Piriapolis

We walk to get bread from ‘the bitches’ -- two particularly unfriendly women who run a local panaderia - where the bread isn’t even good, or fresh, but it’s close

Horses get tied up in various grassy fields in our neighborhood: living lawn mowers. Today they are across the street as I leave home, and look lazily at me as I walk by.

Directions to our house: follow the main road Las Ramblas from the waterfront to Maipu (pronounced “my poo” hee hee), go up the hill and a la derecha at Casa Pinky. Last casitas in the back.

At 5pm the normally ghost-like street along the waterfront is buzzing with traffic, and the stone breakwater is littered with teenagers. Clusters of them, smoking, drinking maté, drinking beer, kissing, playing cards; many have mopeds, many more are on foot … and those who have a car show it off, parked along the sidewalk with the doors open and radios blaring ranchero-type music.

A large hawk sits on the telephone wire outside La Casa Muy Frio – he has a herringbone chest and dark hood like an executioner. Two smaller birds sandwich him, and as soon as he takes flight they dive and peck, protecting a nest no doubt. La Rio de la Plata is a huge estuary and the local bird life is rich. White egrets with dandy headdresses … oystercatchers … cormorants … a grey-brown gull that appears drab until he spreads his wings and flies, then he is striking. Sparrows dart through the shipyard, making nests in the exhaust pipes of hauled out boats.

“Ho-Laaaaaaaaaaaaah” says the construction worker I pass every day. I think this is the Uruguayan version of “How-DEEEEEEE”

Stray dogs and cats are more worldly and friendly here – I guess this is the only way they can score any chow. They seem busy, industrious, always on the go. Our kitty (an orangy Garfield-like fellow) at our casa is very persistent and bold, crass. The scraggly old cat at the yard is much more lady-like; she makes her presence known but doesn’t beg or thieve.

ADD TO LIST OF THINGS I LIKE ABOUT LIFE IN PIRIAPOLIS: after the rain, a colorful mosaic of paint chips collects in the cracks of the pavement at the shipyard.

ADD TO LIST OF THINGS I DON’T LIKE ABOUT LIFE IN PIRIAPOLIS: scorpions in the bathroom