Holiday Season

 

For the 24th or 25th year in a row, we celebrated Christmas in Maldonado with my in-laws, the San Martin’s and New Years, on top of San Antonio in our place.

As we get older, kids grow up and some even move away… at least to Montevideo…  So this year’s Christmas gathering was a little smaller than last year’s, which was a little smaller than the year before.  When the weather’s hot and there’s no chance of rain, we have Christmas dinner outside.  This year we were worried a bit about rain, so we held it in the garage.  Urugayans are very creative.  My inlaws dont have big tables, so they take doors off their hinges and use them for table tops.  Not sure what’s holding them up.  My brother-in-law is a carpenter.  Could be he made boxhorses years ago he still uses. 

The garage is my nephew’s (his son’s) automotive shop.  So the walls are decorated with SnapOn tools.  The dinner was great, as always. 

We plan dinner to end around midnight and that’s when everyone pulls out their fireworks and light them off for 10-15 minutes.  My nephews have never outgrown their childhood.  They still prefer those ultra loud bangers.  Wouldn’t be that much of a problem up north, but here, everything’s close together and it’s all concrete block.  My ears hurt until 12:30am.  This year we couldn’t even find the family dog.  He took off and hid around 23:30. 

After the fireworks, we open the presents.  Uruguay is odd that way.  We open presents after the fireworks.  Everyone gets presents.  Even the kids.  I say even because the serious day for presents for children isn’t Christmas.  It’s Kings Day.  January the 6th.  So if you celebrate Christmas and come to Uruguay, keep those two differences in mind. 

After the presents were opened, Delia and I drove to Piriapolis for the night.  We didn’t want to drive all the way back to Montevideo.  We’ve used the house so rarely this year, it’s a treat for us to sleep over. 

When we got to the house, we got to use our new automatic gates and garage opener.  The front door has been changed.   There’s an alcove there now and you cant see the door itself until you get out of the car and leave the garage.  When we got to the door, we got the surprise of our lives.  There was a big, black dog lying there.  Good thing he was a friendly dog.   Scared the hell out of us.  

Earlier in the day, we’d stopped off in Piriapolis on the way to Maldonado and left our dog upstairs on the balcony.  He didn’t seem to be upset at all that this dog was there.  Figured that meant the dog was a she - not a he.  Anyway, the dog wanted to stay and we wanted ‘her’ to go.  So we opened the back of the car and she jumped inside for a ride down the mountain.  We went to the port and opened the back of the station wagon up and she jumped out.  We drove back to the house, unloaded our car and as we were about to enter the house, the dog was back… panting like mad.    We think it ran all the way up the mountain. 

So we tried to get her back into the car to take her further away but she clearly figured out what were up to and didn’t cooperate this time.  But we kept trying and finally, she jumped in for the ride and off we went.  We debated which direction to take her in… Should it be towards Arrancopelito’s place (Puerto Suelo) or Pan D’Azucar.  Pan D’Acuar won out and off we went.  We dropped her off just outside San Carlos.  When we opened the back door up, she refused to get out.   So I went into the driver’s seat while my wife coaxed her out the back.  As she stood there, refusing to leave, I pressed the gas and out she went.   I slowed down so my wife could get in but the dog came after the back door so I had to go up the street, close the door, turn around and come back for Delia.  We got back to the house and waited a half hour.  No dog.  Whew…. 

When we woke up the next morning, there was no dog.    Hopefully, she made some nice friends in San Carlos. 

We drove back to Montevideo and I worked the rest of the week and prepared for New Years eve which was to be at our house. 

New Years eve….

After shopping to provision the house for the season, we left for Piriapolis around 4pm.  We had our nephew purchase 2 piglets for the main course and you have to start roasting them about 6 hours before dinner.  We arranged for him to get the house around 5pm and start the parilla.  Unfortunately, he didn’t have any money so he couldn’t buy the wood.  We ended up buying it after we got there so the piggies started roasting a bit late. 

Around 9pm, I took my daughter down to the town to buy some stuff and fireworks.  Unfortunately, everything closed at 9pm this year so we could only buy fireworks.  About 100 bucks later, we were on our way up to the house again. 

When we got there, guess who was in the back of the house?  Yup.. the black dog.  My wife speculates that when she hears fireworks, she comes to our place.   Yah.. I couldn’t figure that out either.. but that’s what she says and my wife’s like Dr Doolittle…   I dont question her communication skills with animals. 

