I arrived in Uruguay by boat (approx. 45 minutes to Colonia del Sacramento) from Buenos Aires and immediately hopped in a bus (2.5 hours) to Montevideo.
I arrived a couple of days early to do some pre-production for the Uruguay/Argentina episode. My buddies from the band Rudos Wild were having a concert the night of my arrival. I decided it would be cool to go see it since I hadn’t seen them in over a year.
Renzo (Supervising Producer) was already here as well. He had been in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay for almost a month when I arrived.
I checked into the lovely Posado Al Sur in Ciudad Vieja (the old city) which specializes in alternative and sustainable tourism in Uruguay. It was already late afternoon so I grabbed a quick bite (or what constitutes a quick bite in Latin America) and then went for a run along the Rambla just as the sun was setting.
It was a beautiful way to start the trip.
Renzo was staying in the Posada Al Sur as well but his room was an apartment on the roof with a beautiful terrace overlooking the old city. He must be living right!
Later that night I hooked up with my amigos from Rudos Wild for the big punk concert which was in downtown Montevideo and thankfully not far from my hotel. The concert got going late (around 11PM) with an excellent surf-punk band kicking things off. Rudos Wild was up next and they are a bit more raucous with a punk-rockabilly sound (dare I say punkabilly?).
The boys invited me up on stage to sing Social Distortion’s “Cold Feelings”. I tried to get out of it, but they wouldn’t hear of it so I relented. About 1/2 way through I got a little lost and forgot the lyrics and just started mumbling and humming but no one seemed to notice. It was my first time singing on stage in front of a crowd and I must admit it was a blast.
I couldn’t find a taxi so I walked home at about 4AM and got lost in downtown Ciudad Vieja. I don’t recommend you try that. Luckily I made it home safely but I was definitely testing fate with my expensive camera in the backpack wandering around dark side streets at that time of night.
The next day I hit the beach to try and tan my pale skin and then scouted some locations to shoot. I mean I am supposed to be working after all!
Later that night we had a BBQ over at Peyo’s (Lead Vocals for Rudos Wild) house. It was a blast.
When Uruguayan’s have a BBQ watch out, lots and lots of meat involved. I found out Leo 666 (bass/vocals for Rudos Wild) is a vegetarian and I was amazed at his will power to resist the grill full of meat from seemingly all parts of the cow, pig, etc.
Ah but I was out way too late again and our first day of shooting is tomorrow.
Thank God for sunglasses!