We arrived by bus from Colonia del Sacramento and knocked on the door of the apartment we’d booked for six days on airbnb. Or more to the point, the room we’d booked in an apartment owned by a retired University literature teacher, and now airbnb host Marisa. Leetuan led the way with her Spanish and we were soon sitting in Marisa’s pleasant lounge room listening to John Coltrane on Uruguayan FM radio.
Marisa is a good conversationalist, a traveller herself, and she suggested some of her favourite Spanish-speaking singers to have a listen to. I was getting over a head cold and so our following days were lazier than intended, with a fair bit of lounging around “at home”, Leetuan reading her latest novel while I checked out Marisa’s CD collection and “Youtubed” some of the singers she’d mentioned.
We explored the old part of the city where there are still fine colonial-era buildings, visited by throngs of tourists spilling off the cruise ships that often dock for a few hours here, and two or three times we took a bus to the pleasant upmarket seaside district of Pocitos where we learned there were several English language cinemas. We walked along wide, sandy Pocitos beach for a bit but it was too hot and windy to tarry for longer than needed to take a few photos.
Montevideo has many theatres and we saw that at one near our place, Sala Zitarrosa, a Cuban band was playing on Wednesday night, led by enthusiastic showman and musician extraordinaire Humberto Casanova. He seemed to be able to play any instrument, very well, hopping at will from brass to keyboard to drums to guitar, like an excited boy in a toyshop. Marisa and her husband Sergio came with us; it was a good show we all thought.
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Our final night in Montevideo turned out to be the kick-off date for Montevideo’s 2016 Carnaval season. Carnavale in Rio is world famous, but many other South American cities celebrate Carnavale too, though not on such a grand scale. But what Friday’s opening procession in Montevideo may have lacked in extravagance compared with Rio, it certainly made up for it in length. Apparently it’s the longest procession in the world! We were there at the start, at 8.30 pm, and threw in the towel at midnight, at which time there was still no end in sight. So we left the crowd of thousands and walked home, where Marisa told us there were still drumming groups to come in the procession, but we’d had enough and didn’t venture back out onto the streets. Phew, Uruguayans really know how to put on a parade! That, and BBQ beef.
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