Capital Times Part Two

You have to feel for Montevideo, really. A stone's throw away across the Rio Plata from Buenos Aires, the result is that almost the entire population moves to Argentina as soon as they are old enough to catch the ferry. Consequently what is left feels a bit like a leftover or an afterthought. The tourist board does their best, but you can't really hide the fact that there's very little to see in the Old Town. A few months ago we were confidently told (by a Canadian) that you can exhaust all Montevideo's possibilities in five hours or less, so we thought we'd put this theory to the test. This also gave us a good opportunity to continue our game 'I Spy Diego Forlan', the Uruguayans paying homage to this particular national patron saint with multiple advertising campaigns and a selection of tasteless crockery*.

If you don't like football, there really is- I must confess- no good reason to visit Montevideo. There's nothing much wrong with it- wide streets, lots of trees, a few good shops- but there doesnt seem to be anythng really right with it either. The one claim to interest is that it houses the Estadio Centenario, the location for the first World Cup in 1930 (or thenabouts-it was a hot day) and a small but interesting Museum of Football which exhibits amongst other trophies, the very shirt worn by Geoff Hurst for England in the 1966 World Cup Final.

Can someone explain this to me? I would have thought such a pivotal item of footballing memorabilia would be residing somewhere in London, with an armed guard, some dimmed lights and an outraegous entrance fee. I made enquiries to this effect and was informed that the British Foreign Office had donated the shirt as a gesture of friendship towards the Uruguayans. Ok, fine- I'm happy to be friendly towards the Uruguayans but surely the Foreign Sec. could have given them some Cornwall fudge and a paperweight instead of a crucial part of the nation's sportng heritage? I was so peeved that I drank almost their entire water cooler (it was a very hot day)

It's possible that I over-reacted slightly due to a lack of sleep. This was caused by a lunatic man in the dormitory who set his alarm clock to go off at 3am and then went to sleep with earplugs in. Happily, he also snored like a rhinoceros on steroids- the sort of snoring that makes the walls vibrate, and was impervious to all my hissed promises to make him eat his own testicles if he did not immediately cease and desist. Eventually I actually got out of my own bed and went and kicked his repeatedly. That didn't work either, but someone else must have said something as he checked out after breakfast. Good riddance.

We left the next day for a dinky little beach town called Punta del Diablo, where I managed to get sunburnt through a thick layer of cloud on the first day, followed by two days of pretty consistently rubbish weather. Not a problem- the bar was well stocked (less so by the time I had finished with it) and all our friends from Buenos Aires and Ushuaia showed up, so we had a jolly old time watching sport and being raucous. The only real downside, apart from a dangerous lurch towards cirrhosis, was the presence of a mosquito in our dorm room, which gorged itself upon my tender flesh. So now I itch like a demon and look like a bubonic plague victim. But I do have the best news to report: The Museum of Corned Beef is back on. We arrived in Fray Bentos just this evening. The Old Pie Factory awaits us tomorrow. And if you're really lucky I won't write a whole blog about it.

* seriously- if you don't know who Diego Forlan is- stop reading my blog. You and I have nothing in common :-)