Barrancas de Arachania

The view from our back yard at Barrancas de Arachania


It should be obvious by now that I like middle-of-nowhere places that happen to be relatively close to somewhere. I like being surrounded by greenery, within earshot of crashing waves and with some measure of sea views and wild life. I guess this preference runs in the family, because my elder brother Jorge and family have found a spot that fits all those requirements and then some, in Arachania, department of Rocha. In fact, they got there way ahead of me, about 20 years ago or so, when they purchased the first of several properties there.

"La Rosada," the first one

Arrancopelito and Barrancas de Arachania, the holiday compound they have created over there, are about 100 kilometers apart, but the similarities are manifold, starting with the "never heard of it before" name.

Barrancas de Arachania is a stone's throw away from a beach of similar characteristics to ours, from where you can see both La Pedrera and La Paloma. There is a vast expanse of green area to the East, much like in our place, which in the case of Arachania is an oceanfront ranch that has not yet succumbed to subdivision, extending all the way to La Pedrera. Both places are in fact at the end of a coastal road. Once you reach Barrancas de Arachania coming from La Paloma, the coastal lane turns inland, same as at our place with the road coming from Piriapolis. Which insures, at least for the foreseeable future, that our views of the sea won't include significant vehicular traffic.

Another house in the compound

OK, there are a few differences, mainly that where we have a single house, my brother has eight. But the common, key feature is an intangible, the sense of absolute peace and relaxation provided by these special settings. That, and my brother's and his family and friends' company is why we try to spend at least a weekend every year in whichever house they happen to be camping at. Because they have built quite the successful rental business there, every year we get to stay in a different house available at the time of our visit. We are usually one of 800 houseguests (typically including my nephews' friends, my brother's friends, their friends' children and their friends' childrens' friends).

View of the latest house, from our front porch

This time the gang was staying at the newest house, which, straddling a little brook, surrounded by lush vegetation that made me green with envy, feels more South-East Asia than Southern Atlantic. But we were given our own cabin, a tiny one bedroom we had never stayed in before, the smallest of the compound. The minute sky-blue house is perched on a narrow tongue of land that falls off several meters on both sides, with fantastic views of the fields ending in the ocean on one side, and of the gardens on the other. The deck chair out back was perfect for watching the sun rise over the sea.

And then I became Michael Jackson

What a busy summer it has been. Arrancopelito was fully booked with houseguests since the last week of December until Carnaval, and it felt great to have the guest room occupied all that time.

First we had an early December overnight visit by Sara and the Croquette (a.k.a. Jessie, her curly dog), and then we had Ines and Juan Pablo, from Montevideo, followed by Sibel from Germany, Ben and Tom, from New York, and most recently Ines again, and Gustavo, Nikki and their daughter Luz, Uruguayan friends visiting from Barcelona.

Throughout the parched summer I developed tendinitis on my thumb from watering the yard with a hose to keep everything alive, although I'm much better now. Now the drought has abated, everything looks as green as what I imagine Ireland to look like, but one of the consequences of the drought has not yet let up, and that's the snake epidemic.

After a two year drought, coupled with huge fires in the area, the crucera, a venomous snake that was already abundant in the area, has benefited by the disappearance of her natural predator, the water/garden snakes which eat their eggs. Added to their greater numbers, the fires destroyed half their habitat in our area, so they "came down the hills" in droves, and in the months of December, January and February every house in our area had at least one visit, if not more. We responded by clearing more of the empty lots around our property, but that was not enough apparently.

During Sibel's stay, she was unfortunate enough to arrive one night we were out to find a one meter long crucera coiled on the entrance steps. Thanks to the warning barks from Lunes, Sibel did not get bit, and she heroically managed to collect all three dogs and keep them from harm's way until the snake was killed. I was hoping that would be the end of the snake events, seeing as the rain has been copious and there are lots of frogs to eat everywhere, but a week ago we freaked out when we woke up and saw half of Lunes' head swollen to balloon size. From the window upstairs I could tell it was a snake bite, so we raced to the vet in Maldonado. Her neck had already swollen as well, and she couldn't even bark, so I was terrified she would choke on me before we got to the vet, but all was fine, Dr. Sienra had the antidote (which nobody does in Uruguay for some reason) and she is now back to her feisty self.

