On the Road to Find Out

I became known as the ‘funny man’ while I was in Uruguay. It was a name that I hadn’t been called since the weekly poker nights I had become a part of in Ecuador. My drunken attempts at trying to bluff every single hand, and yet somehow winning, had been the reason for the moniker then. Now, I was being called that for daring to step into the heart of Uruguay. When I told people that I was going to Uruguay and that I was after some recommendations, all I got was a long list of beaches. Now, I’m a fan of beaches, but I’d just been to Brazil and had my fair share. Plus, my journey from Brazil to Iguazu and then Buenos Aires had seen me firmly heading along the ‘gringo trail’ for some time. I was ready for something a little different. So after spending a couple of days in Colonia and Montevideo (both easily reached from Argentina) I looked at the map, decided that a town called ‘thirty three’ sounded rather interesting and set off for the bus station. It was as I left the hostel that I heard Martin, one of the workers, talking to another guest: “he is a very funny man, he is going to Treinta y Tres, nobody goes to Treinta y Tres.”

Treinta y Tres – The Sleepy City

Treinta y Tres is known as the sleepy city. This isn’t too far from the truth. Upon arriving I wondered if I’d stepped into the middle of a national holiday. The people were going about their business, but in the most casual of manners. There is no rush. I popped into a grocery store to get a few things for dinner and ended up waiting for 15 minutes as the people in front chattered away while slowly filling a plastic bag with vegetables. As I strolled around the town, taking in its patrimonial buildings and dusty streets, the rhythm of everyday life felt like a magician’s stick, slowly spinning me into a glorious trance, a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of busy city streets. It was suddenly possible to hear my heartbeat again – although it should be noted that I had just knocked back two espressos and my heart felt as if it was about to jump out of my chest at any moment.

As well as offering this laid-back way of life, Treinta y Tres is trying to push itself as something of a tourist hotspot, which it has every right to do. Quebrada do Los Cuervos is located 22kms from the city. This basically translates as ‘Valley of the Ravens’, and offers far different wildlife and vegetation than you will find in the rest of Uruguay, due to high humidity and the valley’s differing exposure to the sun. It is definitely worth a look, though at the moment this would need to be done through Expedicion Uruguay – expedicionuruguay.com.uy – as there is no public transport to the area. Charqueada is also a short distance from Treinta, around 30km, and IS reachable by public transport. This is a port town on Laguna Merín, with great history, which is shown in the architecture, and is perfect for viewing more of Uruguay’s rich flora.

A perfect time to visit Treinta y Tres is for ‘Festival del Rio Olimar.’ This happens every Spring. Check with the Uruguay Tourism Board for the exact dates. It takes place by the river, Rio Olimar, near to a camping site, and is a great place to hear traditional Uruguayan music as well as new bands that play on the huge stage they erect for the occasion.

Tacuarembó – The People’s Republic

Before arriving in Tacuarembó I had been told it was The People’s Republic. On telling this to the people in Tacuarembó they looked at me in disbelief. Surely Salto and Paysandu are bigger cities (these three towns make up the heart of Northern Uruguay), why would Tacuarembó be the Republic? It seems that Uruguayans want Tacuarembó to be known as the heart of the country, most likely due to its position as home of the Gaucho. This figure looms large over the city, with huge signs declaring it Gaucho Country, countless shops with names such as El Gaucho and the gauchos themselves frequenting the bars and cafés around the town. It is a far busier town than Treinta, with the majority of people moving around on their scooters and motorbikes. It feels like a hub of activity with express links to Montevideo and the surrounding towns, as well as to the border with Argentina. The ‘Fiesta de la Patria Gaucho’ is a festival that happens every March, and is a great opportunity to see some of the customs associated with these legendary figures.

Just outside Tacuarembó is Ipora, a small tourist resort with huge artificial lakes. It is a great place to visit, with the lakes beautifully positioned in the middle of thick green woods and most of the land now populated by a huge amount of cattle and horses. It’s a hugely popular resort in the summer when Uruguayans and even Argentineans come to soak up the sun and fresh air. This is an interesting article about Ipora and the North of Uruguay – http://www.olauruguay.com/2010/03/20/ipora-relax-and-unwind-in-gaucho-land

The great thing about travelling around some of the lesser known places in Uruguay is that the people are so happy for you to be there, and for the opportunity to tell you a little about their lives. It is also very cheap to travel around with transport and food extremely reasonable, and the only problem sometimes being the finding a cheap hostel.

Treinta y Tres can be reached via Maldonado or Montevideo in the South and is also very close to the Brazilian border. Tacuarembó is a stone’s throw from Salto on the Uruguay border where there is a public bus to Concordia in Argentina. There are also regular buses from Montevideo.

