And the adventure continues...

At this point I have resigned from achieving perfect fluency in Spanish, I have now convinced more and more people to accept the fact that I will probably respond to them in English. At least my listening skills have increased - I can probably understand 80% of what they say. It has taken this long because my friends come from different parts of the country with their own accent. Time and time again, each of them had confessed to me that they often don't understand each other either. So at least I don't feel that bad. One thing though is that I continue to be baffled by the Latin American sense of time. It's the same old story, that their time generally runs later than ours - if I tell you to meet me at 12am, you will probably come by around 2am. As such, people generally go out past midnight. One interesting experience in the streets of Montevideo late at night was my acquaintances with the "planchas". This is the Uruguayan equivalent of "hoodlums" or less-accurately "gangsters". I was out with a couple of my friends looking for convenience stores that were still open. We were accosted by a couple young planchas who asked for money. Having had plenty of experiences with people asking me for money here, I guess I acted too approachable with them. While my friends were quick to say no, in my state, I started talking to them - stating that I was from the US, that I didn't have cash, but that I had a credit card. One of the girls in my group got uneasy. Then one of the planchas said that they could see that I had money and pointed to my jacket. I then proceeded to open up my jacket to show that I had nothing. This drove that girl crazy. So then we parted ways as if I made a new friend.  It was a good experience. I was soon told that they often carried knives or guns - that Montevideo is safe in terms of a lower percentage of homicides, but apparently just as many robberies. Fun times.

In the first picture above, this was on a Friday when two other people and me went to the Centro Geriátrico to help out old people. The Centro was located in one of the poor barrios of Montevideo, but the ward (which oddly enough reminds me of Shutter Island) was pretty clean and well-kept. We joined another charitable group who was in charge of organizing the activity. But we ended up doing nothing. We only donated clothes and then we left. Then we just enjoyed a nice merienda at La Pasiva - had some classic pizza and fainá (fried garbanzo bean paste). On Saturday was the Octafinals game between Uruguay and South Korea. When the Uruguayan team won, the streets were crazier than I had ever seen for the previous games. People crowded onto the major street downtown to dance and chant "Soy celeste, soy celeste, celeste soy yo". People were throwing down confetti from the buildings. People with beer bottles in hand were screaming and climbing on top of anything they could find. It was basically a riot. Of course, I had to join in on the fun.

Next I decided to pass my day in Piriápolis, which is about a 2 hour bus ride from Montevideo (close to where I went fishing). Near this seaside resort town was a mountain called Cerro Pan de Azúcar, one of the taller mountains in the plains of Uruguay. To get there, it actually started off with my stealing of someone else's seat. The woman from whom I took her seat ended going in the same general direction. She was a school teacher at a secondary school in the town Pan de Azúcar and was heading there from Montevideo. A very fortuitous encounter indeed. At the base of Cerro Pan de Azúcar reserve there is a small wildlife sanctuary with a couple of odd animals. But I was quick to start the hike. I thought it was going to be a relatively easy but long hike, but it turns out that it was more of a rock climbing thing. And the genius mountaineer that designed the path decided (either out of laziness or apathy) to use the trail carved by a small stream of running water. This made the climb much harder and more dangerous because of the slippery rocks. I probably should have died a couple of times, but all is well. The view from the mountain was spectacular and all you can hear was the brushing of the wind against the flora - combined with the religious icons, it was a serene divine-like experience.

At the top of the mountain is a giant cross, a testament to the regions ties with the Roman Catholic religion. To my surprise, you could actually climb into the cross and enter the arms of the cross. Having never liked heights, climbing up the cross was nerve-racking as the strong winds hit against the concrete cross. But I figured since I almost died so many times in this trek, I might as well risk the least likely (the cross collapsing due to the wind). I then spent the rest of the day in the rambla (beachside) of Piriápolis, a city designed by one man, Mr. Piria. As can be expected, this place is a lot more busy during the summer and is considered a part of the Riviera of South America. I then made my way back to Montevideo and now to prepare for a long days work tomorrow...