Feliz Navidad

For all of you who were worried, Christmas was great!! I enjoyed a grand feast of beef, pork, and chicken from the parilla (the Latin American version of the grill) at the house of Mati's sister. The parilla is no small event. A large fire is stoked on one side of the stationary, built-in grill and as the red-hot coals fall they are pushed to the other side of the grill, under the meat. This makes for very tasty carne asada. Of course we started the evening with appetizers of all sorts. There was chorizo, salivary gland of a pig (very salty), and small cubes of cheese, each melted and flavored on its own depression of a special ceramic dish designed (by a Uruguayan) specifically for this purpose alone. Once it was time for dinner, I was offered pork from a large collection on a platter and I took a fairly generous piece (for my limited meat diet), little did I know that there was also chicken and beef to go around. Needless to say, I ate only the pork. The end of dinner was interrupted by the fireworks at midnight when we all went to the street and participated (with the rest of the city) in lighting fireworks. The street was filled with the smoke and sounds and light of the celebration. After this, we opened gifts and at about 3AM decided it was time for bed but the sounds of the celebration kept on. I enjoyed the Holiday here. The time leading up to Christmas is much more understated than in the U.S. In the U.S., we barely have a chance to be thankful at Thanksgiving before Christmas is being flaunted. Yes, shopping is universal as I experienced on Christmas Eve when I went to the local mall to buy a gift for the gift exchange. The place was crawling with people. It was crazy! But other than this I was not assaulted with Christmas as I feel I am most of the time in the U.S. Here the decorations are small and the Holiday seemed more about getting together and feasting with family than anything else, which I thought was refreshing.

Nothing else like it.

Last Thursday was our first attempt at capturing Upland Sandpipers here in Uruguay. We began by visiting a site where we previously saw birds. When UPSA were still present, we began the task of finding the owner of the estancia. Luckily for us, two of the estancia employees lived in a small shack nearby and they were friendly and talkative. They directed us to the brother of the landowner where we wanted to trap; he lived a mere 5km (more or less) away. We drove to his house, introduced ourselves and Mati set about explaining who we are and what we were doing. After sharing some pleasantries, we were on our way with no problem. The owner was interested in birds and more than willing to allow us access to the land. The night was clear and moonless (until 1AM at least) and there was a slight breeze; perfect conditions. I can not describe to you the sky. There are no words to describe the sky here with all of the stars, the Milky Way, shooting stars and get this, nebuli. It is so dark here you can see nebuli. Amazing. Under this amazing and sometimes distracting blanket of the universe, we captured the first Upland Sandpiper here in Uruguay. For me, there is great satisfaction in tromping around in an overgrazed pasture in the middle of the night carrying a big circular net while another person in front of me searches the ground for sandpipers using a million candle power spotlight. All that is illuminated is the area within the range of the spotlight and everything else is night. quiet and peaceful.

Mi Casa

Here are the pictures of my house in Tacuarembo. And I was right, the area where I am living is a common vacation destination. I fact it is called Balneario Ipora or Ipora Resort. I am living in a resort! The resorts here are public so maybe it is more like a park? This explains the very nice and very large homes and the general upkeep of the area. I am thankful for the views, the peace and quiet, and the well-mannered and well-groomed dogs that are generally friendly and greet me on my walks.

This place is the land of bikes, scooters, and motorcycles. Everywhere you drive you are dodging them on the left and right. In many places people use bikes and scooters because they can’t afford anything else but here near the resort and in Tacuarembo, I think riding them is fashionable. It is a resort town after all and people are here to enjoy themselves on Holiday. The scooters and bikes are fairly dangerous however. The past two days in a row, we saw the aftermath of accidents involving a car and a scooter, can you guess who must have won? The driving here is not stellar to begin with. Most people don’t stop until they are nearly in the middle of the intersection and I’m not suite sure how people tell who is going to continue and who is going to stop but somehow traffic keeps moving along and accidents seem to be rarer than they are common.

New Flash

Did anyone hear about this last year? This estancia happens to be along the road that we surveyed this week. Two young boys stopped to talk to Mati and I (well, mostly Mati for obvious communication reasons) and told her about this event. Pretty crazy.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2007-08/20/content_603 3939.htm

This is the only information I could find about it in English online. To view the page you have the get rid of the colon after the 6. For some reason blogger puts one in there when I publish the link. If you happen upon something more detailed please pass it along!

Montevideo

The Sociedad Zoologica del Uruguay hosted a meeting at the Universidad de la Republica from Thursday to Saturday and we returned to Monetivdeo for this event. I went to one day of talks but knowing that I couldn’t communicate much with anyone, owning to my lack of Spanish skills, I didn’t hang around much. Instead I worked on my manuscript, went to the neighborhood feria with Griselda (Mati’s mom), walked at the beach, etc.

