Back in Luxembourg

Well, that´s it. After a year off work Martine and I have returned to Luxembourg. We have had a brilliant year and spent the last couple of days expecting something to go wrong. We thought we had hit our bad luck when the plane thumped down on the runway in San Paulo, but I guess the pilot just wanted to be sure we stopped before the end. We even managed to change airports in London with amazing ease and the weather was fine when we arrived home. Of course, that didn´t last long, but we were very happy to return safe and sound.



After a week in the same place now, it seems rather strange not to be packing our rucksacks and jumping on a bus. We have even returned to the modern world by buying new mobile phones (same numbers as before) and I (Stuart) have dressed smartly every day. Martine has been able to use a hairdryer and confine her hiking books to a dark corner of the room.



So, just in case you enjoyed our blog as much as we did, thank you very much for enjoying it with us and we look forward to reading yours.



Stuart and Martine



PS: Next summer we´re off to Scandanavia-can´t wait.

Boca atmosphere

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Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

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El Gaucho

Thank you!!

El Gran Finale- Estancia

As the Big Final, I had kept my voucher for the cowboy experience, to be cashed at the El Teruno Estancia, Colonia, Uruguay. We were a little apprehensive at first, so the experience would have to be quite special. El Torruno is excellent though, within seconds you felt transported to Our Little Farm: fireplace in your room, gauchos running around in funny trousers and hats, lots of horses, cows, donkeys, austriches, sheep, and the whole thing nicely grilled for dinner in the evening.

Nothing had prepared us for the ultimate Little Farm experience: we were invited to take a horse and carriage for a ride, ON OUR OWN. You can imagine the excitement and the panic, but thankfully, Stu has watched enough cowboy movies over the years to do a great job. When he got carried away singing cowboy songs and shouting 'EEEEhaaa!', the horse took off in a gallop and spun us around the farm...that hat has obviously had its effects over the months... We had a great time and forced ourselves to leave after three days. Stu was quite happy in some respect as my hands wouldn't smell of cow anymore as I had taken to miking the cows. A very, well natural, experience.

Barbed wire,Vomit,Spit,Dope and NOT Robbed

If you hadn't guessed from the title Martine and I went to another football match here in BA. This time we didn't go to see River Plate as their game was cancelled due to one of their main hooligans being killed which sparked a turf war among gangs. Apparently the hooligans control the ticket allocation, drinks and food sold in the ground and parking around the stadium, so it'a all big money. Anyway, this time we went to Estadio Diego Armando Maradona which is home to Argentinos (this was Maradona's first club and he help pay for the stadium) who were hosting the mighty Boca Juinors (the club Maradona became famous with and who won the equivalent of the Champions League this year). At first, we were led in to the home end and placed (with about 100 other tourists) next to the where the local hooligans were arriving and sat down to watch a reserve game before the big match. However, a very stupid tourist cheered for Boca when their reserves scored and Police swiftly moved us to the Boca end of the ground before the rest of the home support arrived. Our guide was already worried about our first seating position and was visibly more worried now. So after our third body search we entered the away end of the stadium and our guide wisely moved us away from the other tourists and near the only policeman we saw nearby during the match. So with standing room only, in an area surrounded by fences with barbed wire and amongst the constant smell of dope we watched the game. Well as best we could - Martine couldn't see the goal to the left as seven men aged 20 to 50 were standing on a metal barrier in order to encourage the crowd to sing. This encouragement involved shouting at you if you didn't sing and being spat on. We wondered why the people who were spat on didn't retaliate, but they were probably put off by his badly bleached hair, shiny tracksuit and the fact that where the others on the barrier had to hold on to a flag to keep their balance he had some little serf to hold him up (who stood directly below him and couldn't have seen a moment of the action). In case you are wondering we weren't spat on as I sang all the words that went "OOH...DEE...DAE...DAA...OIH" and Martine was so squashed she had no choice but do bounce about with the best of them.

Well, the game and atmosphere was fantastic. Argentinos won 3-2 in a thrilling match even though their Manager was sent off and the atmosphere was brilliant even though someone sitting on the wall at the back of the crowd vomited onto the fans and the club flag (causing a rush forward in the crowd as if a goal had been scored - luckily it happened 2 metres to left of us).

