Uruguay, 1950 Saturday Evening Post

 This material was compiled by Jose Maria Firpo, in a book called El Uruguay and sus Visitantes:1926-1967. The chapter is called "The Happiest Place South of the Border". These are my favorite parts:

1. A hotel in Colonia wouldn't DREAM of charging guests to walk in and take a bath, and then nap all afternoon, at their spa.

2. The author, the jounalist Milton Bracker, described our cattle as Shorthorns which means that they are "as docile as Ferdinand". That got me into finding out how Ferdinand the Bull was based on a true bittersweet story. 

3. The school district commission of Rutherford, New Jersey published school material about Uruguay using the words "Socialist" and "Utopian" to describe it. It didn't take long for detractors to call out this description as "hitlerist". The revised edition made no mention of Uruguay as socialist or utopian.

4. To describe the two party system as totally representative of the people, the author says that in Uruguay "very few have too much and there are very few who live in poverty". Tell that to subsistence farmers! 

5. He mentions that each individual of Uruguay believe that they are "One Heart" together with their other compatriots, celebrating that this quality is not shared among other peoples of the world. This idea comes from "The Purple Land" by W.H. Hudson which is required reading to understand the country during its "barbaric" period.

6. Jose Gervasio Artigas, our George Washington, was the only foreign military general to not serve in the U.S. and despite that was offered political asylum with all its privileges and prerrogatives.

7. The feminist movement is strong in Montevideo: 607 women got divorced that year. The country is mostly Catholic, but not as pious as the people of Peru. 

In a specific case, a woman divorced her husband because he had to sell the automobile to fund his gambling habit. Still, the husband claimed, if a gambling addiction was the only grounds for a divorce men would win in all litigation. He is saying that men have many more flaws than women.

Guruyu and Reus went broke four times

From a rich family. Went broke four times.

 1) King Alonso XII's death
 2) sold loans in stock market in Argentina. the "Crisis of Progress"

Born 1858. Spain was already in ruins.

In the time of Emilio Reus, the state had very little power.

- trust in public institutions
- brain trust, Argentine capitalists
 1) needed a national bank - he benefited personally by forming his compañia Nacional
 2) epoca de reus
       - the country was quiet
       - depression began 1873
       -
- went broke, paid back all his debtors.
 - took the Vapor de la Carrera. Arrived broke to the other side of the river.
 - Gounoulhiou pier on Patagones (Lindolfo)
- crisis of 1890
- died a poor man
        - sold houses before construction finished
        -
- the state had taken possession of the bank he founded
- had money to send back his widow and daughter

The Old City is one part banks, museums, etc; the other is the Guruyú.

Named after a powerful merchant of Turkish or French origin by the the name of  Gounoulhiou, Guruyú is the Spanish adaptation of the name which is not to be confused with The Great Cornholio from Beavis and Butthead. Let's pretend I didn't bring that up.

There stand the ruins of the Hotel Nacional, a colossal project in a time of rapid boom and bust.

Día del Patrimonio 2015: Arquitectura: "Quien diseño la Plaza Independencia?"

Carlo Zucchi - diseño la Plaza Independencia, el Nuevo Teatro (futuro Solís)
 -padres abogodo y condesa: Troilo Gaetano Zucchi y María Caterian Vezzani
 - queda en cana tras conspirar contra poderosa familia D'Este.
 - una vez libre incorpora loggia masónica junto a trescientos jovenes
- otra vez encarcelado.
- cambia su sentencia restante por el exilio
 - se va por frontera Suiza
 - en París se encuentra con delegados de Rivadivia (primer Pres. Arg.)
 - encargados de buscar personal técnico
 - libertino en las guerras napoleonicas
 - la Guerra Grande
 - en Mvdeo. nombrado vocal de la Comisión Topográfica
 - despues Arquitecto de la Policía y Obras Públicas
 - en seis años en Mvdeo: planos de la bahía y sede del Tribunal de Comercio, el Cementerio Nuevo (hoy Central) y su rotunda, refacción de Igl. Matriz, diseño ed. para la Capitanía del Puerto y Resguardo, una capilla funeraria en el Cementerio Nuevo, remodelación de la Pl. Indep. y primeros bocetos del Nuevo Teatro y un monumento funerario para la familia de F. Rivera y la casa de Juan Francisco Giró con sus baluastres de cristal.
 - volvió a Italia tras pelear con los accionistas del nuevo Teatro
 - murió donde nació: Reggio Emilia