See the Uruguay Tourism Board’s calendar for exact dates on all the festivals – turismo.gub.uy

On entering any country there are always a few things that just seem to spring out at you. Why are they doing that? How much does it cost? Are you being serious? In Uruguay these things may seem less severe than in other countries, such as Bolivia and Brazil in South America or further away in the Far or Middle East but it’s crazy how much of an impact they still manage to have on your life. These are some of my curiosities about Uruguay that I probably spend far too much time contemplating.

Milk in Bags
This is something I first experienced in Argentina but it’s one that I’ve always found intriguing. Why would anyone think of putting a liquid substance in a bag? As a result all fridges now have an extra piece of plastic on their door so that the milk can be slotted in and remain upright. But with yoghurt also coming in bags too where’s my second piece of plastic? What you then have to do of course is actually find one of the specially-made plastic containers which are able to house these bags perfectly as well as making them very easy to pour. Maybe the plastic factories and dairies made some kind of agreement, let’s walk into the unknown together or something like that. Milk is of course also available in a carton but it’s a lot more expensive. I now use it as a barometer for judging people. If they have milk in a carton I can be pretty sure they live something of a luxurious lifestyle.

Mate/Thermos
The popularity of mate in Uruguay is undeniable. Every single person has a mate gourd (the vessel for their indulgence) in one hand and a thermos tucked under the other arm. This is most pronounced around 6pm/7pm when everyone has finished work and heads down to the promenades (in the beachside towns anyway) to catch the last bit of sun and sit around drinking mate with their family and friends. The social element is so interesting, I really think there’s no match. Coffee seems to be a very personal thing, when people buy it to take-out it tends to be something to down on their way to an important meeting and at the office it is something that is drank while doing other things. Even the Italians who seem to have the greatest love for it gulp down their expressos like no-man’s business, making it more of an aid to the conversation than a central item. Tea is more social, especially when a plate of shared biscuits is involved but it lacks mobility, one thing that could not be levelled at mate. One evening I tried to count how many thermos’s I could see on a walk down Montevideo’s rambla. Turns out I can’t count that high!

Candombe
Uruguay has many similarities with Argentina due to its proximity over the River Plate, it’s North also shares a few traits with Brazil (including a strange dialect that seems to morph the too) and generally speaking a lot of the culture could be seen as European, no surprise being that many of the people are descendents from Italian and Spanish immigrants. I think this is the reason why candombe is so popular. It’s a style of drumming developed by the mixture of African slaves brought over in the late 19th century and that has since been passed down many generations, effortlessly moving into the hands of the colonialists on the way. It is quite quintessentially Uruguayan and something that they are obsessed by. With no prior knowledge of what it was I at first found it extremely curious. It’s closest cousin in popular terms would be samba but this is so much more powerful, more insistent. Drummers pound away for hour after hour as they parade round their neighbourhoods on a weekly basis. Apart from a small intro some of the groups don’t change their rhythm for the entire 2 or 3 hour parade. After a while though it draws you in, especially while watching the strangely stilted dance that accompanies it, and the sound of the drums begins to drift into the back of your mind, just leaving this immense feeling of passion as it eventually gets you.

Books
A lot is often made of an official statistic that Uruguay is 98% literate. Personally, I feel this is slightly incorrect as there is without doubt some problems with homelessness and I very much doubt these have been included in the poll. Nonetheless, these people are obsessed with books. There are bookshops on every corner and Montevideo in particular has one street, Tristan Narvaja, which has around 30 different bookstores. Attached to this love of books though is a sense that literature is something that should not be cheap. Hence, second hand books can cost as much as a new mp3 player or a brand new pair of a shoes. Even a newspaper can end up being the most expensive item in your shopping basket, I was personally shocked when I saw that it cost more than my 3 litre bottle of Coca-Cola.

Dinner Time
Uruguayans eat late, really late, somewhere between 10pm-midnight. The amount of times I would meet people around 10pm for a drink only to find that they hadn’t eaten and that they were actually more interested in eating than drinking has been numerous, and each time, for a Brit like me has been hard to fathom. The normal English ritual of going out for a quiet drink, which is normally somewhere between 3 to 5 pints, would make you the token drunk in Uruguay. I have generally adjusted to eating really late, especially spending time in North Argentina where the siesta puts you back a few hours anyway, but still the idea of going out to eat all the time is hard for me. I never do it in England due to the cost, and would also struggle to do all the time in Uruguay for the same reasons. My ‘going out’ allowance will always simply translate as Beer allowance, it’s one cultural trait that I will always find hard to change.