The ferias are pretty cool here. There are many different types of ferias but all are open air markets set up in the street or in a park. Some last for weeks at a time (such as the artisan feria I mention later) but others are open for only one day. The latter is usually the case of the neighborhood ferias that mainly sell fruits, vegetables, cheese, meats, cleaning supplies and little bit of anything else you might think of. Each neighborhood has a feria of its own but the cool thing is that if you miss the one for your neighborhood you can visit the feria of a nearby neighborhood later in the week. There is only one day, Monday, that there are no neighborhood ferias. Each of these neighborhood ferias is open for one day. Each vendor pulls up by whatever mean they have (very old VW vans are common), opens shop, and then closes down at the end of the day. I assume that each vendor works a series of different ferias on sort of a rotation. In any case, I like these and wish there was something like it in the states. The closest thing we have is a farmers’ market and as you know these don’t travel to your neighborhood, you travel to them and they are usally open one day per week. So if you don’t have transportation or you are busy on that day, forget about it. Here anyone can go to a feria any day of the week (except Monday or course) and buy their food and other goods from local folks and enjoy the walk, too.

Saturday was the birthday party of Mati’s niece (Paulina, 2) and nephew (Mateo, 4) at La Casa de Kien, a place made entirely for children’s birthday parties (Kristen you would like this place!). The kids played in an indoor play area, dressed up in costumes, batted at a piñata, opened gifts, and danced all afternoon. All of this was as orchestrated by two folks whose job it was to entertain the kids so the adults could hang out themselves. What an idea! Do these places exist in the US?

After this, Mati showed me around the Cuidad Viejo. We visited the Mercado de Puerto, a famous old building that was renovated into numerous restaurants under the same roof that target tourists. After witnessing the Brazilian drummers and dancer and many intoxicated people, we strolled along the streets, enjoyed café and happened upon the Uruguayan Navy Band giving a performance in the Plaza Zabado. We walked through the Plaza Independencia, where a huge statue of General Artigas celebrates Uruguay’s liberation from the quarreling countries of Brazil and Argentina. Eventually, after much waiting at a bus stop and a little more walking, we ended up at the Feria de Ideas, a month long outdoor arts, books and music fair. It was a little pricey (by Uruguayn standards) but worth the unique items found. Maybe one will end up in your hands when I return;)

To round out the night, I enjoyed fireworks as part of the Festival de Las Luces held every December. Think of it as the 4^th of July in December. No Uruguayans aren’t celebrating their date of independence per se however it is summer and there were fireworks.

The Roads Less Traveled

For the four days in Tacuarembo (Friday - Monday), we searched areas where previous surveys by Aves Uruguay determined Upland Sandpipers (Batitu) were present. I don’t know who or how these areas were picked because it looks to me like there is UPSA habitat just about everywhere.

There are two main roads that we use to get out of town. The first is Rt. 26 and the second is Rt. 31. Both go west out of Tacuarembo; 31 out of the NW and 26 out of the SW side. If you go far enough on either you will reach Argentina via Salto (31) or Paysando (26). These roads are paved but of varying quality. 26 is wider with a nice shoulder but 31 is windy and narrow. To get to the areas where the UPSAs are we have to drive one and a half hours on the paved roads and then turn off the main paved road onto what is essentially a two-track winding through the grassland. Fences on either side of the two-track mark the boundary of public access.

The first the day, Friday, the road simply puttered out. We had been following a faint two-track that we periodically lost and found again than finally disappeared all together. We could see a two-track to our right but since it was on the other side of the fence it was private. Given the lack of towns and desolation of the area, I can see how some of the roads go unused and cease to exist without anyone taking notice. They are, in a sense, ‘roads to nowhere’. The area is so vast and empty; grassland and nothing else.

View Larger Map

There are stands of trees on the horizon, an exotic species planted for lumber; they are very straight and tall. Small stands are also planted to provide shade for the cattle and sheep and gauchos, much as they do in the US. The sun can be absolutely searing in the afternoon. Where there isn’t a stand of trees, the cattle and sheep huddle up together under any scrap of shade they can find; small native trees with tiny leaves. You would think that all of their bodies huddled together would create more heat than the shade would neutralize. But there they are, huddled.

On Monday, the longest and hottest day, we passed through three small towns, Arerunga, Vera, and Cerro Bandera. This was one day where the roads were in better condition, presumably to allow passage of goods to the towns. These towns are like no other, they are primitive, with no electricity although one of them had solar power. We stopped in one, Arerunga, because Mati wanted bananas. I thought the chances of finding anything fresh were slim. In fact, the first we placed we stopped, that was still on the main highway, had no bananas. To my surprise, the woman went out back and reappeared with six small bananas. I wish I had a picture of the place. It looked like a saloon from an old western. I was a large room with very tall ceilings but it was dark inside. There was a counter that went almost the whole length of the place. The food stuffs, mostly non-perishables were stacked where the booze would have been. It was here that we also acquired forks that we had forgotten. We planned to eat leftovers for lunch and I had come up with many creative ways of eating them without a fork but at the mention of us not having any, the woman once again disappeared out back and reappeared with two forks for which she refused any payment. She was giving us her personal forks! And we are not talking about people who have much. This was incredibly generous but true to form for those that have less.

