Butterflies in my stomach & stranger danger be damned:
traveling wherever the southern winds blow me
Pam and I traded e-mails back and forth for almost a week. She recommended I stay at the home of Ted and Lidia in Montevideo, as we were all meeting there noon Friday before driving to Artigas. Prior to leaving Aguas Dulces I had my usual second-thoughts. I didn’t want to leave the beach yet and wanted to go farther north to Punta del Diablo and then visit the fortress in St. Teresa. It was still warm beach weather; I’d jumped in the ocean the day before. Autumn was steering its course directly at us, so who knew how long this gorgeous Indian Summer would last?
I contemplated different travel options, including taking off for other countries after the amethyst tour as I would have traveled away from the enchanting beaches of Uruguay, and I wasn’t sure if Uruguay's rural towns and the hill country of Cuchilla Grande were enough of a draw to entice me back toward the coast. I would have almost three weeks before meeting Maggie in Iguazu Falls, should I just go ahead and fly to Peru for a trip to Machu Picchu? Wander into Brazil’s Pantanal and make my way inland back to the falls? I had little to no wifi to research a trip, as I was down to my dumb phone and temporary use on the office computer at my Aguas Dulces hotel.
And who were these people? This was just a private group of individuals inviting me to share their adventure, and in the case of Ted and Lidia, welcoming me into their home. If it sounds too good to be true …. My antennae straightened and twitched as I headed south to Montevideo on the Ruta del Sol busline, leaving Aguas Dulces on the 8:45 to Castillo for 49 pesos or 50 cents US, catching the 12 o’clock run from Castillo to Montevideo for $475 pesos, around $20 US. Just what was I getting myself into? I re-read the e-mails from Pam and contemplated various schemes I could be tricked into by these strangers. I hadn't provided any personal credit card info to them, not much personal information at all. What could they take from me?
I set aside my worries and decided to toss up my future to fate and see which way the wind carried me.
Both left their birthplace in Poland with their two daughters decades ago for New Zealand, then a business in Sydney, Australia, before arriving in Montevideo more than seven years ago. Lidia is also an amazing artist, drawing intricate geometric designs (facebook page: El Portal de Lilah).
After a fantastic dinner, Lidia and I visited in their exquisitely decorated living room. She casually asked me how I knew their friend Pam, the woman responsible for the tour and who had suggested I stay with them. I told her I'd never met Pam before and had only connected with her via the internet. For a brief moment Lidia expressed alarm that I was a total stranger. But she shook it off suspecting correctly, more or less, that I was safe.
The next morning Pam and her friend Jan arrived, having driven in Jan's car from the beach community of Piriapolis, Uruguay, an hour or so up the coast. I shocked Pam with the news that I had never met Michael from Punta del Este, the man who had initially told me about the tour. She blanched, having assumed that I was a friend of his when she included me. We all chatted while waiting for Nestor, a Uruguayan who lives in Montevideo and a friend of Pam’s. Nestor arrived with a 7-person van and we squeezed everyone comfortably into the van with all our luggage and almost all of my travel gear. I left a pile of my belongings behind at Lidia and Ted's; I had decided to return to Montevideo with the group and reconnoiter my next destination from there.
Driving across Uruguay in one day
A black metal statue of a bull greeted us as we left the two-lane highway for a quick drive through Paso de los Toros on the Rio Negro, named after a point in the river that was shallow enough for cattle to cross. The town is also responsible for initially bottling the pomelo-grapefruit drink I discovered a taste for. We ran out of gas just a couple of kms from Tacuarembo, but we coasted onto a shoulder next to a business where Nestor obtained a liter-sized soda bottle filled with gasoline. Pam made a pit stop in the woods and returned with her black pants and shirt covered with thin, pointy, thorns pricking her. We helped pull out the tiny sticks one by one; “I feel like I’m being de-acupunctured,” she announced. I likened it to primates grooming each other and after declaring her de-loused, we reloaded the van and continued on the two-lane highway.
