Midway through my time in Buenos Aires, I was invited along to cross the Río de la Plata and spend two days in Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo. My Irish buddy and I hopped on an 8:00 AM ferry and spent the first several hours en transit from one of the prettiest cities in South America to one of the… well, cities in South America. To give credit where it’s due, Montevideo did have some pretty neat plazas, an impressive coastal walkway called La Rambla, which happens to be the longest sidewalk in the world, and ample sports bars to catch game three of Golden State vs. Toronto. It may have seemed more impressive if we hadn’t just come from Argentina’s biggest metropolis, but unfortunately, some of the tour guides we spoke to there were actually wondering why we left Buenos Aires in the first place.
Henry and I taxied over to a league soccer game upon arriving in Montevideo, and our Uber driver was nice enough to even get out of the car and ask if we could purchase tickets on-site (unfortunately Stubhub doesn’t work as well in Uruguay). Unfortunately, we couldn’t, but luckily, our Uber driver, determined to help us watch the game, drove us to the nearest store where we could buy tickets. Double unfortunately, they don’t let you buy tickets without a passport, and Henry and I did not bring our passports to the soccer game. Double luckily, our Uber driver felt so badly that he drove us the twenty minutes back to our hotel as a condolence for our logistical failure. He then tried to deny us from leaving a tip for working way, way harder than he needed to! In less than a week, I’d already been subject to more generosity from South Americans than I had been told to expect to receive all summer. On the bright side, we saw a man juggling machetes in the street, and it’s not every day you see that.
We ended up at an Irish pub to watch the Warriors game that night. Though the actual game left much to be desired, we were thoroughly entertained by the live music performing that night. The band mostly played rock and roll, and it was pretty funny to hear ACDC sung by people who don’t speak English. After hearing some Uruguayans live on a prayer, we watched the band yell “muchas gracias” while the crowd chanted “uno más!” Generally speaking, I heard more 60’s-80’s rock and 2000’s pop in Buenos Aires and Montevideo than I’d heard in all of California over the last few years.
Henry and I ended up touring downtown the next day, climbing skyscrapers and walking into bookshops here and there. I found a copy of John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down, which is apparently Mil Veces Hasta Siempre in Spanish? But that translates to “1000 times until forever,” which I think defeats the purpose of the title (alluding to mythological story regarding infinite regression).
We ended up at a hole in the wall cafe before finally going back to Buenos Aires. We sparked a conversation with the owner, who actually lives in Boston most of the year, but he had come back to Montevideo for a few months to help the family sell the cafe. We chatted for over an hour about life in Uruguay, but our desire to learn about the country’s culture must have seemed naive to him. Instead of praising the area’s cuisine, music, dance, or artwork, he instead repeated that he advises teenagers and others to leave the country as soon as possible. Drug addiction runs rampant around the area, creating an especially powerful cycle of poverty. While I was a little dejected not to have found anything particularly interesting in Montevideo, my two days reminded me that the world does not exist to serve tourists. Locals here had far better things to do than set up attractions for foreigners, and the slew of real, life-threatening issues that almost everyone I met was connected with humbled me yet again. The city is far from perfect, but it’s certainly one of the most human places I’ve seen in South America, and I’m grateful to have heard stories from those who can’t so easily take a ferry away from their problems.
