China. Maybe One Day #4: Shopping Malls and Golf Buggies - Uruguay and Argentina

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Shopping Malls and Golf Buggies

When the tourist office tells you that one of the sights to see is a shopping centre that is open till 10pm, you know a capital city just isn't going to be all that exciting.

We had arrived in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, on a cold Saturday afternoon. On the bus ride from the airport to the city centre we passed a hulking, filthy, hospital. It had black smoke pouring out of it's chimneys and the letters SOS plastered over the top three stories of the building. "Remind me not to get sick here," where my first words to Tim, quickly followed by, "Bugger, I forgot to take a picture."

After checking into the youth hostel we set off to explore the town. The town centre was utterly deserted so we decided to walk to the old part of town. Dotted along the dull streets are old colonial buildings which serve as Montevideo's main tourist draw. We soon became bored and hungry. I hadn't eaten steak for at least 48 hours so I quickly choose the largest steak on the menu. I was completely unprepared for the slice of cow that was placed in front of me. It was huge. When I finally gave up eating it I vowed not to eat steak for the next week. After the meal we walked back to the centre of town and went to watch a movie.

It was Sunday lunchtime when we went into the tourist office and were told about the shopping centre. Ignoring their advice to check out this modern marvel we walked to the Sunday afternoon street market. It was full of the usual bric-a-brac that you always find at car boot sales. Despite, or because, of this the entire population seemed to be wandering up and down the many streets that the market sprawled over. I was left with an uneasy feeling that many stall holders had simply stripped their houses bare in an attempt to sell something and make a bit of money. The only new items on sale where the fruit and veg stalls and a roaring trade in pirated computer software.

In the evening we wandered into a bar and straight into a fashion show.

"What is going on?" Asked Tim in his perfect Spanish.
"It's a fashion show," the waitress replied.
Tim tried again, "Yes, thank you. But why is it in this pub on a Sunday night? Is there a festival or something going on?"
"No, on Fridays we have live music, Saturday is a club night and Sunday is a fashion show!"

There's not much else you can ask after a statement like that. After leaving the pub we flagged down a taxi and asked the driver to take us somewhere good to eat. The driver knew his stuff and we were soon dining on Parrillada (a mixed grill of beef cuts, sausages, black pudding, liver, kidneys and several other unidentified animal parts)

On Monday we took a bus to Colonia del Sacramento. As soon as we arrived and had walked down the main street, we declared Colonia a much better destination than the previous city. It was full of narrow cobbled streets, trees, old style street lamps and low buildings. Even the weather was better. In the evening we walked through the quiet back streets accompanied by a couple of local dogs, and a Portuguese girl we had met that morning.

The next day I was eager to rent a golf buggy and take it for a spin around town. Tim handed over his credit card and I provided the driver's license. Why you need a driver's license to hire a golf buggy is beyond me. Particularly as neither of us had any idea about road rules in this part of the world. Nevertheless we hit the highway at full speed and set about finding things to do with our new toy:

1. Drive it down the highway to the next town on the map. At this point crazy ideas about touring South America in a golf buggy kept popping into my mind.

2. Drive along the beach and get bogged down in sand.

3. Overtake a Ford Cortina whilst heading down hill with the wind at our backs.

4. Find a patch of gravel and pull handbrake turns. (This one had the locals collapsing with laughter)

5. Put it in reverse and listen to the ridiculous beeping noise it made.

Luckily the guy at the Thrifty rent-a-car shop didn't inspect the buggy too closely when he gave Tim his credit card slip back. We wisely decided not to tell him that it had started making a strange banging noise after we had driven it down a particularly steep and cobbled road.

That evening we caught the ferry back to Buenos Aires and then an overnight bus to Cordoba. The bus we chose was the most expensive one available. The journey started with a bible reading, then dinner. The next morning I was awoken by the hostess thanking God for the new day. As it was my first bus journey in Argentina I asked if all the bus companies did this. No, came the reply. Only this one.

Cordoba is Argentina's historic university city and therefore is swarming with young students. Many of them wander around in the white robes of medical students, of which the town is famous for. I arranged to meet Tim in one of the city's many plazas. He turned up with a feverishly hot Californian babe (Elizabeth's own description of herself) who we had previously met in Buenos Aires. They had also arranged to meet up with a couple of other backpackers for dinner later. We returned to the hostel to change for dinner and bumped into someone else we already knew. Ross, a Scottish guy with the most obnoxious shoes on the planet. One night in Buenos Aires the smell was so bad that it kept me awake. I quickly dealt with the shoes but was awoken later by Ross coming back from a club and collapsing in fits of laughter when he saw what had been done to his trainers.

The conversation around the dinner table mostly consisted of telling Tim and myself how sick we would get in Bolivia. We were also served by a waiter so useless we started calling him Manuel.

Thursday, September 19^th, Elizabeth, Tim and myself all spent the day finding ways to waste time until the overnight bus left for Mendoza. We took a city tour, walked around a bit, used the internet, sat in a cafe and eventually gave up and went to sit in the bus station.


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