36 Hours in Uruguay

Plaza di Armas - Colonia del Sacramento

Our alarm goes off at 5:30 AM and Mike and I grudgingly roll out of bed…whose idea was it to take a ferry to Uruguay at 7:45 the day after Fat Tuesday.  At that moment, I was definitely blaming Mike, but to be fair, it was a great idea.  The day before he had realized that our travel plans wouldn’t get us to Uruguay (and our only opportunity to hit up a beach) until April which is like October in the US…hardly the best time for hanging out at the beach.  After checking the weather around noon on Tuesday and realizing the next 2 days were going perfect beach weather, we booked ferry tickets to Colonia del Sacramento.

After a one hour ferry ride, we reached Colonia.  Colonia is a charming, sleepy town.  It was originally a Portuguese, then Spanish settlement, and is the oldest town in Uruguay.  It sits across the Rio de la Plata (where the Uruguay River and the Paraná River flow into the Atlantic) from Buenos Aires so it is a popular destination to escape to craziness of Buenos Aires. 

Here are a few of the highlights of our trip:

Dog Beach - where I learned that Mike is very attractive to dogs 

We couldn’t check into our hostel until 1 pm so we headed down to a tiny beach about 2 blocks away to hang out for a few hours.  There were several dogs walking around the beach when we arrived and they took an immediate liking to Mike.  One managed, among other things, to lay on Mike’s towel, drip water on him, and even lick his head (I think the pictures below say it all).  When we finally left to go eat, the dogs followed us right onto the main street of town.  We kept trying to lose our uninvited entourage, but they were not to be dissuaded.  We tried hiding in a bank for a few minutes, but they just curled up on the pavement until we returned.  Finally we lost them through some advanced maneuvering.  Later while sitting in a restaurant, the one most in love with Mike walked by and paused right outside the open restaurant window (they had been looking for us).  Luckily Mike had just run to the restroom so I think it fooled him.  Otherwise, I’m sure he would have walked right into the open restaurant door!

Mike's mistake: Petting a wet dog while he drips on your towel

The consequences of Mike's mistake (notice the 3 dogs sleeping around Mike in picture on right)

Barrío Historico

This is the historic part of Colonia that makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time.  Small, winding, cobblestone streets are lined with beautiful little Portuguese styled homes.  Some of the buildings, as well as the tiled street signs, reminded of us of our trip to Macau (another Portuguese colony).  We walked around for a while, took way too many pictures, then stopped for some ice cream.  Finally about 10:30, we went out for some dinner.  We dined outdoors by candlelight at a place called El Drugstore (I have no idea where they came up with this name).  We have some really good Uruguayan wine (who knew they had good wine?) to wrap up a wonderful day. 

Playa Fernando

The best beach near Colonia is about 2km outside of the city so we rented some bikes and headed out there.  About 15 minutes into our ride, on a small side street, Mike’s chain came off his bike.  A woman rushed out of her house with some tools and proceeded to take over trying to fix it for us.  The people were so kind and friendly!  We finally made it to the beach, which was amazing.  There were less than 20 people on the entire beach (which was huge) and the water was pretty warm.  One thing we discovered pretty quickly…this wasn’t actually the ocean!  The water wasn’t salty at all.  We aren’t totally sure why not as we are definitely in water that hits the ocean.  Our hypothesis (and all you scientists reading our blog feel free to leave us a comment with the correct answer) is that the water coming out of the rivers is pushing out into the ocean and the waters haven’t blended at that point, but honestly we have no idea.  Anyway, it was the highlight of our trip to Uruguay and definitely worth the scramble to get out here before the weather turned cold.

Biking to the beach through the Uruguayan countryside

At Playa Fernando...we saw people drinking mate on the beach (see center photo)

Evita

Mike and I are sitting in a small café having our morning coffee.  Mike is catching up on emails and I’m starting our next blog post.  It is so much easier to motivate myself to write while out of the apartment.  The café is playing 90’s American music and I’ve been having a series of high school flashbacks (Sublime is on right now), which is a perfect opener for my post.  Close your eyes and think back to the top hits of 1997 – do you hear the classic lyrics of MMMBop or Wannabe? What about another 1997 Billboard Top 100…Don’t Cry for Me Argentina?   

The woman behind that song is the inspiration for this blog and no, I don’t mean Madonna.

Eva Peron (aka Evita) is a legendary figure in Argentina.  She was the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952.  She was extremely popular with the working class and was a strong champion of women's rights (including the right to vote).   Last week we visited a great museum in Buenos Aires devoted to her life. The Evita Museum does a great job telling her story (some parts were in English luckily!) and displays a interesting assortment of her belongings and memorabilia.  

Evita Musuem

While sightseeing around Buenos Aires, Mike and I visited two sites that are famous in part because of Evita:

Casa Rosada

This famous pink building serves as the Presidential Offices in Buenos Aires and is supposedly the most photographed building in Argentina.  Legend has it that the strange pink color is the result of using cows’ blood as paint.  Evita famously waved to the adoring masses from the balcony on the left side of the building.  More recently Madonna was granted access to do this for the filming of Evita.  This upset many of the locals who thought it was a dishonor to the real Evita. 