But for a long time I have been told by many people that cats are the only defense against snakes. I didn't want to get cats because I feared they would hunt the birds, but now that I'm used to Lunes eating several birds a day, it's not such a strong consideration anymore, and the snake deterrent has become a priority. So yesterday finally we got our first one, Zeytin, and are about to get a couple more as soon as Zeytin is absorbed into the family and does not require any more medication.



Zeytin is very small and came in bad general health and with an eye infection, but she's making progress daily, and has not been eaten by Lunes yet, so things are looking good. Tulu licks her until she's soaked, Lunes hits her with her snout and makes a huge effort not to eat her, and Oso just follows her around.


The problem is that when we went to Sienra's to pick up Zeytin the cat, I just followed the sound of a shrieking puppy all the way to the back yard, where we found a ball of black and white fur going berserk. We picked it up, and by the time I turned around to my husband, Dr. Sienra was standing behind us asking "You like?" in his most persuasive tone... I passed her on to Barbi's arms, and that was it, sold! Collie is a 6-week old female Border Collie, who apparently was bought as a gift for a boy who refused to take care of it, and so we got her instead. I had been resisting many puppies offered to me and many strays for a long time, but this time Barbi, who always plays the ogre, was right there with me and could not say no himself...


It's hard to convey how perplexed our dogs were. We had been away for two days (we never go anywhere) and we returned with two new critters, one of them a cat, which they had never seen before. Collie established her presence forcefully right away, barks, growls and tries to play with all of them, so she's fully adapted from the start. I guess by showing no weakness she kind of scares them, they don't really know what to make of her.

The cat will take a more gradual approach, or else she will become a snack for Lunes.

Unsurprisingly, my mother reminded me that I am becoming one of those crazy old ladies who accumulate pets. My elder brother has offered to start looking for goats, sheep and llamas for me, and it doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. My own menagerie...

Mogli around the block

The puppies

For several weeks our dogs have been driven mad by a couple of roaming dogs that wander around hunting and foraging. The bitch is an underfed German Sheperd descendant, while the male is light caramel colored and with the face of a fox.

For weeks I have wondered where the puppies were hiding, and a chat with my neighbors on the beach revealed that they have all set up home in the woods behind their house. So off we went on Sunday to visit the puppies.

Mom and Dad


There´s four of them, two solid black and two mixed brown and black. One of the black ones has very short ears that stand straight up. All are very perky, and when we found them huddled against a log, they immediately started barking at us. That drew the attention of the parents who were resting a few feet a away, and who after some barking came to us asking to be petted. The setting was straight out of National Geographic, but we do fear for the fate of the puppies...

Summer food

Have I mentioned I love the farmer´s market in Piriapolis? Must be the only thing I love in the aforementioned town. One of the vendors at the feria goes all out every Saturday with the decoration, arranging the fruits and vegetables in funny patterns.

But back at the ranch, my own harvest has been increasing daily. We went from radishes, celery and submarine-sized cucumbers to a steady crop of mixed color tomatoes (cherry mostly), herbs, scallions, echalotes, and now we´re starting with the honeydew melons. The zapallito, a roundish variety of squash, looks like it will bury us in a couple of weeks.



Mixed cherry salad with fresh oregano and basil, all from the garden...


The harvest a few days ago.

While we are on food, and back in summer, when we are likely to go out more, I´d like to mention our two bad meals in a row at the same, wonderfully located La Corniche restaurant in Piriapolis. Why twice you may ask? Well, first time it was a group thing, second an invitation from a house guest who was as taken by the beautiful setting at the end of Playa Grande as I was. We gave it a second chance, only to find service worse than deplorable, and food as ineptly cooked as the first time. Stuffed chicken breast was so dry it made you choke, the milanesa was so chewey and dry it was fit for my dogs, etc. The service is hard to describe other than saying there was no service. However, the menu is almost as ambitious as last year´s at Trattoria da Piero, not a coincidence as it turns out the chef has migrated here.

