The Hand in the Sand and Walking the Streets
The Hand (La Mano) or The Fingers (Los Dedos) is a sculpture by Chilean artist Mario Irarrazabal completed in 1982. The five fingers are pushing up through the sand and they are facing land, not the sea. This sculpture is on Playa Brava where the water is not safe for swimming. Some call this a “monument to the drowned”. But, the artist doesn’t like this label.
We hung around and watched a dog try to climb a sand dune again and again. It was difficult to get a picture of Maureen alone with The Hand. There was always another tourist popping up to get with The Hand. I finally got a good shot of her standing by the thumb. She took a nice one of me in front of the middle finger with just a few stray dogs walking by.
The Seamy Underbelly of Punta del Este, Uruguay
We got to our rendezvous point an hour before our cab was due to pick us up at around 5. So we continued to mill about The Hand. Then we sat on the sea wall. Then my fingers started to turn white because I was thoroughly chilled by this point. I knew I couldn’t stand another 45 minutes of this, so I moved.
We crossed the street where I had previously given a woman the finger for honking her horn at us. What is the matter with people? You are a pedestrian with a child and they just don’t give a damn. And it’s not like I move slowly because I don’t. I know enough to get out of their way but still…the aggressiveness. At least, where we come from pedestrians always have the right of way. So there.
Gimme Shelter
We made it to a bench where I attempted to sort out the food mess (fallen spaghetti) in the bag but gave that up. Looking for shelter from the winds, we stopped at a closed restaurant (told so by a guy smoking a cigarette) so we moved on to an – I don’t know what it was, it seemed like just an empty store. We were standing outside the entrance, on the street in front of the entrance. This tough guy dressed in a black suit yelled something at us. “No hablo Espanol.” (asshole) I said. He climbs over the bushes to get to us and says something. Obviously, it was “Take a hike”. So I said, “Gracias” and moved away.
He Found Us
We slipped into an alley. It wasn’t a nice-looking alley. The black-clad guy then lost all interest in us. What the hell was that all about? You can’t stand here, you can’t stand there. Nothing is open. No cafes, I mean nothing. There is nowhere to escape the elements. You can’t even huddle in a doorway on the street without getting yelled at by some hood who, I guess, is guarding some kind of valuable territory for his master. Jesus.
It was just at this moment, however, that our cab pulled up. I looked at him, got in the cab, and said, “It’s you!” He laughed. We were not near The Hand but he found us anyway. How did he do that? He saw us. He was looking for us.
We Came Home Clean
I asked him to drop us off at the Supermercado. It’s across the street from the entrance to Solanas. 1,000 pesos to Punta and 1,000 pesos back.
Massively impressive person of canine persuasion outside of the supermercado. Gravitas is written all over him. If he ran for office, I’d vote for him. Even if he ran away from the office…
We bought some bubbly and after a tiny hassle at the gate, walked home. I think the tiny hassle had something to do with showing ID…maybe. Moe watched “Monster University”. Then we went to the pool where I had forgotten my bathing suit two days earlier. It was moist. The staff had left it rolled up for two days. Would it have killed them to hang it up, or just throw it in a dryer? Oh, yeah, I forgot they don’t have dryers. Wait – housekeeping must have dryers. Then there was a dust-up over two towels. We had a sauna and a shower and came home clean.
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