La interacción de nuestro acento y pulso en armonía con el movimiento cósmico

Se tocaba sentado. Los grupos eran orquestas. La comparsa o cuerda no existía. Eran numerosos los instrumentos - como el mate, la mazacalla, el porongo y la marimba. Hasta los tambores tenían otros nombres: el Macú, Bombo y el Congo, diferentes a los tambores de candombe que escuchamos hoy.

Las ceremonias, rituales o  conexiones con el pasado tomaron lugar en "canchitas" o espacios de arena llamados "Salas de Naciones" ubicados a lo largo de la ciudad amurallada entre la Plaza Independencia y el Cubo del Sur. Cada grupo se identificaba con su linaje: eran mozambiques, cabindas, minas, o molembos.

La urbanización creó espacios compactos. Cuando cada nación tocaba el ritmo de su propia forma, ahora en "las llamadas" la comparsa sintoniza con los cimientos de las casas por donde pasan, creando vibraciones  como anteriormente se llamaban en las tribus, usando solamente las cuerdas vocales. Hoy en Las Llamadas saludan a los vecinos caminando de forma transversal y recuerdan a sus antepasados caminando en sentido contrario.

Los tambores de hoy son producto de la industrialización que Montevideo vivió. Trabajadores de la estiba, las curtiembres y los saladeros aprovecharon la materia prima para fabricar un tambor de sonido potente que la vida moderna precisaba, continuando la evolución de una tradición que a través del tiempo, en vez de desaparecer, se ha fortalecido.

jazz in Montevideo

café Aquí y Ahora - Soriano 889, esq. Convención, every thursday.

Ese Mundo del Bajo

An extinct bar across from el Teatro Solís was where a retired set crew machinist would return his debt each day. On a theater pension, Mico had to be creative if he wanted to look good. So in the afternoons he could be found at the bar where he would be trusted with a coin. From there, he would go straight to the (extinct) pawn shop, in el Bajo of Montevideo, attended by a charitable cambalachero. Mico would exchange the bar's money for a pair of dentures. He would eat, go out and have fun. Next morning, he would dutifully wash and return his teeth, then return the coin to the bar. (From Crónicas de Montevideo, by Diego Lucero)

Vacation Idea

Minas, in the department of Lavalleja, is a town in Uruguay. The geography of the area is rocky: granite is the predominant form. The area around the town has much to explore.
Arequita offers an campsite that is well-run by the dept of Lavalleja. The rocky hill is within walking distance. Further away is Laguna de los Cuervos which has routes for climbing.
To get to el Salto del Penitente from Arequita you'll inevitably go through the city of Minas. From the main Route 8, take the road at km. 134. Ten km in, you´ll reach a stream that has cut through the terrain, leaving spectacular granite formations on either side. The river leaves nothing of a water park slide to the imagination except for the volume of water, making sliding down the rocks inadvisable.
What is recommended is bathing in the natural pools formed by the river.
The park is administered by a concession that offers activities, the most popular being the canopy or zipline.
The negatives are that the bathrooms are located on a parking lot inconvenient for campers, and the campground rules are not followed by some who wash their dirty dishes in the river instead of 20m away from it. I found rice and pasta there, looking for drinking water. I still found the water drinkable.
For an experience a little more than 100km from Montevideo, with good roads, and a camping administrative structure with room for improvement, el Salto del Penitente is a great place to get away.