On the positive front, we enjoyed a fantastic meal at El Abrazo, in Manantiales. El Abrazo is owned by two veteran chefs, Gabriela Sosa Díaz and Federico Gasparri who happen to be husband and wife. The location, a specially built house in the woods in Manantiales right off Ruta 104 is as usual very cool and low key. As usual because it was designed and built by Gabriela´s brother Fabian, our architect. There are a variety of possible settings, ranging from semi enclosed patios, a sofa outside in the garden, a table under a tent-like contraption, etc. I prefer inside, but all the outside areas and their lighting by candle give it a nice atmosphere...

The food was both gourmet-y, expertly rendered and delicious, as opposed to pretentious and bad. We had a great shreded, braised lamb served on a bed of mashed eggplant, a fantastic appetizer salad with cherry tomatoes, goat cheese and artichokes, and great seafod appetizer sampler, shrimp ravioli, etc. Desserts were also original and delicious, especially my guava concoction which included guavas in syrup, heavy cream and cookies. The service was great, professional and warm. I will go back soon before they close for the season.

The drought

The cows are so hungry and thirsty they are eating my hedge

Forget about the international financial crisis, my crisis is the drought, and it has taken over my life. Uruguay has been experiencing below-normal rainfall since 2007, but this year things got bad. The usually rainy winter and spring were bone-dry, and now the ground is hard as rock, the grass makes a crunchy sound when stepped on, and cattle are dying all over the country.

At home, I was unaware that the sprinkler system was not up to the task of hydrating the couple hundred shrubs and trees we planted this winter and spring, and woke up one day to find a whole section of the yard the color of mayonnaise in addition to severe wilting affecting everything else (the sprinklers´ reach is one thing on paper, and another when fighting strong winds in the opposite direction of the stream).

That was about a month and a half ago, and my life since then has been devoted to manually watering every shrub and tree, not to mention my beloved vegetable garden. The obvious idea of just increasing the sprinkler cycle does not work, because the sprinklers are set up to spray a wide surface of lawn and plants so we would soak the lawn, waste lots of water and maybe still not provide enough for the shrubs. Also, there is the risk of just draining the well dry if we pump water too many hours a day. Although I was told that my well had an extremely abundant flow of water that would never run dry, after two years of drought things may be different.

The vegetable garden, with tomatoes duly staked... It´s obvious now that I´ve overplanted and overcrowded the tomato patch... beginner´s over-enthusiasm I guess.

And on to the real family crisis, Barbi´s hand, he´s due back on the 30th from one month of physical therapy in Turkey where he made lots of progress, He is now able to use silverware with his left hand, able to drive, etc. Still many months left of rehab but he will continue in Uruguay. Between the accident, the two operations, the 7 weeks spent in Turkey in two different stretches, etc., we´re ready for some uneventful time this summer, looking forward to returning to our routine. Also, Marabierto desperately needs Barbi back so Mirtha will be happy to have him and has declared that accident season is only between April and June.

On the festivities front, we had a lovely family brunch at Conrad, meant to be the last one of the year, although we may have a last-last one with Barbi... As usual, our bolero singing friends Los Románticos livened up the proceedings, with much help from our table and especially from Aunt Myrtha who now dances with baby grand-daughter Josefina who is scarily well trained to party at her tender 8 months.


Brunch with Mom Mirtha, Aunt Myrtha, Josefina and Rosina...

Christmas is never a big thing in our family, what with everyone working like crazy till late on Christmas Eve, but this year we had better logistics thanks to Aunt Myrtha, and ended up having a lovely dinner at Las Ostras, with the two Mirtha/Myrtha, plus brother Rafa and friend Coco. The location at Las Ostras is superb, the food was very good, the service too, and there were other friends in other tables as well, so we had a nice evening.

