Poor, Poor Maria

Carol from Toronto, who I mentioned in my last blog, has taken me under her wing.
On Wednesday she took me on a tour of downtown Montevideo and this weekend we will go away together to Punta Del Esta, a resort town about two hours to the east where the Rio De La Plata meets the Altlantic. Montevideo is surrounded by beaches and seawalls which run for miles around the city but Montevideo is not situated on the ocean, it is on a river so wide that it looks like the sea. I have spent many hours walking through the palm trees by the river wearing all of my sweaters...it is winter here after all. During the day the temperature rises to around 15 degrees but at night it dips down to 2 or 3 degrees and with no central heating in the houses it can get a bit chilly.

My Spanish lessons are going well. I have 5 hours of instruction a day and I have to study most of the rest to keep up with all of the vocabulary I am learning. I have now reached a stage in my Spanish where I know enough words to truely butcher the language. Before, I resorted to pointing and Spanglish but could not call what I produced Spanish. Now, armed with the dangerous combination of a swelling vocabulary and a minimal knowledge of Spanish grammar, sentences, syntaxes, and agreements crumble at my feet. I have been particularly unkind to Maria, the heroine of my Spanish worksheets not my homestay mother. I have put Maria through the indignaties of having tea with her dog, bathing in a birdbath, and eating a menu. I think that she, and I, hope I get to a higher plane of Spanish rather quickly.

The Art of Yerba Mate

By 8pm on Saturday night my bags were packed and, not wanting to be out late before my early morning departure to Uruguay, I decided that I would spend a quiet evening reading my book on the couches in the lobby. All of the staff who work at the hostel are extremely nice but the two guys who work the evening shift are by far my favourites. They always make an effort to ask about your day and crack jokes when you walk by. That evening they were bored. Just as I sat on the couches, one of them had the inspired idea to crank up the volume of Queen´s Bohemian Rhapsody and sing and dance along Wayne´s World style. They were so hilarious that I was forced to put down my book and join in. During the song they had to buzz people in the front door and even sign someone into the hostel but they did not stop singing, they just multi-tasked. By the time the song was over we had a sizable audience which soon dispersed and I went back to my book. The guys came over, took my book, and told me that we were going to sing some more. I ended up sitting at the front desk with them until midnight when their shift ended. They played me all their favourite South American music, told me the best places to go in Argentina, discussed the finer points of Spanish pronunciation (Apparently, the country Uruguay is pronunced oo-ru-way not yer-a-gway, which sounds too much like you are gay. This was accompanied by a small skit to emphasize the point), showed me how to tango, and most importantly revealed to me the secrets of Yerba Mate the national obsession. Everywhere you go in Argentina and Uruguay you see people carrying a thermos and a strange round cup with a metal straw. The cup is actually a gourd and one end of the straw is a tea strainer. Mate is not sold in cafes and it is often difficult for foreigners to get a taste without buying their own gourd, "healing it" (preparing it to be used) and stewing it themselves. When my new friends learned that I had not yet tried mate they insisted that they would introduce me to its wonders. Mate, like coffee here, is a social drink. It is filled with small rituals and you don´t drink much but you drink it slowly and with friends. Everybody drinks from the same gourd which is continually refilled with hot water from the thermos and passed around. One of the guys was studying literature at the university in Buenos Aires and after their shift I sat with their friends in the hostel bar and discussed books, authors, television, movies, and futbol. The dialogue of half Spanish half English was the perfect way for me to pick up some vocabulary. I went to bed at 4am when the group decided that it was finally late enough to go to a dance club and I finally managed to convince them that since I had to get up in 2 hours it would not be possible for me to join them.



