AlBarclay

Oh so much driving. When I was planning the Majorca trip, I didn’t allow a day when I was driving more than 6 hours. Today was a new record. I had driven 8 hours before noon. It’s half nine in the evening now and it feels like I’m buried in sleep. There’s already a whole new game for tomorrow. Finding a printer that prints to A3 paper in Montevideo, and doing it around my pickups. I usually manage these things… But I’ve already written about how Uruguay is not an office culture. It really isn’t. Nobody gets status here from giving a fuck about printers, and most of the businesses are independent. I’m gonna have to find some wayward son-of-a-bitch who is going “screw this freedom, we should all be chained! I sell office stuff nobody else needs!” I’ll love her for it.

I’ve covered every shop in Maldonado. Some guy said he can order it in but it’ll take a few days and I need it now. These things always come up last minute. Montevideo is my shot.

This morning at 4 I drove through the darkness to pick up Christine. She’s one of two Italian drivers of more or less the same age that I know very well now. Tamara was championship driver when I met her in Saudi. Now she’s on a team and strong there. Christine was on a team when I met her. Now she’s championship – for now. I get the sense that mostly they would prefer to be on the team, and that’s the hierarchy. But observing these two rivals being friends with each other and completely reversing status in the course of a season has been really positive for me. My adrenaline game is performance. Theirs is speed. But… with those two I see two friends, true friends, who are also rivals.

I’ve brought my self tape studio with me. I’m expecting to have to do at least one tape before I get back… Fingers crossed.

Meantime I’ve got an early bed tonight, which is no surprise considering I was up at stupid o’clock. The rain seems to have stopped. My alarm is still uncomfortably early. I’m off to sleep.

Rain. Rain on the palm trees and the streets. Rain on the beaches and the sea. Rain on the site, churning up the mud and collapsing the tents. Rain on Global Crew as they all go into work early and dry and come back filthy and drenched with another early day tomorrow. Rain on my car as I drive 8 hours without a break before two in afternoon. Rain gathering in huge puddles on the roadside, semi visible barriers of deep hard puddle. Rain on the broken wheels and shattered farings of the cars on the long road to the airport. “Oh look, that one’s in a hedge,” or “Whoever was in that scooter didn’t make it”. I was careful and watchful, exhausted with concentration. I still lost the back end right at the end of the day. Only for a moment. The tyres don’t know rain like this. Nobody’s do. Accidents all the way.

This rain has bodyguards. This rain needs multiple extra syllables like the wedding rain Alanis told us was ironic. This rain does whatever the heck it pleases. This rain… Hard hard rain. Raining constantly out of a dark grey sky. This is the rain the electric storm last night heralded. This is tropical rain. Rainforest rain.

I pick up a scientist. “This is in a big band of weather all the way from the Amazon, I’ve been watching it live on a map. It’s fascinating to be inside it.” I pick up a security guard. “I’m glad I’m not on site today.”

Yeah so I’m working slightly longer hours than they are. But I’m doing it in a car. It has a roof. It has soft seats. It has temperature control.

I get myself to site in time for dinner, loaded up with hose. I grab falafels with Will. He is absolutely drenched, head to foot, and has been all day. He fell in a puddle before 8. All the Global Crew look exhausted. They’ve been at it in the downpour while I’ve been driving, keeping the whole damn village above ground. They’ll have trench foot. They are washed out. I really hope they have good showers in those rooms.

“The rain’ll stop tonight,” says Will. We are standing on tarpaulin that slides. Beneath the tarpaulin the mud is already Glastonbury Festival. I almost lose it beneath my feet. “It’ll be dry in time for the race,” says Will. “You think so?” “Remember how dry it was when we arrived?” … … CAN it be dry? Is it possible? I absolutely value his optimism but I’m really not that sure. I think he might have been delirious from cold. It feels like I’ve just witnessed a catastrophe of rainfall. The Uruguayan government threw tons of gravel into the site and at the time we all thought it was way too much. Now it makes sense. The course has been closed all day. Likely it will be all day tomorrow as well. We need a hot day. We need a hot week.

