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Just Saying: Journey to Uruguay

James Bornemeier
James Bornemeier

I had never anticipated saying the next sentence in my lifetime: “Next week we’ll be going on a quick vacation jaunt to Uruguay.”

But we did and it was splendid.

A relatively new friend of ours, and a long-time friend of my brother’s wife’s younger sister, has a place on East 86th Street in Manhattan and we attended a New Year’s Eve party there a while back. She also has a 1,000-acre farm in Uruguay. We and Beverly, the sister, and her spouse, Dick, were invited to spend most of a week on the farm, which Beverly has been to several times previously and has raved about ever since.

It took me a little time to warm up to the idea, but as departure day approached I caught the generic travel bug and looked forward to the New York protocol of hailing a cab, enduring the sometimes unnerving trip to LaGuardia and putting up with the security process.

Surprisingly, my backpack was pulled aside for additional examination. A young TSA guy asked, “Would I be injured if I removed this?” (A line I had never heard before.) He pointed to a small half-full bottle of water that I had no doubt thoughtlessly stashed away on a Jitney trip. “Nope,” I replied and that was that.

On the way back to the states, the impossible happened. The same backpack was pulled aside again. A stern uniformed Uruguayan looked me over with great care and then plunged into her search. It took her a while but then she extracted a corkscrew that had been in the small pocket for probably a decade. I gestured her to toss it but she kept her eyes on me as I moved away to put on my big-buckled belt. Her boots were suitable for major ground combat.

The short flight to Miami from New York was endless, and then, after getting some airport grub, we battened down for the long leg to Montevideo, the capital. I actually slept a little bit, a miracle for me.

Pat, the farm owner, had a van waiting us and we began the nearly three-hour trip toward her sprawling property. She greeted us, along with her dogs, in descending order of seniority, Hampton (chocolate Lab), Mingo (black Lab) and Pechulo (a vibrant smallish dog with curly tan hair and a remarkable long tail that lay flat against his back, breed unknown). Her house and farm keepers, Estelle and Miguel, also welcomed us.

We were assigned the guest house while our travel companions got one of the guest bedrooms. The farm routine went like this: Breakfast around 9, lunch around 2 and dinner around 10.

We adapted effortlessly and Estelle’s food was out of this world. Scrabble/drinks proceeded dinner and, because of a marvelous draw of the best letters, I actually won a game. Mark that down. Moderated by Pat, we became a jovial bunch of yakkers and laughers.

Most days we took walks, sometimes to the Rio de la Plata, the fat estuary that separates Uruguay from its tricky neighbor Argentina, sometimes away from the water to get a sense of lay of the farm, which is mostly planted in soybeans, with some neighbor’s cows thrown in, doing their sly bovine comedy sketches.

Mingo and Pechulo would accompany us, but Hampton would somberly watch us go, knowing his legs and joints could no longer hold up for the whole trip. Pechulo had a habit of plunging into the waist-high grasses in order to roust birds. He would root around on the ground and then leap into sight seemingly propelled by hidden rocket boosters.

As is often the case on vacations, the days and hours pass by languorously and then the whole episode comes to a sudden screeching halt. We were presented with a guestbook to sign and started packing up.

We went back to Montevideo for a couple days, saw some sights and continued eating as if there were no tomorrow, which is fine as long as tomorrow never comes.

Hewing to another travel maxim, the journey back seemed to go much faster and soon we were in another cab with the city’s familiar skyscraper-scape creeping into view. The memories of the farm were pungent. This is what I wrote in the guestbook: “This is Hampton here, the farm alpha dog. I have seen many guests come and go, but I want to say a couple of things about Jim and Jane, who made their first visit recently. Jane, like me, is a prodigious sleeper and reeked of dog love. Jim called me Buddy and had an expert touch when it came to scruffling me behind the ears.

“I was struck how quickly they became enchanted with the farm, not unusual, but theirs was particularly deep and bonding. I am very old but I hope to see them come back to hang out with us and our Queen of the Farm, whom I have come to understand answers to the sound ‘Pat.’ During their visit there was almost constant laughing. That is what I will remember most. Goodbye, Jim and Jane.”