Overnight it began to rain and when I left the hostel at 7am, it was grey and miserable. I had planned to take the subway to the ferry terminal but after waiting for 15 minutes I realised that even though the station was open the trains had not yet begun to run. I took a taxi. The ferry to Colonia took about an hour and the bus from Colonia to Montevideo another three. It was raining and the windows were foggy so I did not see much from my trip. I decided to walk from the bus station to the house where I am staying in Montevideo. It did not look very far on the map but the map did not have all the street names and I became a bit disoriented. There were many people on the streets who were homeless and I felt a bit uncomfortable in my bright pink raincoat and big backpack. I seriously wondering why I had chosen to come to this place and why I had chosen to walk when I arrived at my homestay and everything was better. The house is big and beautiful and is on the same block as the London Institute. Maria, my hostess speaks fluent English and spent much of her youth travelling the world. She now works as a Psychologist and teaches yoga and reiki. She has two children. Anja, 14, is in her sullen teenager phase and was still sleeping when I arrived at 2pm. Matthias, 11, loves everything futbol and walks around the house with a ball constantly at his feet. Maria´s sister and her daughter Emma, 7, were at the house also (although they live a few blocks away). I think I have become Emma´s friend for life after agreeing to dance around to Shakira with her. The house is 5 blocks from the beach and is in a very nice neighbourhood of cafes and embassies. My room has it´s own bathroom and a beautiful balcony. I spent the evening speaking with the family (mostly in English) and watching tv in Spanish. I am beginning to understand more and more when I listen but am still very hesitant speaking.



On Monday morning at 9am the weather had become beautiful again and I began Spanish lessons at the London Institute. My teacher Jose, a grandfather type, two other students, one from Switzerland and the other from Brazil, and I went on a field trip to Geant, the largest grocery store in South America. Geant is very similar to a Superstore but it was fun to walk around and learn the names of all the food, books, and clothes. Then we sat and chatted over coffee before going to a bookstore and talking about our favourite books and authors. My level of Spanish is not quite ready for this but I had a very good time and this is exactly how I want to learn. I spent the afternoon doing laundry and walking on the beach. I was supposed to have a class in the evening but my teacher called in sick and somehow I ended up in an English grammar class where there were several Uruguayan girls my age as well as a girl from Toronto, Carol, who is learning to be an English teacher. The class was pretty entertaining and afterwards Carol offered to show me around the town sometime this week.

This morning at school I had a different Spanish teacher and a class all to myself. I learned the basics of Spanish and now feel like maybe I could compose a proper sentence...if given enough time.

Uruguay is a beautiful place with white sand beaches and charming mediterranean architecture. There are many wealthy people here but it is also what Maria calls "a difficult social moment". The people here are paid less than the people in Argentina and the cost of living is higher. There is visible poverty in the streets and the houses are all surrounded by high fences and locked gates. Still it is a very interesting place that should not be bypassed because of its relative obscurity.

Buses, Beef, and La Boca

After several days of hording coins for the bus I had finally accumulated enough to take one today. Rather than go through the effort of figuring out which bus to take to a specific destination, I decided to let the bus be the destination. I went to the bus stop and hopped on the first bus that passed. To be honest I was being a little over-dramatic in my expectations for the bus ride. From the street the run down buses appear to be driven by wannabe car rally drivers. In reality the buses were clean, logical, and remarkably like riding the bus in Vancouver. The bus took me to La Boca and I decided to go to the Museo Bocanesque about the soccer team Boca Juniors. Included in the entry fee was a stadium tour. As I was the only Anglophone in the group I had a private tour with an English speaking guide while 30 people followed around the Spanish Guide. The stadium looked quite different from the Racings stadium and is too small for its fanbase but unable to expand because the houses of the neighbourhood come within 10 ft of the stadium. My guide explained that one reason that Boca is such a dominant team is that their soccer pitch is much smaller than a regulation soccer pitch and as a result many teams have difficulty adjusting when they play there.
After my tour I was feeling a bit peckish. I decided it was finally time for me to try some of the famed Argentine beef. I went into a restaurant and in halting Spanish order a Bife de Chorizo and a Coke (or as we say in Argentina Coca Coca). A piece of meat the length and breadth of my forearm arrived at my table accompanied by fries. The meat was perfect and tender. The whole meal including a generous tip cost 6$ Canadian which makes me wonder why (other than the health of my arteries) I haven´t been eating steak for dinner every night.