Outside my bedroom window there’s an electrical storm raging. Solid forks of lightning in mist with no rain. The air has been hot all day but not so humid.

Wildlife is proving interesting as people on site are beginning to discover genuinely dangerous things. Casual disturbed black widows on their arm. Various reasonably serious snakes. Mostly this stuff doesn’t nibble you. But occasionally someone gets unlucky I guess, particularly if they panic. I’ve been in my car today watching the world go by, meeting people and just watching the WhatsApp group tick over. 8 hours on the road and time in between shouting and carrying.

My first pick-up had to watch me squabble with the information desk at the airport. “You keep telling me manāna manāna and I take you at your word but now I’ve come back tomorrow every day for four days and I get the sense manāna genuinely means ‘never’.” They lost some bags and the owner didn’t do the proper paperwork because she had to fly to Sao Paolo on a different airline. Everybody who put bags on with Iberia at Munich got them taken off the plane at Madrid by a Spanish baggage handler who was a stickler for the rules. The printer was broken in Germany so they were handwritten. Safety.

All the other bags have made it to Montevideo now but this one couldn’t because if you don’t fill in the paperwork on the day it is lost then you aren’t in the system and then manāna manāna manāna and never anything. I ended up in very very heated discussion, to the extent that I was totally adrenalised and my legs were wibbly. It actually had an effect. They bypassed the paperwork, or so I’m told. They are putting the bag on the plane to Montevideo from Madrid. Just like homeless people in Uruguay are given a function helping to park cars, so all the clowns in Montevideo have been given work with Iberia Airlines. Who knows what’s gonna happen to Alice’s bag now. She just has a little handbag. “Ah I’ve got the basics,” she tells me.

“A lot of people I know would be considerably less sanguine about this,” I remark to Alice as I drive her from the airport to the boat where she’ll be staying. “It’ll come good one way or another,” she responds. This is how I tend to approach the world as well so I get it. By the time I drop her at the tender we are friends. I almost join her over to the boat, as it’s the end of the day, but I remember that I’m supposed to get up at 4am tomorrow and the boat can be messy. Would’ve been nice. Would’ve been carnage.

Now I’m trying to wind down. It’s 8pm. I want to be asleep in an hour. Oh dear I’m not very good at this. The sun only just set. Maybe I’ll have a shower. Must. Sleep.

They moved me. I’m upstairs now and I even have a little balcony. No snuffly late night pitbull and weird whistly man. They’ve put me in a great big room with a vast bed upstairs.

Sure the fridge is gonna have to go off and when my neighbor wees it’s like he’s weeing on me, but this is a hotel room, and he isn’t weeing all the time. I’m happy here. I can get home and shower in a flow of running warm water and then walk around naked until bedtime and see natural light. I can even go out and look at the world from my balcony – ideally not naked.

Last night in the middle of the night I was woken with a literal jolt when I sleepily burrowed my hands under a pillow and pushed a knuckle right into the bunch of exposed live wires they had behind my head to power the lamps above the bed. Thankfully it was only a mild shock, but it was the last bite of a problematic hotel room. I found myself wondering what if that jolt had been fatal and my last blog was me complaining about the room only to die in it. I’m glad it was just a touch. I think the voltage is lower here so they give less of a fuck. This room has a headboard. No surprise electric death tonight!

One of my old teachers died recently. My French teacher and my house tutor. He took against me for some reason and contributed towards making my life a misery. I’m thinking about him though because, having not even really thought of his name until a few days ago, I found myself contemplating his behaviour towards me from my more adult perspective. I had a dialogue with his memory in my life just a few days ago, where his memory came back hard and I spoke to him. I haven’t remembered him for twenty years and more. We put to bed the perceived injustices. Then today on a WhatsApp group from the old school someone told us all that he’s karked it. I’m not sure what I believe in terms of energy, but I’m willing to suspect that his energy exploded as he left this form to find others, and the tiny bit of him that had unfinished business with me just swept past as it was reallocated and negotiated an exit peace. He was a very devout Catholic so I’m sure he believed nothing of the sort, but what he experienced in that moment might have been different from his expectations. Fare forward, Doc Holland. You were a very strange man, and in retrospect you were quite isolated and lonely.