The dog had thick, matted black fur and I didn’t know what she was carrying around with her but I didn’t like the idea of her hanging around the parilla.  So I strung a long run of galvanized wire between two trees in the backyard and put a choke on her and let her slide back and forth up there all night.  We brought her food and water so she got to watch everything, comfortably, but from a distance.  Our dog didn’t seem to mind her presence there at all.   When we went to sleep, I took her off the choke and she went to sleep at the front door.  When we got up in the morning she was gone.  Mystery dog. 

The pool was working great and my nephews got to swim for several hours.  Later that evening, a friend of my nephew dropped by.  He’s the chief of the highway patrol for Maldonado and probably Rocha.  Guess what he says to me when he sees me?  ‘Driver license and registation please’..  in nearly perfect English.  It seems the only English he knows :)   When he was leaving, my nephew and him got into a little bit of wrestling–a little too close to the pool–and both fell in.   

 After dinner, we shot off all those fireworks…   If you ever get a chance to come to the top of San Antonio at Christmas or New Years, it’s a great place to watch fireworks.  You can see everything on all the beaches towards Montevideo.  If you go to the backside of San Antonio, you can see all the fireworks along all the beach towns up to and including Punta.  Great view!  Some people even drive up to the top of San Antonio and set off their own fireworks. 

This New Years eve, everyone went home about 2am.   On New Year’s day, we got up late and I did a bunch of handiwork around the house to finish it up for the season.  Didn’t see any Tarantulas.  I guess they were still hiding from the fireworks the night before. 

As bad as you’d think the traffic should be coming back from a 4 day weekend, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it used to be driving south to Toronto all those summers we lived there. 

House for Rent in Piriapolis (2 of 2)

 

Summer’s is here and our friend Cristina asked us to post her 2nd house for rent on this site.  Here it is in pictures.  It’s pretty, clean and closer to San Antonio than the other house, which is closer to the bus terminal. 

      

Channukah in Pocitos

I took this picture of the park in front of our Rambla apartment this morning.  The name of the park is Punta Trouville park, but the local Jewish population sometimes calls it parque de los judios (park of the jews).  I’m not sure if that’s because a good portion of Montevideo’s Jewish population lives in this general area or because the city encouraged the display of the menorah during the Festival of Lights…  Hannukah. 

Speaking of the Festival of Lights, here’s a picture I copied from David’s blogsite http://www.uruguayliving.com/, from his post on Piriapolis vs. Noche de las Luces. 

I remember seeing the menorah last year.  I was out on the balcony one evening and I noticed several lights going.  A light (candle) is lit each night starting with the beginning of the festival.  It’s brought out about a week before the festival starts and is removed shortly after it ends. 

Uruguay is sometimes described as a country that is overwhelmingly catholic at birth.  Another way of putting this is that the vast, vast majority of people are catholic - non practicing.  This clearly translates itself into a country that is overwhelmingly tolerant of others’ beliefs and faiths.  This is a perfect example. 

Motorcycles and Montevideo

  The new Winner $450 moto from Motociclo

The title is a bit misleading.  It should read 2 wheeled motorized vehicles and Uruguay but it’s not as snappy. 

Since I started reading blogs about Uruguay (and writing in my own), there have been many motorcycle stories.  Southron.net has tons of discussions on the subject.  The long and the short of it is that most of us agree that driving motos around here is a high risk activity. 

I think I’m up to 5 fatalities now, (and several PI’s).   That includes one in Piriapolis last year but does not include my wife’s run in with a moto a few years back because that was before we moved here permanently. 

If I include the years when we just vacationed here, there are 2 of my own, (I still cant scratch my back with my right hand), and at least a dozen to the credit of close friends and family.  Fortunately, none off them were fatal… but close.. oh yes.. 

Anyway, I thougtht I’d seen it all.  Crashes at intersections, crashes into walls, culverts, other stationary cars, buses, even one police car.  But Sunday morning’s was definitely the best so far.   Our ‘handy-man’ and friend Leo was coming to our house on Sunday morning to drive with us to Piriapolis where he was going to wash the walls with chloric acid (removes the algae that accumulates on the white walls in the winter).  Around 8:15am, we got a text message from Leo.   He said he’d been in an accident with a horse and he was waiting in emergency.  He’d let us know later on. 

Leo lives in Montevideo as do we.  The idea of him driving into a horse at 8:00 am on a Sunday in Montevideo was so bizarre, but Leo doesn’t exaggerate…  So we drove out to Piria, (and met Steve and his other half Chris), met the family and did some chores.  On the way home, Leo sent us a more detailed text message.  Turns out he was driving along a street and as he was going by a horse-cart, the horse decides to turn to the left–into him.  He says he separated his shoulder but he should be good as new in a couple of days.