Mirtha on the terrace enjoying the fireworks

Coco and Rafael

Besides wielding the hose, my other new activity preventing me from blogging is Oso´s vocation, fetching the ball that requires throwing all day long. I fear I will develop whatever elbow injury baseball players get from so much ball throwing. While the others collapse in the shade, groggy with the heat, Oso is still up for a good run and will prod me (bring the ball to my hand, require that I wrestle it out of his mouth, or faced with complete indifference, drop it at my feet.) Every 10 or 15 fetches he goes for a swim in the pool and comes back refreshed and energized... Maybe if I had not cut his hair he would be a bit more lethargic, who knows...

Oso sporting his summer cropped hair style. Actually the hair is growing out fast... Tulu is all of a sudden getting bulkier.

Call the man, or how to grow your own $23 tomatoes

It´s bring your granddaughter to work day at Marabierto


I first became aware of "call the man" as a Uruguayan cultural trait when my mother visited me in New York and insisted on coming to work with me, back in the day when I was working in the flea market at Spring and Wooster. After watching me pull a couple dozen loaded boxes from a basement into a truck, followed by a clothing rack that I "walked" along two cobble-stoned Soho blocks to our flea-market spot, whereupon I spent two hours retrieving the boxes, tables and other fixtures from the truck and setting up our "booth" for the day (you know, then undo everything 5 or 6 hours later), horrified, she demanded that I "Call the man." At that point I explained that anyone I had to call to do my job would have my job, and therefore, I was the man.

On a subsequent visit on occasion of my moving into my newly purchased condo in Jersey City a couple of years later, and after inspecting the yard and noting there was no tap anywhere to hook up a hose --hence my bringing the hose from the sink across kitchen and living-room into the yard-- my mother again decreed "Call the man. Get him to put a tap outside."My answer, in this case, was "There is no man."

Team Sousluaga, with Pelusa

In the first case "the man" was my own job description, while in the second example it was something I could not possibly do on my own (major plumbing) and that neither could I afford to hire someone to do for me. Hence the years of watering the yard from the kitchen sink.

But look at me now. I am certainly back to my roots, or becoming my mother, or both, probably. No two days in a row go by without some man or men coming over to work at our place. There´s the pool guy, who does the regular maintenance and is different from the solar panel guy. There´s the gardening crew (good thing I consolidated the two landscaping outfits I used to hire into a single one), and most recently there´s team Sousluaga, who first built a shed structure to place the solar panels, and this week is improving my vegetable patch making it into two very long wooden boxes with a sort of nylon wall behind it against the existing fence.

In between we have the guys from Telecom, the alarm company, who come to install new devices, fix a malfunctioning sensor or check the satellite TV or the weird cellular-based fixed phone on a pretty regular basis.

The vegetable patch encased in wood.


In a way, it´s a miracle. We work hard, earn money, and that money is enough to be able to afford all these people who are constantly doing things to improve our house. Considering we have neither the time nor physical condition, not to mention skills required, I am always in awe at the fact that we can afford to pay for these peoples´ services, considering we are not actually wealthy. We´re also in awe of the end product.

But then again, after factoring in the amount spent on landscapers, top soil, and team Sousluaga to set up my very fancy encased vegetable patch with windbreaker and all, we´re estimating a unit cost of $23 per tomato that comes out of that yard...

It works

I finally swam in solar-panel warmed up water on November 1, at 6 pm, minutes after the installer had left, at a perfect 26 C, or 78.8 F.

We had turned on the system at noon, on a test basis, so not at 100% capacity because our cautious pool guy Alvaro (not the same person as the panel supplier-installer) wants to double check the pressure on the pump and other technical stuff.

When he turned it on, we measured the pool at 20 degrees (68 F), and the water coming into the pool at 23.3 C (74). This low reading at the pool is because although the water from the panels was coming out at about 40 degrees (104F) there was a long stretch of pipes to warm up.

From what I saw during the installation, only a fraction was insulated, and improperly at that, and then there´s the entire length of the filter circulation which is also not insulated. So initially all the pipes and earth surrounding it needs to be warmed up before the water coming out from the panels and the water arriving at the pool have a similar temperature.

All this will eventually be fixed by Alvaro, but right now I don´t feel like engaging in further works, just patching whatever leaks remained, and maybe in February when we have to travel to Asia the rest can be dug out and insulated.