I’ve been fixing today again. This that and the other. A spot of airport and a bunch of grabbing things and LAUNDRY. Oh the joy of it all. Slowly this event is coming together and once again I have a little me-shaped hole I can slot into seamlessly and help make it all run smoothly in my own way. I need a Bluetooth headset though just as I’m on the road for hours and can’t talk through the Wingle. It’s just too shoddy a machine. I’m having to pick up one of the championship drivers in it soon… I dread to think what they’ll make of it. Awful vast machine…

Bedtime…

Bedtime.

The bed here is comfortable, at least, but the shower is fucked again. I got home stinking and couldn’t wash. There’s also the issue of being on the ground floor. There’s a guy who walks his pitbull at like 4 in the morning and it always likes to come and have a long sniff at the full length window right by my bed. The owner stands there too and whistles to it. It snuffles companionably, and for a while every day it’s like they’re both in my room while I’m sleeping. Big Uruguayan male and fighting dog. Hanging out with sleeping Al. It comes back periodically throughout the day, but I’m usually out.

Right now as I write he’s there though fucking with the cover for his motorbike which is also just outside my window. That cover will noisily blow at random all night. It’s literally just outside my window and the walls are thin. I’ve got an early pick-up.

There’s no WiFi in the room. I’ve made my peace with that. I’m just gonna invoice for data. But… This evening when I got home and couldn’t shower, I went to reception and they weren’t there. I waited for an hour and then went out to get some food. Then I came back and banged the bell until someone came. I’m not one to complain. I know I’m in South America, and I never had high expectations, but fuck me this place is not living up to my low ones. Google translated me this rant:

la ducha está rota de nuevo. no hay WiFi en la habitación. mi puerta se rompió hoy. Estoy en la planta baja, así que no puedo abrir la ventana. nada funciona. El desayuno comienza a las 9 y siempre me he ido para entonces, así que ni siquiera puedo tomar un plátano. Estoy tratando de ser paciente. pero en serio, ¿no hay mejor habitación aquí en la que pueda quedarme? con una ducha que funcione? Esperé en el vestíbulo durante mucho tiempo para ver si alguien podía ayudarme a arreglar la ducha. Trabajo muchas horas de trabajo manual. No quiero una ducha fría esporádica como si un caballo me estuviera meando encima.
 Esto fue reservado a través de mi trabajo. Y creo que este es un maravilloso hotel artístico y el personal, ustedes, son geniales. pero estoy realmente infeliz. Necesito una habitación donde pueda volver a casa, abrir la puerta, lavarme y caminar desnuda y relajada, sin que un perro huela mi ventana... ¿Hay algo que puedas hacer para ayudarme?

Tatiana the receptionist showed up and read it. She made it possible for me to shower in a different room. Now I’m going to sleep with sniffy dog and that noisy motorbike cover, hopefully for the last time. I’m the only guy from the team in this hotel, as far as I can tell. I’m used to flying solo. But I’ve found my breaking point.

Before all that though I welcomed a beautiful sunset, sitting on a beach at the end of the day and watching a tiny little hummingbird clean itself close to me. I was unmoving so it thought I was a tree. The fauna here is very fruitful. Not just the birds – there are some excellent insects and arthropods too, although everyone has suddenly got very exercised about arachnids. Local recluse spiders… Yes they are here in Uruguay in small numbers. Yes they have a necrotic bite. But nah… They ain’t gonna be biting anyone. Warning everybody about them causes general panic about spiders which is never clever. There are some very statuesque rabid wolf spiders around which are completely harmless and get rid of the shit that eats us like horse flies. We all need to manage our panic. Recluse spiders? The clue is in the name folks. They aren’t getting involved. They just hide back in tunnel webs. They rely on their venom and they won’t mistake our big hands for ants.

