Caminando en la lluvia

The coffee served in Uruguay is surprisingly strong and hotel breakfasts err towards European continental style with cheese, bread and unidentifiable dry pastries. The latter is a theme at most meals, as I savoured again in the form of cheese empanadas around lunchtime when sheltering from rain in a bus station.

I spent the day wandering Montevideo, acquiring blisters on both feet. But this is a strategy I always use in new cities because of both the pathological dislike of taxis [see yesterday] and the recognition that it is the most authentic way to explore, notice subtleties and experience random encounters.

I'd read that because of Uruguay's southerly location and the influence of the Atlantic, that the weather can change abruptly. It was much cooler than yesterday with intermittent showers. The sky was grey and sultry and I often had to wait out rain by reading under trees or in doorways. These gave good moments for more people watching such as the ice cream truck making a delivery during a storm, driver diving into the refrigerated store, piece of stone lodged under the front wheel to prevent the vehicle slipping (I assumed dodgy brakes).

The city beach wasn't inviting on a day like today and the main activity there was the diving by cormorants in the rocky choppy shallows.

Many men and women smoke in Montevideo, especially, it appears, if they're dressed in the uniform of a medical professional.

As I sat in a park, some Texans on day release from a cruise were having a very loud conversation, which ended with the punchline 'no, we elect our thugs'. Which is a good summary of the sorry state of affairs in the US.

Latin American societies are highly unequal, economically. I doubt mine was the only high school at which geography teachers constantly talked about poverty and wealth in Brazil. Here suffering also seems to be linked to ethnic background with the poorest much more likely to be from the indigenous Amerindian or Afro-Uruguayan communities [the latter the descendants of enslaved people shipped over the Atlantic].

In Montevideo it's easy to slip between zones of crumbling edifices where young boys peddle marijuana, and plusher areas with swanky apartments and nicely manicured gardens. Slickly tiled pedestrianised lanes abut local markets where deals are done at high volume and where even quarter segments of watermelon are bigger than my head. This picture is of Montevideo's former railway station, now abandoned and occupied by the city's most destitute.

I navigated part of the journey back on the bus as I'd walked a long way from the hotel. George Michael's Freedom was booming from the sound system. The driver was rushing so I had to fling him the money and I disregarded the ticket. Soon several middle-aged women were all hollering 'bonito, bonito' at me. I thought they were complementing the dashing Englishman braving Montevideo's buses, then realised they were trying to get my attention whilst the driver was waving the ticket exasperatedly. Bonito must resemble a word used for ticket in Latin America.

The evening finished with some Uruguayan lager, a huge steak and a mound of fries in an outdoor café, enjoying those pleasant late evening temperatures that just invite a light jumper over the shoulders. Blissful.

As I returned to the hotel at 11.30pm, a motorbike zipped by, looking like a pizza delivery guy. The word fumigaciones was emblazoned on the side. I felt sorry for all concerned as no one wants to be dealing with fumigation late on a Friday night.