Saturday, November 15, 2008
Friends & Family:
Today Kathy & Frank took the day off from their many ambassadorial duties, and played tour-guide for Bill & I. We headed off from The Residence (that has such a nice ring to it) to the coastal town of Punta del Este, which is about 2 hours east of Montevideo along the coast.
Punta del Este is known as an upscale vacation spot (frequented by celebrities such as the singer Ashanti) due to its "vibrant night life & beautiful wide beaches". Over 100 hotels and same number of restaurants make this a hopping place during the summer time... their December - February. In the other months, such as this one (November) it is downright empty! We traveled by van, driven by Frank's driver and accompanied by his bodyguard! The van is a specially built vehicle with windows that DO NOT open... this way when we stopped at toll gates, the driver couldn't roll down the window to pay the toll "in case someone threw a bomb in". But ironically, the way he had to pay the toll was to open the door! Go figure!
Just before arriving at Punta del Este we stopped at what is a HUGE museum/home/art studio/and just basically the #1 "must see" in Uruguay - CasaPueblo, the home of the most famous Uruguayan artist and sculpture Carlos Paez Vilaro - Out of the middle of no where appears this gigantic series of structures that look like a cross between Arabian nights and something on the island of Corsica! Set right along the beach, this "spontaneous construction" took over 36 years to build - all by local artisans and workers just "going with the flow"! I could go on & on about Vilaro, but suffice it to say he was a friend of Picasso, lived with Albert Schweitzer in an African leprosy colony, has 6 kids by various "relationships" (one of whom was lost in the plane that went down in the Andes in 1972 and whom he found 3 months later having survived by eating the flesh of his dead colleagues), and is 84 and still making art (and romance we're told!). In fact, after 911, Vilaro created a huge painting that Kathy Baxter will be presenting to the NYC Fire Department, in NYC next month.
After touring this magnificent "living sculpture" of a building, we drove through the city of Punta del Este. It was a COLD COLD windy day, not a beach day at all, and no one was really outside. We stopped by the marina where usually there are hundreds of Sea Lions scampering about eating the leftovers from the fishermen, but since the ocean was so rough the boats had not ventured out this day (missed photo-op).
Here's an interesting tid-bit: In Montevideo & Punta del Este the beaches line not the ocean but a huge river called Rio de la Plata, and Frank showed us the location where the river turns into the ocean, but you'd never think by the vastness of the water that it all isn't an ocean. The water was quite muddy in color, and Bill estimated the waves on this windy day at being over 5 feet. (we didn't see any surfers!) Kathy & Frank both remarked they had never seen the waves so huge.
Then on we went to the home of some friends of the Baxter's, where we partook in a traditional Uruguayian Asada, which is a barbeque. This meal takes a long time to prepare, as the host first makes the coals out of logs, then moves the coals under the special area of the grill to cook the many different types of meat (steak, chicken, sausage, and even lots of innards!) all the while shifting the grill so that some of the food is cooking and some of the food is just staying warm. No woosey gas grill (or even manly man Weber grill) for these folks!
After a very full dinner, we sauntered lazily back to our van to settle in for the 2 hour ride back to The Residence, feeling safe enough to doze off since we had our (well, Frank's) bodyguard watching over us! Stay tuned for tomorrow!
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