However, we found out after the game had finished that we were luckier than we first thought. As soon as the game finished our guide took us towards the police (who had now arrived in the stand) and waited for the rest of the fans to leave. Martine was already suspicious of two men who were earlier pointing at her and as we followed the water canon out of the stadium the guide told us that the Boca hooligans had robbed the other tourists of their cameras and money at half time. I think we'll stick to St.Johnstone...

Montevideo, Uru-where?

In preparation for our return to Luxembourg, we thought visiting a small country will get us back in the mood, so after Brazil, we headed to Uruguay. With only 3.5 million inhabitants, we were welcomed very warmly, given that they had finally found out more about a nation that made them seem really big. And with 13 million cows and 11 million sheep, you can't say noone lives here, you must only be careful the cows don't start a revolution, cos then the Uruguayans would have to run fast... Cows are on the menu everywhere here: parilla, asado, leather gloves, leather jackets, cow skins as carpets and the whole thing accompanied with delicious local wine or their mate tea that everyone drinks all day long. We love Uruguay and especially Montevideo: it's small, green, clean, quiet, it's cheap, and they put the sun on display for the first cold days that we were here, very nice.

Uruguay is, however, also the country of contrasts. If you live around the beach or the old centre and you're around 30, you're most likely to have a good education, speak English, most probably have university education, and a job that pays about 250 Euros a month, which also means that you're probably thinking of joining the other 50 000 Uruguayans who leave their country every year to live in some other promised land.

If you live in the outskirts, and you are 30, you are most likely to have had about 5 to 7 children, have a tin shelter as a house and not good primary education. Your husband may be one of the men collecting rubbish in town with the horse carriage, separate it and sell it to make some money, and you're most likely not to regard a kitchen, bathroom, a medical or teeth as a normal part of your life.

After spending the first week in the glossy area of Montevideo, we spent the second part of our stay with an NGO in the slums, and learned a fair bit.

NGO in Montevideo

Whilst in Montevideo, Martine and I visited an NGO which is partly funded by a Catholic organisation in Luxembourg. So being good Catholics (stop laughing) we visted a Community Centre/Soup Kitchen/After School Club/Health Centre/Family Advice...in an area made up of a mixture of metal shacks and concrete houses. The main source of employment is from refuge collection/recycling. Basically, the fathers and sons go around the the city on horse and cart collecting rubbish, take it home, separate it and sell it to the recycling plant. The families are often quite large and usually share one to two rooms with no heating, insulation, hot water etc. However, when we visted some of the families at home we were always given a warm welcome and the people didn´t seem to mind us looking at them with our jaws and eyes wide open at all. I really thought I had seen it all after visiting some of the worst council houses in the Stirling area, but this blew me away. Indeed, things are so bad there, the swimming pool blew away 2 years ago which the Centre took the children to 3 times a week (with no hot water and freezing houses the desire to wash every day is understandably low in some families). It has not been replaced and the people at the Centre miss it dearly...

So to give you more of an idea of what the Centre do, they: give health advice to expecting mothers (we met one aged 14, but most start far later - 15 to 18); give the children some informal education in computing, cooking, knitting, dancing and soon carpentry; provide free breakfast, lunch and dinner for those attending and on Fridays they provide food for all the families who want it (500 people a day during the recession). Some children arrive with a 5 litre plastic paint pot and use the Centre´s take-away service, while other families eat-in. As you can imagine it is all a bit tragic when you see all this, but I couldn´t help chuckle when a mother (aged 27) asked for 8 bowls of soup - one each for her and and the 7 kids. Although, this wasn´t quite as funny as when I asked one child of 15 what he wanted to be when he left school and he said "Narcotics trafficker". I asked if there was anything else legal he would like to do and he replied "Pilot". I guess he´s more likely to be the first, but you never know, if he does well he could combine the two...

Finally though, we met some great folk and have never been embraced by so many different people in such a short space of time. We certainly learned a lot and took away far more than we gave back.