I decided to do a little daytriping until I jet off to my next destination. I´ve heard that the happening spot in Uruguay is Punta del Este, the playground of the rich and famous. Naturally it sounded like something worth seeing because at this rate I´ll never be living there so I went.
I took an overpriced tour bus with a guide that spoke both Spanish and English that costs $50 for the day. A little overpriced considering they were probably getting kickbacks from the "recommended" stops.
Our first stop was a small beach peninsula of Pirapolis with an ancient chair lift up from the port. The view was something behold.
Of course its all about how to screw the tourists, so our first stop was a small curios shop at the top of the hill (with a monument to some saint, probably the excuse to stop there) where I´m sure the proprietors have a "profit sharing arrangement" with tour company. That never fails to piss me off, so I bought frigerator magnet just so I had the right to feel abused. The Saint was something of this or that or maybe the other. They all kinda blend together after a while.
There was also a 60´s-esq chairlift up from the port that I was dying to ride but time wouldn´t permit. Not exactly a high speed quad at Mammoth, this baby took 15 minutes to get to the top and another 15 minutes to get back down. It would have been cool to say I rode some sketchy "you could die" type chair lift in Uruguay though.
The high point of the day was the visit to the CasaPueblo, home of an artist named Carlos Paez Vilaro. He also built a museum and resort next to his house. This guy didn´t miss a marketing beat as even the entry tickets had a rafle for one of his paintings AFTER you give him your personal info of course. His style is sort of Picasso-esq and he has pictures of himself with Picasso and a room dedicated his style.
The building was done in Gaudi style architecture, minus the mosaics, which of course is the key to Gaudi.
Punta del Este is the point at which the ocean meets the Rio de la Plata that separates Argentina and Uruguay. At one point in the street you can water on all four sides, front back, right and left. Its also where the super rich have houses, not just the super rich Urugauyans, but rich from all over the world. Its so exclusive the houses have names instead of numbers. This one is called Aguamarina and belongs to some princess.
They call this section Beverly Hills (no joke.)
I spent most of the day walking around with Kristina and Steve, a couple from Minneapolis. Steve is one of those laid back guys that is funny but doesn´t really laugh. It felt good speaking English for a change and I spoke a lot of it. My brain needed the rest after working so hard decifering Argentinian Spainish. Of course "Big Party Night" was not exactly aiding my mental acuity at this point.
Argentinian Spanish immersion for the native English speaking traveler can really be mentally taxing. Here´s another small example. I´ve mentioned the "SH" sound replaces the "Y" in speech here. Good enough. but that also extends to the double "L" too, so "calle" becomes "cashay", "Ella" becomes "Aisa" and worst of all is someone introducing themselves. Normally you might hear "Yo me llamo" but here its "Sho me shamo." I´m hearing "Show me Shamu" and thinking of taking everyone I meet to Seaworld, home of the killer ballenas. Here though they are bashenas.
I´ve stated before that for a native english speaker I´m probably a 7 on a scale from 1 to 10. At this time I would care to revise or amplify that statement. In fact I´m lowering Paul´s Spanish Defcon Scale or PSDS to a conservative 5. If we reach 1 then cats start sleeping with dogs and the world comes very close to apocolypse.
My stop off the bus caught me by surprise and I forgot to tip the guide. Maybe they can take it out of the cost of my fridge magnet.
Actually it wasn´t a bad day, just not a great one. They can´t all be home runs right?
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