We oohed and awed at the most incredible sunset I’d ever seen. The sky turned yellow, then glowed orange and crimson as if on fire before simmering into a purplish-blue. With the brilliant sunset serving as a backdrop, the trees created a lacey silhouette. For miles the view became more and more spectacular with each second.
We drove past the outskirts of town to tour the mines. We entered one of several tunnels cut horizontally into the side of an ancient volcano crater. Above ground we clambered through rubble left behind by the quarrying, picking through piles of rock for crystals and amethyst. Anything we could carry home we were welcome to take. I gathered small pieces to share as souvenirs, thrashing my goal of traveling light. We all darted around the man-made hills of sparkling stones like kids in a candy store.
Another asado at a restaurant attached to a gas station to thank our wonderful guides, Raphe and Carlos Sanchis, director of Le Stage Minerals. I ordered from the menu upon their recommendation and ate the most tender, best-tasting beef I'd encountered in South America!
Then we piled into the van and hit the road for the short jaunt to Rivera, which sits on the border of Uruguay and Brazil. Sunday morning we toured the duty-free shops on the main drag and eventually got stuck in a pseudo Wal-Mart in Brazil. Everyone re-supplied on electronics, chocolate, sardines, tobacco, cheese and wine. One shop featured a liqueur-tasting and I discovered this wonderful drink from South Africa called Amarula. Similar to Bailey’s, it’s a whiskey cream with Marula fruit. It has an elephant on the label, so I just called it the elephant stuff.
We stuffed ourselves and our new purchases into the van and drove back to Montevideo from Rivera. Jan and I had become buddies and when I told her I had no plans other than probably heading back to a beach in Uruguay, she said “Well then you have to come stay with me in Piriapolis.” I couldn’t pass up a wonderful invitation like that and it was settled.
The wind carries me back to the Atlantic
The one-bedroom home featured an unobstructed view of the ocean and dunes along the coast east of Piriapolis. She had a sleeping pad under the stairs that fit me perfectly. I’d died and found myself in heaven. So for two and a-half weeks, I hung out with Jan, her dog Mikey, and her expat friends. Reading, relaxing, eating, drinking, walking the shoreline, lying on the beach or in the gorgeous backyard surrounded by rosemary bushes and spikey palm shrubs.
I joined Jan for her daily errands and social visits in and around Piriapolis. We only made one soiree into pricey, upscale Punte del Este, ending up at a shopping mall that looked like a beached cruise ship.
In the distance, thundering waves pounding the sand lulled me to sleep every night. I met a colorful collection of expats who claimed they'd escaped to Uruguay from countries around the world; “I’m a refugee,” Jan declared more than once.
I made myself useful by helping Jan with her spider issues. The first one was small enough to scoot outside. The second one in the bathroom was the size of my palm and scurried close to the thatched roof of the ceiling out of reach. Taking a shower two days later, I turned and with my hands sudsing my hair, I spooked at the sight of the spider’s dark silhouette against the shower curtain inches from my heart. The spider clung motionlessly to the shower curtain while I finished washing and with the help of the lidded plastic trash can, I scooped him up and ushered him outside without too much drama.
One afternoon I let the day run away as I walked eastward along the beach. I turned around when the sun was about to set and ended up walking back in pitch darkness, with only the sound of the waves and the stars to guide me. I could see the dark shapes of the treeline to my right and a few houses, some lit up. Jan was really worried and when I got back I apologized profusely. She had called everyone, including David and Danae who volunteered to search the beach with her. When I returned to the house on the other side of the Moonlight, Pam was on her way over to the rescue with a pot of homemade soup.
While in Piriapolis I had minimal opportunities to speak Spanish while hanging out with the English-speaking expats, but some situations arose. I helped Jan pay her internet bill at Antel. I discussed how to care for David and Danae's neutered puppies with the veterinarian at the frightening back-alley clinic near Barra. I chatted with my fellow potters at ceramics, including 70-something year-old Angel who had an adult son and was planning to visit his mother who lived in Salto. At least that’s what I think he said.