So when someone tells you that Montevideo is not a safe place to drive motorcycles, they aren’t kidding.  Even the horses pull in front of motos. 

Antel has online bill payment (sort of)

 

Today, I was doing my December budget when I noticed that my daughter’s phone bill never showed up in November.   Up until this month, Antel held the distinction of being the only utility that always mails invoices, more or less on time.  So now we have a clean sweep.   All the utilities are into the 10% multa scam. 

 I decided to go on line and print the invoice… http://www.antel.com.uy/portal/hgxpp001.aspx?2,358,539,O,S,0,MNU;E;278;1;MNU;,

While there, I noticed that Antel has added the ability to pay on line if you have a major credit card.  Oh good.  So I clicked on the link…  http://www.antel.com.uy/portal/hgxpp001.aspx?2,358,539,O,S,0

At this point, you enter your account number (cuente), you click the link and unfortunately, that’s the end of the journey.  If it does work, I dont have enough hours in the day to wait for the link…

I’ll try it again next month.  It could be working by then.  In the meantime, I printed the bill and will take it to the Abitab around the corner later today. 

Schleppers of Piria - move over

Great weather today… Bright sunshine all day.  Not a cloud in the sky.  Windchill put the airtemp around 19 degrees.   A perfect spring day.  So we went to Piria to look at the ‘final’ work on the house.

After we checked out the house, we went down for lunch.  We usually go to one of the fish restaurants around Punta Fria.  Both were too busy for our tastes.   Reminded us of Punta del Este in early December.  So we drove over to the restaurant next to the marina.  Haven’t eaten there for several years. 

We sat outside and I sat down with my back to the ocean, looking at the mountain.   I had one of those ‘ahah’ moments.  I saw San Antonio with tourist’s eyes.  It’s impressive.  That’s the last word in the dictionary I’d have thought ever applied to Piria, but sure enough, it was impressive.  The amount of construction, the type of houses, both old and new, give you the feeling this is a ‘hot’ place.  It’s on its way up–fast. 

I pondered on that a few minutes.  When I think of Piria, I think of the town, from the rambla backwards for a dozen blocks.  Up to the Devoto.. to the soccer field.. to the bus station.  To all the area I’ve been around for over 20 years.  That area is sort of like Maldonado.   It’s where the local townsfolk live.  San Antonio is like a miniature–no–make that a microscopic–Punta.  And if you follow the Rambla out East, towards Punta Ballena, it’s similarly ‘hot’.  Lots of bui9lding going on. 

I dont know if or when the town itself will get a facelift and if so, who will invest the $ to do it, but it’s clear the last few years of economic stability have created, by Piria standards, a mini boom. 

After lunch, we took a walk into the Marina.  Haven’t done that since it opened.  There were sailboats there from France, Switzerland, the US and one other European country, the name escapes me.  At the end, was a stinkpot from Argentina.  We didn’t get to go to the north side of the marina, but I did see 3 or 4, mil+ yachts.  2 were in drydock and one was in the water.  I can tell you with certainty, there was nowhere near this type of clientele there a few years ago.  In the beginning, no one wanted to moor in Piria. 

The drydock facility is pretty good.  They’ve got a huge hauler that takes out some pretty big boats.  That’s how those ultra expensive yachts ended up here.  The drydock is like most warm (relatively speaking) countries.  People actually are living on their boats, while they’re being worked on.  Unlike the US, you dont see any big marine shops here.  It looks like most of the boaters are DIY’ers. 

It looks like the ‘class’ of visitor Piria has gone up significantly since I last looked a few years ago.  We heard (and met) people from several countries… all of them looked well heeled.  Perhaps they were looking for Punta and made a wrong turn.  Or perhaps they were looking for a calmer Punta.  Or perhaps they were simply looking for the peace and pace of Piria. 

‘Tis the season to be Renty

With so many of our friends either renting out their places or renting someone else’s place, we got caught up in the moment. 

This year, (fanfare) for the first time ever, we are going to make our mountain top home avaiable for rent.  We plan to be there some weekends, but pressing committments in the city prevent us from being there during the week.  If you’re interested in a full week, we may be able to arrange that too. 

If you are interested, you’ll find more information here http://urufish.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/another-renovation-piriapolis/

We’ll be there this Sunday (if it doesn’t rain), and bring back some current photos.

Details:  This is a modern, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom summer house.  Sleeps 6 comfortably.   Huge terrace in the front overlooking the ocean, all the beaches from San Antonio to Playa Hermosa and Pan d’Azucar.  Inground zero horizon swimming pool ideal for children… 1.2m deep.   Large barbecue (Parilla) in the back.. seating for 8.   Air conditioned living room.  Ceiling fans in the bedrooms.  Washing machine.  Clothesline.   Remote control gates and garage. 