This is the story of a recent case in Bahia, Brazil involving a love rival, a contract killer and a bottle of ketchup. Carlos Roberto de Jesús, a convicted felon, was given a decent pay-off in order to take care of “Lupita”, the love rival of Maria whom Maria wanted rid in order to be with her man.

The only problem was Carlos was a little bit fond of Lupita, who he’d had a bit of a relationship with too, so instead of pulling off the killing as planned he decided to tell Lupita what he had been asked to do, and together they decided to stage the murder.

So Carlos had Lupita lie on the floor with bandaged eyes and hands tied behind her back and then he smeared her with ketchup.

Unfortunately for Carlos he didn’t get to keep the reward of 575 US dollars as he was spotted hanging around with Lupita in the town where Maria also lived! Maria went to the police claiming Carlos had stolen the 575 from her, forgetting about the mobile phone pictures, which somehow resulted in all three of them going to jail, Maria for planning a murder and Carlos and Lupita for extortion.

The past few weeks have been spent furiously listening to music from the Pernambuco province of Brazil. The result… this compilation:

Musica de Massa! New Sounds of Pernambuco

It’s been getting some good attention in Brazil and might even sneak a mention in a Sao Paulo newspaper, but we shall see. I’ll keep you all up-to-date.

Robert Wladyslaw Parzelski took a flight from London to Sao Paulo. Upon arriving he set-up camp on a concrete bench. It would be 18 days before he left.

This story, which appeared in The Guardian last week, is really interesting for a number of reasons. One, because it definitely has clear echoes of Steven Spielberg’s film The Terminal (life imitating art and all that); two, because the airport really didn’t seem bothered that he was there which meant he could have stayed probably for as long as he wanted; three, and lastly, that no-one really knows what he was doing there.

Parzelski could not speak Portuguese or English, which made it very hard for the airport’s cleaning staff to ask him what exactly he was doing there. So, after someone informed the paper’s of his presence, they then found a Polish doctor to speak to him. Parzelski told the man that he had been sent to Sao Paulo to pick up two specially-commissioned telephones!! Yes… telephones! And that the man he was supposed to meet never showed up.

It does seem one of the strangest reasons to visit Sao Paulo, but hey, each to their own.

Parzelski is now back in London after the authorities managed to get him onto a flight. You can read the story in The Guardian here.

It’s now been a couple of months since I got back from Sao Paulo but I am still working on material from my time there, and this has manifested itself in a number of ways.

The most exciting result from my time in Sao Paulo is the article I wrote for The Wire, which has been published in the May edition of The Wire. You can read that article here. However, as well as featuring in the print edition I also collected a number of mp3s for their website. You can listen to those mp3s here.

Even more exciting though is the compilation I made for Sounds and Colours, which was released today. This features 18 tracks by artists from Sao Paulo, highlighting the truly eclectic, amazing mix happening in the city at the moment. The compilation is entitled Nossa, Cara! New Sounds of Sao Paulo and can be listened to and downloaded from here.

I have also published a few interviews with singers from Sao Paulo, for both Sounds and Colours and JungleDrums. These were with Juliana R, Lulina, Blubell and Tulipa.

I’ve still got a few more articles to post too so keep your eyes peeled!

I wanted to leave you with a video from Criolo. He’s a rapper from the Grajaú neighbourhood of Sao Paulo and has just released Nó Na Orelha (you can download it for free from here), one of the best hip-hop albums I’ve ever heard! Here’s his video for “Nao Existe Amor Em SP (Love Doesn’t Exist in Sao Paulo)”:

Panama is a nation rich in history and tradition. Once a shipping gateway for Spanish gold and a haven for famous swashbucklers like Henry Morgan, the country is now a world-renowned recreational paradise filled with amazing natural sights as well as extraordinary man-made attractions like the Panama Canal. While in Panama, hotels like Veneto Panama can arrange a variety of tours that will help you take advantage of all the tourism opportunities that are available to you. Many visitors to Panama don’t realize that, less than an hour away from the capital, you can find breathtaking beaches on both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts and ecotourism excursions to Panama’s rainforests as well as world-class golf, fishing and diving.

Bocas Del Toro

Bocas Del Toro is a region of unparalleled natural resources and its rain forests are considered very important in the development of Eco tourism. Located on the Panamanian part of the Caribbean, it’s also ranked as one of the best scuba diving spots in the world. The Isla Bastimentos Marine National Park located here is the country’s first national marine park covering 32,682 acres. One of Panama’s most beautiful and important marine habitats, the diversity of the marine species and coral reefs make it an ideal place for diving. Also located here is Bird Island. Although it looks like just a giant rock in the middle of the ocean, it is of vital importance in the preservation of the ecosystem as migratory birds travel great distances to rest here. Depending on the season, the island is home to as many as 50 different species of birds.