During my visit with Jan we had some minor technical difficulties. Although David easily solved my wifi troubles (seems I had pressed a wrong button back in Aguas Dulces), the pump on the well fritzed and we ran dangerously low on propane as the fall temperatures started to bottom out. Looking back at my experience with the inexplicable ATM meltdown, I wondered if I had telekinetic powers wreaking havoc on the technology around me.
At one of Jan's Sunday parties, I finally met Michael from Punte del Este, the man who had contacted me through my Trip Advisor post and connected me with this terrific group of people in Uruguay.
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Some local history sprinkled with a little mystery
The beach community of Piriapolis sprung from the imagination of Francisco Piria, a real estate developer from Montevideo who believed in the spiritual and mystic properties of the surrounding land.
Before the turn of the 20th Century, Piria purchased thousands of acres around Cerro Pan de Azucar and along the coast. He farmed grapes and olives and quarried granite. He planned a utopian city incorporating symbolism from multiple religious and philosophical belief systems including Christianity, Freemasonry, astrology, metaphysics, Greek mythology, alchemy, numerology and Kabbalah, the mystical set of Jewish beliefs. He dreamed of a "seaside city of the future," promoting Piriapolis for tourism modeled on European spa-style resorts. He made millions selling vacation homes.
Piria chose this coastal area not only for its natural beauty, but he claimed the land exhibited a convergence of the earth’s magnetic fields in the crossing of Ley Lines. Also called mystical lines, Ley Lines are hypothetical alignments linking ancient spiritual monuments to the earth's geographic and geologic features, creating a virtual "mystical energy highway". Some believers point to a connection between Ley Lines and faults in the planet's tectonic plates, asserting these cracks release powerful magnetic energy, positive or negative. Areas across the globe where Ley Lines supposedly meet include Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, Palenque and the Great Pyramids of Giza.
During our tour Carlos demonstrated the varying magnetic fields using dowsing rods at Cerro del Toro. Believers in Piriapolis' claims of Ley Lines point to unusually strong magnetic energy around Pan de Azucar. Compasses do not work properly and their needles can spin in certain areas. Disbelievers say the anomaly could be nothing more than large deposits of iron ore.
For a more entertaining description, check out this youtube video explaining mystical Piriapolis.
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While in Uruguay I struggled with the desire to possess everything I saw. The magnificent piles of unfinished amethyst (I imagined a large halved geode with glass over it for a table), the simple cottages on the shoreline, the shipping containers converted into basic living quarters tucked between the eucalyptus, the pretty packaged goods at the fancy duty-free shops, the fire pit at Alex’s blueberry farm. I schemed on how to buy a swath of land touching the sea and sink a well, set up a small shack, live simply as possible.
But one thing I’ve discovered here in paradise, as in most places, is that life is never simple. The expats I met in Uruguay trade horror stories on poor service, car repairs that don’t last, bureaucratic snafus with government agencies in Montevideo, customs fees for their belongings they want to ship from the US, dishonest locals lurking to exploit the naïve newcomers. Is that something I want to own? Maybe it’s better to borrow than buy. Then you have more time to enjoy rather than work to support your dream and worry about maintenance projects that steal your weekends from under your feet. I should stick with visiting paradise. But next time I'm in Uruguay, I’m going to stay for three to four months at least.
