjusted accordingly…

Driving the scooter along the sidewalk, (or for the Brits and/or Engs out there, along with the pedestrian pavement) is much harder.  To begin with there are pedestrians; if most of whom are substantially less attentive to where they are going than the drivers of vehicles.  Gaggles of people seemed to stumble down the street more involved in sharing their maté and gossiping, than they are watching for any likely obstacles.  Fortunately, my scooter has the modern version of the antique “cow catcher” from steam engine days, which efficiently carves its way through the swarms of hoi polloi.

Then there are the missing bits of sidewalk–most of the time, this just means a slight jolt as the wheels drop a couple of centimeters onto the under pavement: occasionally however these “irregularities” go deeper until they reach the sewers, or even the upper reaches of hell.  Cracks and gaps, some of which are several inches (or 2.54 times more centimeters) also add to the excitement.

The very best part however, are the street corners: except for a few handicapped ramps lightly dusted around the city to give the impression that someone does give a damn, most street corners are a real challenge.

My scooter, built on the chassis of an Israeli Battle Tank (they tried the chassis of a French tank, but it would only go backwards), is designed to climb curbs of 2 or 3 inches (5 to 8 cm).  But here it is stymied by curbstones which are two or three times that height.  The only alternative is to find a convenient driveway which can be used to transition from the sidewalk to the street, and then find a similar driveway on the other side of the street on which to transition from the street back to the sidewalk for the next block.  It only seems complicated when you try to explain it; in practice it is much, much worse.

Sunday, Deb offered to walk with me to the Old Maz meeting.  Accordingly I met her outside her apartment and the “Pocitos endurance trials” began.  The first block was easy, they had us fooled–they actually had a handicapped ramp on both sides of the street corner.  This is going to be a lot easier than I thought!

Then we came to the next corner: damn, double damn!  There was not a handicapped ramp to be seen anywhere.

I suggested to Deb that she cross the street there, while I raced off to the right, up the side street until I found a driveway, checked for traffic, and shot down the driveway into the street at a 45° angle heading for a driveway on the other side that would get me back on to the sidewalk for another block.  Having reached the second sidewalk, I did a sharp left and shot back down the side street to meet Deb, made a right turn at the corner, and continued on with her.

And so it went, street after street, after street, after street, ad nauseum, ad infinitum… In fact, it became so commonplace that I was lulled into a false sense of security, at which point the “pothole demons” pounced.

It was in the very last block before Old Maz–I decided to shift from the right side of the street to the left in order to save going through one extra corner at 21 de Setiembre.

I chose a likely driveway, shot out into the street and pointed my scooter at another driveway which seemed to offer an easy ingress to the sidewalk.  Somehow, the light and shadows fooled me.  Instead of a smooth incline from the street to the sidewalk, my front tire hit one of those holes that leads straight to the seventh level of Hell: bam!  From 6 kph to a dead stop!

I bent the accelerator lever with my body, but my cat-like reflexes (about as good as those found in any stuffed animal) nevertheless kept me from falling.  Either that or it was my size 15 shoes which I routinely use as outriggers…

The final score: Pocitos 1, The Southron 0.

Epilogue: Something in the under carriage was knocked out of whack, and the front tire gradually deflated.  The Southron ended up being ignominiously carted home in Julio’s Peugeot Partner along with the scooter.  Yesterday, we called the motorcycle mechanic, and the damage is not bad: only $100 and three days.

All of which goes to prove that it is safer riding the wrong way down a one-way street than riding on the sidewalk—maybe that’s something like the water draining clockwise instead of counter-clockwise?

UL member Clara (our favorite Uruguaya-Californian) very neatly described how one can easily get a taxi in Montevideo. In the forum she wrote, “Call 141 from your home number (also works with cell but then you are not in a fixed location). You provide phone number, complete address and your name the first time you call. Thereafter if you are calling from your registered number, the computer generated response asks if you are requesting a vehicle at that location at this time- you press 1. The system locates the nearest vehicle and provides you with its ID number and the estimated wait time. That is all there is to it.“

I have a slightly different point of view.

The automatic taxi service works great unless you are oversized. The majority of the taxis here are built for an average midget. If one is too tall (as I am) or too fat (ditto), things get a lot harder. When you call for a taxi you have to request a Renault Kangoo, Puegeot Partner, or Chevy Meriva–I haven’t found anything else that will fit.

If you do find one, and the taxis driver is any less repulsive than Frankenstein’s monster on a bad hair day, beg him for his cell phone number so that you can call him directly. Find out which hours he works, and try to get the number of the other driver as well.

Before I found my regular driver I missed event after event simply because I could not get a taxi into which I could fit, no matter how many taxi companies I called.

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Order two small taxis and strap one to each foot…

My plan is to self publish–we already have an ISBN number for the book and we are talking with a few big places about selling it. But before we can get to that, we need to do two things: set a price, and find a way to get paid. Paypal seems to be the answer to the second question, and I am hoping you can help me with the first.

To help you better make that judgment, you can download the first part of the book, the cover page through the entire first chapter from this post. This includes a very detailed table of contents for you to study.

Free Intro to The Southron’s Guide to Living in Uruguay

(From MS Internet Explorer right click on the above link and select Save Target As… and copy to your computer. You will need the Free Adobe Reader to open the file. You can get it at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html)

Or go here:  http://www.uruguayliving.info/free.htm 

My plan is to also offer the book at a reduced price to retirees on limited incomes. I also will provide free updates during the first year to all registered purchasers. AND the book will be set up to allow printing at 120dpi.

I hope you will help me price this fairly. The “Owner’s Manual” published elsewhere is being sold for US$69/on sale for US$51. If this edition of The Southon’s Guide is successful, I hope to write a far more complete 2nd edition next year.