Chiriqui

Many travelers say that when you go to Chiriqui, you are transported into paradise. Chiriqui boasts rivers of crystal clear water flowing into magnificent waterfalls, beautiful beaches and thermal pools known for their healing powers. The tropical rain forests and the “Baru” Volcano are a breathtaking sight .The La Amistad International Park World Heritage Site by UNESCO is the last of the primordial forests in Central America and the National Marine Park of the Gulf of Chiriqui showcases the splendour of many different coral reefs and their marine life.

Darien

It may surprise many visitors that Panama has mountains but the majestic mountains of San Blas, Bagre, Pirre and Sapo rise from 4921 to 5905 feet above sea level. The Darien National Park is considered one of the most important natural reserves in the country.  Occupying most of the province and covering 1430 acres, it was declared a World Heritage Site in 1983 by UNESCO. Most notably this area is home to the Harpia Eagle, which is Panama’s National Bird. In fact, this ecosystem is known as one of the world’s best areas for bird watching. Inside Darien National Park, there are also the remains of a fort that protected the Spanish entry to the gold mines of Cana.

San Blas

San Blas is the region where the women wear the famous multicoloured molas. Molas are regarded as one of the most sophisticated crafts from Latin America and is classified as one as the most beautiful indigenous costumes in the world.  They are made from brightly coloured cotton fabrics with geometric and abstract designs reflecting daily life embroidered on them. They also have items made of pure gold that the women use to adorn the garments. The chaquira necklaces are also produced in the region. This area is characterised by the fact that the people keep true to their customs and traditions; so much so that tourists are only allowed into the areas by permission of the chieftain or by permit.

Panama City presents a fascinating contrast between historical and modern, from the famous Bridge of the Americas to the Historical ruins of Old Panama, which was destroyed in 1671 by the pirate Henry Morgan. The city center is characterised by narrow alleys and brick streets surrounded by colonial buildings, historical ruins of the first city, museums, and churches. But, in addition to the many interesting sights to see in Panama City itself, there are also many unique sights and experiences to be found outside of the city.

Today, I’ve got something a little different, a bit of self-promotion! I’ve been designing web sites for a number of years now and thought it was finally time I updated my personal web design site. So, now I can reveal the new look THG Creative site which you can see right HERE.

If you like what you see, get in touch.

Who would have thought 12 days could pass by so quickly. My final flurry of activity in Sao Paulo to complete my last interviews and write up a few articles, as well as make sure I’d actually been to enough concerts to be able to write about some of them, and then eight days in Trindade has meant the pace had to slow on the blog here.

I am now officially back in the real world though, one where it takes a damn sight less than 10 minutes to read an email, and where I suddenly feel so much dirtier with my murky clothes looking so much more distasteful in the sharp, well-dressed environs of Sao Paulo. If you had ever tried to dry clothes in Trindade, i.e. in the rainforest, you would probably understand just why my clothes are currently in such a shabby state!

Over the next few days I will be doing my best to update the blog with a few bits and bobs about Paraty and Trindade carnival, as well as a few extra things about Sao Paulo that have yet to make it from notepad to notebook.

Two things have coincided heavily in Sao Paulo this week. The first is the fact that I have suddenly realised that I am off to Trindade for my proper holiday on Friday, and suddenly needing very much to get all my writing assignments in this week. Annoyingly Time Out have pulled in their deadline to early March for their April edition, which makes trying to find independent gigs to write about extremely tricky, and has also culminated in a deadline that ends with the carnival, which seems a ridiculous idea!

Thankfully this has also coincided with the return of bad weather in Sao Paulo. The weather has in fact been so bad as to be English. Instead of the normal sunny mornings, stormy afternoons and ridiculously warm nights we are simply getting drizzle 24/7. If I was just in Sao Paulo for a couple of days I would be pretty pissed off, and telling everyone I met not to come here, which I might do anyway.

On a productive note, an article I wrote a week or so ago has just gone online at Rio Times. You can read it HERE. Unsurprisingly the editor took away my criticisms of the Rio government for trying to stop anyone ever promoting something set in the favela, when they in fact should be promoting these very films. O Samba Que Mora Em Mim, the film I wrote about here, is one of the films, and lets you eavesdrop on all the amazing people living within the Mangueira favela in Rio. It’s one of the most arresting and visually appealing films I’ve seen in a long time. It’s just a shame the government only wants people to see the carnival queen!