Our last day in Uruguay we took the day off, jumped into our rental car (tiny, 5 people, 3 of us are taller than 6 feet. yeah.) and headed up the coast on a road trip. We passed the mate gourd and let the wind blow our hair as we cruised through the Uruguayan countryside towards our destination two hours north: Cabo Polonio.
Except for Martin, none of us knew what to expect of our destination except that it was: 1) some kind of fishing village that 2) didn’t have electricity and 3) was only accessible by riding on the back of a truck through sand dunes. Sounded good enough for me!
During our time in Uruguay we stayed in a house on the beach about 45 minutes north of Punta del Este in a little town called Manantiales. Although the internet was slow, we worked from the house for 3 days and then took the fourth off to travel. I thoroughly enjoyed my evening runs through the town, down the coast and back on the beach. Upon returning, I would grab my towel and immediately jump into the ocean waves. The water wasn’t too warm or cold but exactly refreshing for the situation. On at least on occasion I got to watch orange and pink shards of sunset reflect on the ocean while bobbing among the waves. Very nice.
My work view for the day.
On Sunday we flew from Buenos Aires up to Punta del Este, Uruguay and I snapped this picture of Buenos Aires on our ascent.
Evan Lovely snapped this picture of me with the bottle of OMBU cane liquor we found in the grocery store. Ombu is the name of an Argentinian tree and the name of our company, Ombu Web. But for just under $12 pesos, it’s a little frightening.
On Sunday we also took a day trip to a suburb town called Tigre. The trains here are heavily subsidized so the half-hour trip from BA to Tigre cost about a peso. The current exchange rate is ~4.2 pesos to the dollar. Yeah.
Tigre seemed like a cute little town. We stopped to get beer, pastries, and coffee for the wifi to get the address of the river house we were going to. Our friend was having his birthday weekend at a house that his family owns on one of the islands. Tigre is on a large river delta that has tons of little islands and rivers flowing between them. The islands are full of cute little houses on stilts, accessible only by boat. The rivers are lined with docks and trees. Strange conifers and weeping willows. Every few hours a ferry “bus” makes a pass through the rivers but we opted for a water taxi since there were 4 of us, making it cheaper and more convenient. There’s also a floating store that you can flag down to buy things so people don’t have to leave their island paradise for every little thing.
I would love to stay at one of these places for a few months. Hammocks everywhere, people canoeing, rowing and swimming all along the river and enjoying everything from the little gazebos on the ends of the docks. Martin and I went canoeing for a long time and I got a little burned on my shoulders. But it was great fun, especially when a few boats would pass at once and the water got turbulent! The water was the perfect temperature for swimming, too.
We stayed for about six hours and then started the journey back to the city to go to the Onda Vaga concert on the correct night. It was a seriously full day.
Dulce de Leche ice cream after we showed up for the concert on the wrong day. This stuff is delicious.
Here’s some video Martin shot at the Onda Vaga concert. So much dancing!
On Saturday night we walked the 4.5 km from our house in Palermo to the Ciudad Cultural Konex, an outdoor venue where we were going to see Onda Vaga, a sweet Argentinian alternative folk band that we’ve been listening to since we got here.
It took longer than we expected to walk there so we picked up the pace since we were already an hour late. Turns out, the concert wasn’t until the next day. We’d all managed to look on the ticket for the address without seeing “Domingo 22 de Enero” witten largely on it! Being all sweaty and hungry from the walk, we got ice cream and made the best of the evening.
But the Onda Vaga concert was awesome. Great music, attractive crowd, a liter of beer served in a single large cup, and a lot of dancing.
The neighborhood we live in is actually like the Pearl district of Buenos Aires. It’s very trendy and it has a lot of travelers. So I went for a long walk on Saturday to check out some other parts of the city. I headed along Av. Cordoba towards downtown before meandering through the neighborhoods. The city is fairly spread out with a constant mix of houses, apartment buildings, stores and restaurants. You never have to go more than a few blocks to find the necessities: fruit shop, carnicería, panadería, etc.