Futbol Fever

Yesterday, I went for a long walk through some of the less touristy neighbourhoods of the city. I wanted to see the places where real Portenos (the people of Buenos Aires) do their laundry, buy their dog food, and take their children to play. The big plazas may be the political centres of the city but it is in the small parks and alleys that the real life exists. My route did not encounter many big tourist attractions but took me to places where I could watch old men sit and drink their yerba mate out of a traditional mate gourd, children chase geese and pigeons by a lake, and women hang their washing out on their balconies. It made me realise that although traditions and customs around the world vary greatly, you will always find the elderly contemplating their lives, children playing, and laundry being done. It makes me wonder why people always focus on the ways that they differ rather than on the ways that they are the same.

In the evening, I went to watch Racings play Newell in an Argentinian futbol match. I had originally wanted to see La Boca jrs (another Buenos Aires team) play but they do not play until Sunday night and I leave Buenos Aires Sunday morning. I was picked up from my hostel in a van containing a father and son from Venezuala, a couple from Japan, two hispanics from New York, and some guys from Brazil and Mexico. We had a guide who took us to our seats and answered all of our questions. The seats were good but I couldn´t help feeling that I wasn´t getting the true experience of watching a futbol game sitting in the stands when the real fervour and passion was occuring in the standing room only. In the standing room, people jumped, sang, waved flags, set off flares (I wouldn´t give these people fire), and cheered so loud the stadium shook. We sat and hunkered down in our layers of jackets trying to keep warm. The game was quite entertaining but I found myself watching the people and examining the stadium more than the play itself. The stadium is built like a prison. There is a moat surrounding the field complete with barbed wire. The fans of each team stand in separate areas protected by fences, a no man´s land, and police in full riot gear. At the end of the game, all of Newell´s fans were let out of the stadium before the Racings fans were released. There were no riots but you could tell that it wasn´t out of the possibility. I think to truely experience a game you have to brave the insanity of the standing room and wear your team colours proudly. As a woman travelling alone I didn´t think this was wise. I enjoyed my experience but next time I would wear more clothes and join the real fans.

Today is my last day in Buenos Aires. Tomorrow, I will take the ferry to Uruguay, where I will start my Spanish classes on Monday.

Frenzied Traffic and Quiet Tombs

Today I encountered the widest road in the world. The Ave 9 Julio has 7 lanes in each direction and it is the only place where even the Argentinian pedestrians use the cross walks. The walk signal even has instructions beside it for those who have long forgotten that red means stop. Crossing the street in Argentina is a giant game of chicken. It is not the car´s responsibility to stop but the pedestrians don´t seem to think that it is theirs´ either. Neither cars nor pedestrians stop for ambulances. The Ambulence just weaves through the already speeding traffic with alternating the gas and brake to the floor. The result is general pandemonium.

Next, I went to the Recolleta Cemetary, the resting place of Eva Peron. Her tomb brings throngs of visitors but is rather uninteresting in itself. I wandered through the tombs near the edge of the cemetary and was almost completely alone. The structures are fascinating. These are not graves. These are stone temples to the dead. Think New Orleans. Some tombs are so run down that I half expected to see bones protruding through holes in the coffins and others are shiny and covered in flowers. After seeing a few particularly egotistical statues on top of tombs I have decided that when I die I want nothing over me but a tree. Stone weathers, iron rusts, and glass breaks and when the people who love you die there is no life only Ozymandian ruins "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"Nothing beside remains: round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away.
But even though a tree will die, it will also live and grow and reproduce. A bit of a dark thought maybe but cemetaries are dark places.

In the evening, after 8 hours of walking, I finally sat down at the World Cup of Tango which was being held here in town. I ran into Rose, a Dutch girl who I met at Tango last night, and we watched together. It was a little bit disappointing because the dance is subtle and difficult for the uninitiated to make any sense of. I took the subway home.

I am very excited to have finally accumulated enough coins to take the bus. Coins are a huge problem here in Argentina. The city bus system only accepts coins and as a result people horde them. It has taken me 3 days of concerted effort to get enough (.75 pesos or 25 canadian cents) to take the bus.

