Hole-In-The-Wall Bar, Uruguay

Neighborhood Bar, Cuidad Viaja

So we were in the Cuidad Viaja (Old City), getting ready to take our Busquebus (boat) from Montevideo to Buenos Aires, and were killing time walking around the neighborhood (looking for postcards, actually. I bought $10 (US) worth of postcard stamps, and only found postcards at one place, the Torres Garcia Museum.

Anyway, we're about to sit at a place when Becky hears the sound of a guitar and we follow the music to a hole-in-the-wall bar. The place is pretty grimy, but the music sounds good, so we go in and I order a whiskey for 20 pesos (80 cents). As we sit, the music keeps getting better and better, with 2 Brazilian women, also first-time visitors, providing excellent vocals to the guitars and drum.

Later, 2 young police officers walk in. One of them talks to the guitar player, the music begins again, and the cop starts singing a sweet, melodic love song (slow enough that I could understand the Spanish even!)

Even without this blog and the photos, I think this would be one of those permanent memories. 20 years ago when I was travelling in Peru, a handful of musicians came into a bar where I was writing in my journal, and began playing "El Condor Pasa" on the guitar and pipes. There were no foreigners there, in fact, there weren't many people there at all, so it was a pretty genuine performance, and other memory.

Click on the photo for the pictures, or click here for the slideshow.

I even posted a video clip to Google Video to capture this.