Uruguay... Buenos Aires

I haven't posted in a while. That's largely because I was completely unable to. After I left Porto Alegre, I went to La Paloma. Crossed the border on a very comfy night bus, on which I made a new friend that was to be my travel companion for Uruguay. Funny: when we got off the bus Monday morning, it was sunny and warm. It took us about an hour and a half to get to La Paloma, where it was also sunny and warm. I was really psyched to get out onto the beach and try to surf. By the time we checked into the hostel, and put on our beach clothes, the clouds had rolled in and it started to rain. The weather on this trip has really not been good to me... geez! Any time I get near a beach everything turns grey. It's as if God wants me to drink all night and sleep all day...

Anyway, La Paloma was pretty cool. There are a lot of really interesting, imaginative houses there. I suppose most of them are vacation houses, since the town felt really deserted still in early December. Apparently it gets full around Christmas and through January. This would be a great place to come with a group of 4-10 friends. You can rent a whole house with a barbeque in the forest with the sea visible about 200 yards/meters away for less than US $20 per night. And while there wasn't much to do at night while we were there, you could tell that there would be during the season. We walked past a construction site of a REALLY cool beach bar/discoteque/concert space. All wood, with straw roofs... very aesthetically pleasing, like most of the little houses in the area.

The real highlight of the Uruguay beach stay was a place called Cabo Polonio. Not listed in any guidebook, as if some sort of traveler's secret, it is undoubtedly one of the weirdest and coolest places I have ever been. To get there, you have to take a 4x4 taxi, because you have to get over South America's largest sand dunes. Cabo means cape; a piece of land jutting out into the sea. This cape is a nature reserve, so the land is owned by the state. But for years a colony of hippie / fisherman / weirdos has lived here in homemade little houses. Without running water or electricity. We rented a little house to spend the night in; the owner had to do more than leave us the keys and some towels -- he had lots to explain. Like how to pump the water into the tank for the shower, or how to get the water from the well to dump down the toilet when it's time to 'flush'. He left us with a few candles, loaned us a lighter, and pleaded with us to be careful not to burn his little place down.

Adding to the weirdness and coolness of Cabo Polonio was the colony of sea lions that live out on the rocks out past the lighthouse and on a pair of islands just off the coast. The ones by the lighthouse are quiet -- sleeping? The ones out on the islands are all wailing about something. And you can hear it all the way in 'town'. So it sounds like there's always either a party or maybe a football match going on in the distance. It's sort of eerie. But it's a good thing that the sea lions are in the distance, because they smell really bad. Swines of the sea?

Nightlife in CP was strange too. We went to a bar, where the walls were made of plants and the blind owner had a pet penguin (!?!). We didn't hang out too long there -- we were beat because we had walked all the way to the end of the dunes some 5 kilometers down the beach. But it took us an extra hour to get to our house because, in the dark, we couldn't fuckin find it for the life of us.

Next stop was Montevideo. We spent two nights here. Stayed in a hostel -- a really good one, but I still was left swearing that it would be the last one I stay in. I just don't ever want to hear another dude with an acoustic guitar play Bob Marley songs again -- ever! I'm always tempted to stay in hostels because besides it being cheaper, there's a much better chance that you'll meet some other travelers -- which can be nice if you're traveling alone. But with a few exceptions, I never seem to find anyone that I really want to meet in the hostels. It's sort of a catch22 -- I definitely want to meet people, but I'd prefer that they be locals. Part of seeing a place is meeting its people -- not just other travelers.

Anyway Montevideo was cool. Went to a bar called Clash City Rockers and saw a band. They were okay. The bar was really cool. I ran into Marcos from Motosierra there who informed me that I was to be the DJ the following night at their gig in a joint called Barraca. Nice! That gig ended up being good, Motosierra was of course great, as well as the band before them, Oro Tractor. Pappo's-inspired S.American Sabbath-flavored blues rock'n'roll! They were awesome enough to talk about making records with. Unfortunately my DJ set was a total no-go, because the mixer was totally fucked. The only way to get a decent sound out of it was to push down on the gain knob. With your finger. The place emptied out onto the street between bands before my futile attempts to balance some sort of weight on the knob could produce a decent sound.

I ended up staying up all night with Marcos and friends of Motosierra... when I got back to the hostel it was 10:30am. I packed my bags and split on a bus for Colonia. After a quick walk around the town I got on the Buquebus for Buenos Aires. I write from my room in San Telmo -- an extremely spacious, relaxing room with a double bed, a couch, and a cat. I think I'll hang out here for at least ten days...