Paris, Havana, Madrid, Anywhere But Here : Montevideo : Sat 11th Jan

It is wonderful to be back in Montevideo. Calling in for a day on the way to Piriapolis was a great idea. Now we have a pretty good idea of where things are, and our hostel is in a much better location. All we have to do is decide how long we actually want to be here.

It's a Saturday. We know that tonight is the first El Clasico of the season - Peñarol v Nacional - and we want to go. It's only a cup game so there ought to be plenty of tickets available. We head up towards the Estadio Centenario to get some tickets... if the box office is open on match day.

Firstly, lets go to the Atlantica Buffet for a weird hotchpotch of foods... Chinese chilli beef and spaghetti anyone?

Then lets walk, without a map, to where I think the stadium is...

ho ho ho.

The Estadio Centenario, where the first world cup was played, and where they have a football museum with the ball from the final, amongst other cool stuff.

Sadly, and awkwardly, we discovered the entire site was shutdown by police setting up barriers for that evening, and no tickets were to be purchased anywhere. We mope back up the road in what I think is the right direction. Surprise surprise. I am wrong.

We walk up Libertad and spot, on the other side of the road, the Montevideo Brew House. It was closed. However La Hacienda was not closed. It only sold big bottles of Budweiser, but that was ok, as it had lots of merchandise to look at instead.

This is the very first issue of Uruguay's El Pais newspaper, back in 1918.

Nothing like a bar where strange old men in Diadora tracksuits wander in with strange dogs. This dog had the craziest eyes I have ever seen. It was very happy to be petted though. The barman chatted away with us in Spanish, I understood about half of what he said, not so much due to my linguistic inability so much as his thick Rio-de-la-Platenese accent.

Eventually it is 7pm and we take a trip back down the streets, enjoying being lost, and eventually stumble across a little cafe where we get some dinner.

Ah yes. Hamburguer al plato. Didn't know it already came with chips. Or freggs. mmmmmmmm. We watch little bit of Velez Sarsfield v Sporting Cristal. It makes me pine for the high standard of Irish League football.

Filled up, we wander back up to the stadium hoping to find some scalpers. In typical Uruguayan style, however, there are no scalpers. No one guldering out the existence of tickets for sale, going spare, anything at all. We ask a few official looking people but everyone politely says its too late to get in. We hang around staring intermittently at two guys in the middle of the road, in the middle of their middle ages, wearing baseball caps and looking shifty. Even these two guys were only waiting for their mates.

We wander about but nothing doing, and after half an hour, and suffering the rapidly dropping temperature, decide to call it a day. On our way back to the cafe we spot two incredibly dodgy looking humans selling tickets, but its too late for us. Back at the cafe we are joined by some pleasant human detritus, including a very drunk and loud man who incurred the wrath of the big man behind the counter. Bad times for him, excellent service for a couple of very polite Irish folk. Ha ha. The football eventually came on the tv; for some strange reason, the Velez Sarsfield game had been played in the stadium immediately prior to El Clasico, so they couldn't start that game til the other, which ran to penalties, was over. Most peculiar to be playing in front of two sets of fans who aren't there to watch you, I would imagine!

Eventually we get bored of the very very bad football and catch a bus home. Sleep catches up, and the hostel is pleasantly quiet tonight, all the children have vanished...