Turning a full deck in Uruguay's hot springs
The bus dropped me off at the Dayman terminal and the man at the desk dialed my hotel for my free ride after the taxi driver quoted me 100 pesos for a 5-minute trip. The resort Casa de Piedra partners with neighboring Termas Posada del Siglo XIX for a park full of cabins, parillas, ponds with honking, bickering ducks and thermal pools. My first night I soaked in the thermal right outside my cabin. I must have spent two hours in it; my skin pruned and sloughed off. The next day I found hotter water in the pools in a different area of the resort, although more people. I was afraid the kids would ruin my buzz; the hotel has kiddie thermals, slides, swing sets and play areas for children. But the children here are fairly quiet and well-mannered. No cannonballs into the thermal pools. Some of the pools seemed exclusively for adults, and most of the resort's clientele are older. The people tended to jaw a lot as they sipped their mate while resting in the water. But everyone maintained a low noise level, and I stayed there most of the day enjoying a peaceful co-existence with the other guests. After lunch at the hotel restaurant, a traditional milanesa of thin breaded meat with French fries at the OKKO Restobar, I returned to the first pool by my room and found it empty. I had an amazing birthday, celebrating the beginning of my 52nd year. Relaxing and muy tranquilo.
The family atmosphere made me somewhat wistful, remembering my babies on all of our trips and adventures and my own experiences as a child vacationing with my family. The prancing pre-teen girls in their clingy wet swim suits, the chubby toddler girl waddling dangerously close to the pool's edge, the naked boy with a pacifier running out of his family’s cabin. I reminded myself that I should smile that it happened, not cry that it’s over, repeating this mantra every time I left another wonderful place on this journey or exit another stage in life. I was so sad to leave Piriapolis and all the fantastic people I met there. But it was time to move on and celebrating my birthday peacefully alone soaking in the hot water I love is how I chose to celebrate. With wine and chocolate too, of course.
The sky in Uruguay endlessly surprised me. The sunset lightened a small patch of clouds orange-yellow in a sea of purplish-blue clouds. I would have taken a picture but there was no way to capture the beauty in time. Grateful and humbled by all I have experienced, I thanked God and hoped I deserved the wonderful life I am living.
The resort where I stayed took credit cards, but the restaurant and kiosk on the grounds as well as the neighboring mercado required Uruguayan Pesos. I freaked at how little cash I had when I arrived in Termas de Dayman upon discovering this, but turns out I had plenty of Urguayan Pesos for my short visit. Even after my 10-minute shopping spree at Ta-Ta grocery store at the Salto bus terminal filling up on empanadas, chocolate bars, cookies and nuts, I ended up with over 500 pesos, about $20 US, which I donated to Maggie to share with her friends who might make it to Uruguay before my next visit.
The next morning on May 16, 2015, I woke up after a perfect night’s sleep. After breakfast, I hit the thermals again for about three hours before getting ready to catch the bus to Iguazu.
After some confusion with the hotel shuttle guy and my lousy Spanish of course, the hotel guy decided to personally drive me to the bus stop in Termas de Dayman as I was completely baffled as to which terminal I needed. After another confusing exchange in Spanish, he informed me that I couldn’t catch the bus to Iguazu at the terminal in Dayman, the one where the Montevideo bus had left me. I had to catch a local bus at a stop farther away. As he dropped me off he advised me that I needed to go to the “shopping terminal.” Yikes, that’s right. I had to catch a local bus with multiple stops and get off at the right one. I stayed calm, reminding myself that this was part of the travel gig and eventually, somehow, I would make it to Igauzu Falls in time to meet Maggie on Wednesday. I had four days to get there. Driving around in a private car over the previous three weeks had spoiled me to the challenges of arranging public transportation in a tongue foreign to me.
I started to wish I had paid the extra money for a taxi to Concordia, Argentina, as some Trip Advisor forum posts had suggested. Then I saw a trio of women with backpacks heading toward my bus stop and prayed we were all heading to the same place. I initially tried my broken Spanish on them and finally one girl asked hopefully “English?” We all laughed with relief and the two Australians and one European from Luxembourg confirmed that we were all aiming toward Concordia, Argentina, via bus.
We found the correct bus stop to transfer to Concordia. The one girl from Luxembourg decided to head elsewhere; she had actually already been to Iguazu and couldn’t decide where to travel next, so we left her at the bus stop studying a guide book of South America. We crossed the border without incident and wound up at the bus station in Concordia, Argentina, via the CHADRE bus line for $119 pesos, roughly $5 USD, at 2 p.m.