Recoleta Cemetery

Recoleta Cemetery has some of the most desired, and difficult to purchase, real estate in Buenos Aires.  It houses the grave of Evita, along with many other significant Argentine historical figures.  The cemetery is absolutely beautiful and doesn’t look anything like a typical American cemetery.  The cemetery is packed full of mausoleums decorated with beautiful sculptures.  Many of which contain chapels.   There are a variety of architectural styles so while a little creepy, it was very interesting to walk around and peek into the different chambers.  The entire space is laid out in sections like city blocks and the mausoleums are nestled very close together.  According to our guide, each site is owned by a family and can typically house up to 18 people.

   

On left, walkway after walkway were non-stop mausoleums.  On right, the city surrounds the cemetery so you can see buildings in the background.

 

On left, cats in the cemetery playing from the stoops of the mausoleums.  On right, steps down into a crypt showing the many coffins housed within one family's plot.

Sometimes if a family has used up all the spots, they will cremate the remains of one of the older relatives to make room for a more recently deceased loved one.   Doesn’t quite seem fair, does it?  The cemetery is completely full so if you want to be buried there, you better be willing to shell out some big bucks to buy a site from an existing family (they would then have to move all their deceased to a different cemetery).

On left, grave site of woman buried alive at Recoleta (her coffin supposedly has scratch marks on the lid).  On right, marker at Evita's final resting place

The Food of Buenos Aires

First off, I apologize about the long post…once I get started talking about food, it’s hard to stop.  We have been eating like kings since we arrived in Buenos Aires.  Even when cooking at our apartment, the availability of fresh pastas and great meat has made cooking easy and delicious.  When not eating at home, we’ve been trying to experience all the specialties of Buenos Aires.  Here are a few of the classics (all available in our neighborhood):

Parrillas ( translates to Mike’s died and gone to heaven)

When you think of Argentina, you think of thick, juicy grass feed beef.  Well, a parrilla is the place to get one!  A parrilla is a simple iron grill barbecue, but also describes a type of restaurant that serves meat on these grills.  Parrillas are everywhere in Buenos Aires.  When ordering, you can get a variety of different dishes with steak, etc, but the ultimate parrilla experience is ordering a “parrillada” or mixed grill.  Our first experience with a parrillada was at a restaurant near our home called Las Cabras.  When we arrived, I wasn’t too hungry and we were looking to save money so we decided to split the parrillada which cost 88 pesos (roughly $20).  Being naïve, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.  Our first clue…when Mike ordered, the waiter didn’t even ask if I wanted something different.  We speculated that this must mean it would be big enough for 2.  In actuality, it was big to qualify for an episode of Man vs Food.  The waiter brought out a large wooden plank with an iron grill housing a vast array of meats, some of which were a little suspect.  After consulting the internet when we got home, we realized we had probably consumed mollejas (sweetbreads - i.e. thymus, pancreas or other glands of a cow), chinchulín (intestines) and morcilla (blood sausages…yes this is what it sounds like…congealed blood stuffed into a sausage) in addition to the standard cuts of beef.

The man who says he never gets full on meat couldn't finish this dinner!

Dulce de Leche (translates to Pauline has died and gone to heaven)

Ahh, the deliciously caramel flavor of dulce de leche…where do I start!  Since arriving, we’ve had dulce de leche ice cream quite a few times.  I consider it a staple of my diet down here.  Dulce de leche is basically a thick, caramel-like milk-based sauce.  You can buy it here in a jar, but my personal preference is definitely ice cream.  Dulce de leche is also the center filling of a very popular Argentine treat: Alfajores.  Alfajores are apparently found in the Middle East and Spain in a slightly different form, but here consist of two round sweet cookies joined together with dulce de leche.  Some are even coated with chocolate.  Delicious!!

On left: Enjoying dulce de leche ice cream on our street (yes, we have an ice cream parlor in walking distance from our apt...dangerous!); On right: An alfajore

Mate

The only drink to make our list, this is definitely an acquired taste.  Made from leaves that have been dried and ground into a powdery mixture called yerba, mate can be fairly bitter (although you can add sugar).  Preparing it was a little foreign to us so we had to get a waiter to show us the correct way.  You start by adding the leaves to a hollowed out gourd (this is the traditional container for serving mate).  You then add hot water and use a bombilla (hollow metal piece that acts as both a straw and a sieve) to drink the liquid.   Mate is very popular in Argentina and we’ve seen many people sitting in parks or at cafés drinking it.  Apparently Argentines are not scared of germs as they tend to take a sip and pass it around to friends (the sip and pass can also happen with beer at bars: you order a few liters and share with your friends…no glasses provided). 

Mike drinking mate for the first time at a coffee shop type restaurant on our street.  Our own gourd, mate yerba and bombilla as we attempt to make mate at home.

Empanadas

Not a food unique to Argentina, but since they are available on every corner, we thought they deserved a spot on our list.  After going to many Mexican bakeries when visiting my grandparents in El Paso, I was already very familiar with empanadas.  For those of you who haven’t been lucky enough to enjoy one, empanadas are bread or pastry that is stuffed with some sort of filling.  The ones I usually have in Texas are filled with apples or pumpkin, but all the ones we’ve sampled here have been on the savory side.  The typical Argentine empanada is stuffed with carne (beef), queso (cheese), or pollo (chicken).  We like packing a few in our backpack for an afternoon snack when out on the town.  The only downside…we get a lot of attention from stray dogs!

Empanadas from bakery down the street