We were also treated to three water crossings, quite possibly the only water we will see in this arid environment. We crossed the first at Arerunga (of which I don’t remember the name), the next was Pasao de Guayabo (Gwa-sha-bo), and the last Pasao de Tapado. We lunched at the last one, acting much like the cows and sheep crouching next to the water in what little shade we could find.

Birds of Uruguay

Here's a sampling of the birds seen thus far. I'll continue to update as I get more photos. PS- This slide show is a nice little gadget I found on Picasa web albums. Snazzy indeed!

Tacuarembo

After a brief stay in Montevideo after my arrival, I headed to Tacuarembo with Matilde (Mati) and Luciano (Lucio) on Thursday. We have a 4-door Chevy Corsa at our disposal thanks to Eleven Rent-A-Car and my credit card. Tacuarembo is a 5-6 hour drive from Montevideo on Rt. 5. I didn’t get to see much along the way because it was convenient for the owner of the house we are renting (aka the landlord) to meet us a night; so we arrived promptly at midnight (quite a different schedule here) to the gas station on the south side of Tacuarembo. Fernando, driving a nice four door pick-up that anyone who does field work and is confined to a Corsa drools over, then led us to our house on the north side of Tacuarembo. It is a modest house with two bedrooms, a bathroom (with hot water, yay!), and a parilla of course. Somehow he managed to squeeze in beds for six! This will come in handy when everyone is here at the same time in January. The house is comfortable with three of us so I imagine space will be at a premium in January. There are no screens for the windows here which doesn’t make any sense to me since the windows and doors are open 90% of the time; there is no AC or central heat so you need the breeze for climate control. Instead you can buy these small blue pads containing insecticide (pyrethroids) that you slide into an adapter that plugs into the wall and emits a steady bug repellent throughout the night. I’d rather have a mosquito net but forgot to pack it.

The surrounding area is quite pleasant. There are tall trees (most non-native, of course) around all of the houses and most of the homes are for vacation use and are very well maintained. Dogs and horses are common in yards and in the road. There is lake, El Lago de la Juventude, picnic area, playground, and campground all at the entrance to the neighborhood. On a walk one morning, there were two tour buses parked at the picnic area/playground and I assume this must be a popular destination for weekend getaways.

It is gorgeous right now, the beginning of summer, and all of the flowers in the gardens are in bloom, hydrangeas, bougainvilleas, and more. The days are long, especially when coming from the contracted winter days of the north. Dawn is about 0630 but the daylight stretches into the 2100 hour. At the beginning of the week, the temperature was manageable but at the days progressed, the temperature continued to increase. And it will only get hotter. Out in the field, there is no relief. No shade, nothing, just you and the grass and the gravel road. I don't have pictures of the house yet (for those of you that are interested) but when I return on Sunday I will take some and post them.

Mas tarde.

Perfect Strangers

Montevideo, finally. I am taking in views of the ocean from Mati's 7th floor apartment and of the city from the 7th floor of the Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Uruguay. The trip here was long; I missed my connection to Montevideo from Miami due to delays caused by bad weather up north. Somehow, my bags made it on that original flight which means the plane was still there and waiting when I arrived at the gate. Oh well. I and another misplaced passenger embarked on a journey to find a place to stay overnight (international flights are typically scheduled once per day, if that) which ended up to be a seedy place north of the airport where the shady desk clerk charged more than he promised on the phone. But I was happy to have a bed. The following day began in a void between hotel check-out time (11 AM) and flight check-in time (6PM; take note: check-in begins 5 hours prior to your scheduled departure, not a minute before). The Miami Airport is one big mess of people and luggage without enough space to maneuver. The Information Attendant was friendly enough to reveal several coveted quiet places in the airport to which I and my fellow displaced traveler fled. There, we intersected with another traveller, waiting for a flight to none other than.... Montevideo (different flight, same destination). Together, we broke out of the airport and hopped on a bus headed for South Beach. This took an excrutiating amount of time but along the way we picked up another misplaced traveller on his way to Chile. The four of us enjoyed a late lunch in the heart of Art-Deco architecture in South Beach and touched the wide, sandy shore before heading back to the airport. Upon check-in, I was granted a seat in the far back, the way back, the cave of the plane: row 43, located conveniently between the lavatories. No way was I going to sit between two toilets for 9 hours. A quick check online indicated plenty of available seats in much better real-estate to which I upgraded. I enjoyed a pleasent vegetarian dinner of curried chickpeas and rice, arrived intact, was not harrassed by customs (even with my four bags of equipment). I am looking forward to the drive to Tacuarembo tomorrow and maybe the first glimpse of a wintering Upland Sandpiper.