One of the plusses to traveling with others is that now I had someone to watch my bags while I used the bathroom and searched the streets for a place to change USD to Argentine pesos. While I crossed the street using a crosswalk, a car almost ran over me, sharply reminding me that I was no longer in Uruguay where the motorists actually stop for pedestrians. I had to wander a bit but finally found a restaurant/bar that would cambio for 11 pesos to the dollar. I told the man behind the register I would change $200, and he said I had to wait a spell for the woman in charge to do the exchange. He offered me a coffee and we sat at the bar and talked in Spanish. I was pleased with how much my Spanish had improved over the previous four months. Still covering the same old ground, but I enjoyed being able to maintain a conversation, even though I had to stick with my typical topics covering where I’m from, where I’m going, etc.
Kelly from Australia taught me how to spot a fake 100-peso note; with a real AR bill the raised silver line that is dotted in places should show up solid when held to the light from both sides, and the smaller head portrait should bleed through the paper as well. But I didn’t need anything more to be paranoid about, so I decided to just wing it with whatever pesos I could find for trade.
We finally got on the bus, it was about 20 minutes late to boot, and they were semi-cama reclining seats, not horizontal camas as the ticketseller had promised. I’ve yet to see the flat beds, having heard that most camas are really reclining seats. Once on board, Kelly accepted her fate and only complained about the food. We had a cute 5-year-old boy sitting in front of us and I tried my Spanish on him. We didn’t get too far as I couldn’t understand him and at one point he just started talking louder before giving up on me entirely. We watched a stupid movie about a zombie guy who falls in love with a non-zombie woman in a post-apocalyptic world run by John Malkovich (yikes). I read the Spanish subtitles and compared them with the English dialogue.
I slept on and off with a single Advil PM, having trouble finding a comfortable spot for my feet, then at around 5 a.m. we stopped to let off a passenger who had no legs. He had a large torso and struggled to get himself out of the seat behind us, so we had to raise our chairs upright. Then he dragged himself down the aisle to his wheelchair awaiting him outside. I fell back asleep and didn’t wake up until we hit the outskirts of Iguazu Falls around 7:30 a.m.
By the time we disembarked, it was 8:30 in the morning. The bus guys hadn’t provided us with any coffee, not even the sugary stuff, and no cookies. I waved adios to my temporary travel companions, again happy I was on my own and soon out of earshot from the first ever Australian traveler I met whom I didn't like.
The taxi guy said he didn’t have enough pesos to cambio with me at a rate of 11 AR pesos to 1 USD, but if I called him later he would have more bills. I wondered if he was hoping I’d call him later for an exchange and he’d provide me with phony money. Sad that you become so distrustful of people as a traveler.
Travel Tips
www.en.destinopiriapolis.com
www.castillopittamiglio.com
www.argentinohotel.com
www.viajeauruguay.com
Magical Mystical Tour Carlos Rodriguez, [email protected] Carlos charged us around $20 USD per person with a minimum of 4 persons for the tour, provided in either English or Spanish. All the places we visited along the tour are free and open to the public.
for more general info about Uruguay www.britannica.com
Bus NUNEZ from Montevideo to Salto for $821 UR pesos.
Expreso Singer Concordia to Puerto Igauzu bus terminal $722 AR pesos
The website omnilineas.com listed some of the buses from Concordia to Puerto Iguazu
Also www.agenciacentral.com.uy for Uruguay bus travel or www.trescruces.com
Casa de Piedra www.casadepiedra.com.uy partners with neighboring
Termas Posada del Siglo XIX www.posadasigloxix.com.uy
daily rate includes a complete buffet breakfast
other websites for tourists in Uruguay:
www.discoverrocha.org
www.turismorocha.gub.uy
www.parquereserva.com.uy