Amenities:   A short walk through the backyard takes you to the upper station of the chairlift.  You can take it up and down to the port/beach.  Another 50m takes you to the tourist area atop San Antonio.  It has a nice restaurant, where you can use the big swimming pool, and eat breakfast, lunch or dinner.  There are several convenience stores carrying all the basics including ice cream. 

Summer Apartment rentals

Someone asked about renting an apartment for the summer here in Montevideo.  To a semi-local to myself, it’s not something we think much about here.  When we think of summer rentals, we think of the East.  I mentioned it to my wife’s best friend and she said her apartment is free for the summer.  She spends summers in Piria, (where we hope to join her for at least some of this year’s summer

I created a new section on the website..  It’s called Apartment rentals and it’s a tab on the top.  This is the link   http://urufish.wordpress.com/apartment-rentals/

Dedicado vs Anteldata - Round 2

And the winner is….  Anteldata by a KO. 

   Dedicado is struggling today.. I’m being kind. 

Today, after a month of peace, Dedicado fell off the wagon… again.  This is the 3rd or forth time in the past couple of months.  This is what Dedicado looks like when it goes bad…  uuggllyyyy. 

It’s at these moments, one appreciates having their 2nd connection..  I just switched over to Anteldata and life goes on. 

If you’re planning on working here, and you value your time, the extra 50-60 bucks a month is worth it.  I’ve got a teleconference at 17:30 today…   Making excuses when you’re a few thousand miles away isn’t a smart way to keep your job.  No one wants to hear your excuses. 

Based on the last 2 years, I’d give Anteldata the nod if you must work with a single supplier.  Dedicado simply is too flaky if you need serious connectivity.  If your only option is Dedicado, have a backup plan.  Maybe a friend somewhere you can drive to who has Antel.  My friend in Arica, Chile made a deal with a local Cybercafe to cover her before she got her 2nd connection. 

Another renovation - Piriapolis

   Will the real Piria house stand up (sorry Steve… just had to do that)

Every few years, we’d do some kind of renovation to our house in Piria.  We’ve done this since the mid late 80’s… Why stop now eh? 

This past year, after a successful, (and ON BUDGET) reno of our new house in Pocitos, we decided if all went well, and the USD didn’t tank too much, (a relative term), we’d do the backyard in Piria.  We’ve been talking about it for about 20 years, so this was a good time.  But when it came time to make a decision, we decided the front needed a facelift.  The back could wait… Hopefully, not another 20 years.

Our pool, (OK.. our wading pool), is in the front of the house.  Years ago I decided not to put in the backyard because we’re on a slope and to put in a pool, (without dynamiting a very large hole), you need to build up the back yard, which would create a very large wall, right in front of our living room rear window.  No way.  We are very fond of watching the Antel tower and radar installation.  We didn’t want to lose that view. 

The pool in the front was fiberglass, prefab’d in Brazil.  We had a wonderfully quaint wrought iron gazebo built on it.  But over the years, the wrought iron rusted to the point it was downright dangerous to climb on it and paint it.  Our maintenance people emptied the pool on more than one occasion, to clean it and neglected to pay attention to the weather.  A big rain and an empty fiberglass pool = a large, blue, round floating object.  This resulted in it being a little twisted around the edges. 

Our architect came out and checked it out.  Told us if we’re going to fix up the pool, would be a good time to give the house a face lift.  It looked a little 1940′ish, (well, it was built in the 40’s).  He said it was high time we put a garage in.  Now that we have our own car in Uruguay, that made sense.  So he sat down with Photoshop and came up with the picture above, (house) and the picture below, (pool).  We agreed.  His deadline was mid November.  He sort of hit it.  Technically, we were able to use it then, but it wasn’t completely finished until the first week in December.   That’s not unexpected in Uruguay.  You get used to it. 

Overall, the project came out exactly as the architects drew it and as we wanted it.  The sliding doors in the bedrooms on the right are awesome.  We had those custom made, with extra thick and tinted exterior glass to resist hail stones and strong winds.  There was some problems with rain drainage which the window company corrected within a week.  Those two rooms have an incredible amount of natural light now.  Changing from windows to sliding glass made a huge difference. 

The zero horizon pool really does keep the pool much cleaner than a traditional skimmer.  I’ve yet to see debris make it’s way to the bottom. 

In August, the electrical system will be overhauled.  The meter will be placed outside the property near the front gate.  The wires will be changed out for thicker cables to handle the increased load.  

All in all, things went real smooth.