Alvear Montevideo

Running short of time on my blog so just a short update. Interesting to go to Montevideo, not geared at all for tourists which made a refreshing change. Bit dodgy down at the old docks, we had tourist police on motocross bikes chaperoning us to the right place. Also met a very attractive policewoman in the old market looking after me from the perceived threat of pick pockets.

Also had the best steak of my trip so far.

... the real world thoroughly stuffed to the gills.

And now for the footy....

Certain circles in Uruguay recognise the importance of the British landing as we brought that great British export of Association Football. It's clear from our travels this year that our ability to get foreigners interested in "kicking a bag of wind" seems unsurpassed and must rank as being one of the most successful cultural exports.

The Uruguayans are football crazy and ...

... the bus into the center of the city, which reminded me a lot of Buenos Aires but much grayer and colder, kind of like a communist version of BA. Sorry Montevideo again maybe it was just the chilly weather.

I walked around the city a bit and found that after walking for around 20 minutes you enter the historical part which feels totally empty and a little unsafe. I walked back to the main ...

... into a nice hotel called Speldido. Splendido is this old colonial style hotel where our bedroom is a 10ftx10ft room with a bed and 45foot ceilings. Not really in proportion but awesome nonetheless. I got little attacked by mosquitos Saturday night so Sunday we just walked through the market scratching waiting for our friend Richard to arrive. How is it possible that I´ve been constantly covered in Mosquito bites and Rob has got a collective ...

... and discovered they needed further confirmation on the credit card and as it was all in Spanish it was all too tricky. I tried again on another website with a different card, but that didn't work. Although I was no closer to getting to Rio, at least I knew that going was what I really wanted to do. Plan C was to get up early, call the office in London and arrange a ticket that way - it worked, but I still had to go to the office and pay in person.....BUT I WAS GOING TO RIO.

... worth it just for the A/C! He was a disciple of Torres Garcia, but I found Gurvich's art to be much better. There were a few sculptures that can only be described as twisted, and in general, the exhibits were decent. The museum is worth a quick look, but not much more. It was HOT walking back to the hostel - I detoured down to La Rambla, hoping that there would be a nice breeze to cool things off. There wasn't much, but at least it ...

so. we hit a bit of a rough spot right outta the gate. the plan was to load everything into marco's camper, drive to our friend claudia's house, park the camper and have claudia take us to the airport. it was unhelpful that the camper had been parked immobile in polar temperatures for over three weeks. needless to say, when marco tried to start the engine, the camper said, "oh playa...please." i had a small seizure. marco said some bad words. we ...

... so I didn't expect to be able to get in at all. When I went around the back, a lady sitting down in the shade, supervising some school children asked me if I wanted to see inside. She was their English teacher, and said to go into the school next door and ask for someone to open the church for me. So I did. I got pointed to an office at the end of a corridor, and a lady inside simply handed me the key and told me which door it ...

... we have never seen so much meat! These gigantic barbecues are literally covered in meat. Mostly beef but also lamb chicken with the odd half goat thrown in for good measure.

Unlike the rest of the world, Uruguayans and Argentines eat virtually all of the cow. Not only are the cuts of the beef totally different from the UK and the US, but as an entree you also get to eat most of the insides and dangly bits (e.g. tripe, sweetbreads, intestines, pancreas ...