The Tango

Buenos Aires is an amazing city with so many interesting and varied neighbourhoods. Yesterday, I spent my time walking through San Telmo to the Plaza de Mayo to see where Evita made her famous speeches to the Argentinian people. Then I wandered down to the canals. The canals area reminded me of Yaletown in Vancouver. Once a working dockyard, the old warehouses have now been renovated into trendy restaurants and residences. I took a stroll through the nature reserve and stumbled across a stony beach looking out on the Rio del Plata (which looks more like the ocean than a river). From there I made my way over to Boca, the working class home of soccer, tango, and colourful houses. Everywhere I went I was instantly recognised as a foreigner. People stopped dead in their tracks to look at me, conversations paused and heads turned as I passed, people whistled, honked, hissed (similiar idea to the whistling) and even burst into song as I passed. Even ditching my backpack and pink coat and hiding the camera had no effect. The guy at the tourist office explained to me that I am "Blonde (which I am not at all) and have light eyes. They can tell instantly." Many people here have a similar skin tone to me but their hair and eyes are much darker. The only blondes I have seen have been dyed or foreigners. Still, coming from Vancouver, where there are so many different kinds of people, this reaction baffles me (although it is more amusing and annoying than threatening.)
In the evening, I went with a group from my hostel (and the 3 other HI hostels in town) to a tango experience. We had wine and got to know each other (yes I actually drank some and managed to get it down with out making a complete fool of myself) then we were taken to a dance studio where we had a tango lesson. The van then took us out for pizza dinner (at 11 30 pm the place was packed) and then to a tango club where young professionals shared the floor with argentinian grandmothers and tourist neophytes. I met some really cool people from Georgia, Indiana, California, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Montreal, and Toronto. I also had an interesting conversation with my German room mate who´s German nature cannot stand the laid back approach to time here. There are many women who are travelling alone and this has given me some confidence.
Today I will explore the city some more and tomorrow I go watch a Soccer match.

Meghan in Wonderland

I am arrived in Buenos Aires! On the bus from the airport I examined a world very different and at the same time extremely familiar. It is winter here. There are no leaves on the trees but next to the barren trees stand palm trees just as the houses with swimming pools and tennis courts stand adjacent to the slum houses with rusty tin roofs. Even though it was a winter tuesday, the Argentinians were out in full force picnicking in the parks, playing soccer (well everywhere) on the grassy medians, and embracing in the street. This is a people that makes their presence felt. Whistles, catcalls, horns, offers of assistance, and infringement of personal space are continuous. I am fairly sure the socially acceptable distance to stand next to someone is about 6 inches here.
The flight was rather uneventful. I flew from Vancouver to Toronto and at midnight left Toronto for Santiago, Chile. It is a 10 hour flight but it is in the same time zone. I went to sleep and woke up to a brilliant orange sunrise over the snowy Andes. It was one of the most breathtaking sights of my life. Later we also had a perfect view of Anacongua, the highest mountain in the Americas. I gave up taking pictures as they were poor facsimiles of the sight.
In Santiago we had to deplane even though we were continuing in the same plane to Buenos Aires. To my horror we had to go through security getting off the plane. I had filled up my waterbottle in Vancouver after going through security and still had about 700ml left. I looked around for somewhere to dump the water. There was nowhere. Not even a garbage can. I could see the guards hastling a woman infront of me for having liquid so I did the only thing I could to save my waterbottle. I chugged it all. I passed security with flying colours and rushed to find the nearest bathrooms. No bathrooms were in working order. I almost had an accident but fortunately I found an open one at the far end of the terminal 20 minutes of frantic searching later.

I feel like my Spanish has come along way (we are starting at nothing here) I managed to buy a bus ticket, navigate to my hostel, speak to my Columbian room mates and go buy a lock from a hardware store, which like everything else around here is open until at least 10pm. The hostel here serves dinner but not until 8 30.
Tomorrow I plan to walk the city, maybe sample some local cow, and learn to tango!

Buenos dias

Almost Off

I leave tomorrow on my big South American Adventure.
My trip will last for 4 months and will (hopefully) take me through Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, and Chile. Armed with my backpack I am ready to face the world.
I hope you enjoy following my adventures!