I am flat out.

It’s a long way from Punta del Este to central Montevideo. This morning I woke earlier than usual just naturally because jetlag etc. I rolled onto site with all the things I had found before rushing back to take 4 powerlog guys back to the airport. One of them will be back in 2 days time… He had two days down and he flew home, 15 hours or so each way just because he wants to run his bikes. I totally get the level of obsession about something, as I’m like that with my acting. But fuck. 30 hours in the air and untold hundreds of pounds for about 20 hours at home? I would pay not to have to do that. “I think I’m gonna grab a Macdonald’s at the airport,” he said.

After dropping them off I went to the Montevideo University District in a last ditch attempt at stationery. There is no office culture in Uruguay. This is why they are all so happy. There are no good office supply shops because that particular blight has not taken hold. Unlike the UK and America where the bulk of the populace have to be crammed into horrible rooms full of bullshit and status in order to stop the streets from being too crowded, Uruguay is not overpopulated yet. Human-Calming measures haven’t been implemented. People are free to move around and be themselves. But the knock on effect is that you can’t get an A3 transparent plastic wallet for love or money. I’ve attempted a workaround.

There are no huge monopoly hardware stores either. This is a country of opportunity. Independent businesses. It’s a total coincidence but the Bazar San José, where I got my canisters yesterday? I went back for two more and, having asked a million times, they had exactly two galvanised metal buckets. Sure, the staff member shook their head and said “no” when I showed them a picture of such a bucket. But I have long ago learnt not to trust staff members over my own eyes. They are moving around in a hardware store, talking to strangers and exerting common sense etc. But this doesn’t make them any more useful than Oakley in the office who has been there for twelve years and is telling everybody what to do despite being an impressively useless specimen of humanity themselves.

“Here! You did have galvanised metal buckets!” I smile and attempt to tell them in my awful Spanish. They pretend not to hear. They don’t care. Would you? Would I?

I’m back home. I covered a lot of ground in my Great Wall. It’s a pick-up by Wingle. A Wingle Great Wall. A Chinese Pick-up. Well named. Driving it is more or less the experience you would have if you were driving a great big wall.

There are lots of these Wingle cars on the road in Uruguay. There’s a statue of Confucius in the centre of Montevideo. Are the Chinese looking at the emptiness here? There’s obviously trade, as nobody in their right mind would purposefully buy one of those Great Wall pickups. The first two gears do nothing but roar, and you plateau at about 120kmph (140 on a downward straight). At that speed the engine is labouring so much its only really the considerable weight that makes it worthwhile. But the suspension doesn’t match the weight, so if the road surface is in anyway pockmarked then you and your passengers are going into orbit. Obviously I haven’t tried this for myself, that would be illegal. I spoke to someone who had.

But I’m flat out, as I said. Bedtime. I’m happy to be here, and covering ground. But. Fuck. It’s not a relaxing car to drive.

So, we fly into Montevideo. And then we drive two hours to Punta del Este. I know that Punta is in Maldonado, as I’ve been told so. I assumed that the town was Punta del Este, but that’s not the case. Maldonado is a city. And it is right on our doorstep. This place is the Hampstead of Maldonado.

This morning I drove into the capital but I avoided the shopping district. Didn’t have time. I had to drop Dougie and then mission it back to the airport in order to carry extra luggage for ladies I’ve met before. The crew knew I would be empty on the rebound though, so I got a shopping list.

I’ve been issued with a company Pleo card. It makes things infinitely more pleasant. After Saudi and Sardinia I had to spend hours sorting through sweaty receipts. Here with Pleo it prompts me to add a receipt as soon as I buy something. Today I got the usual avalanche of random things, but I ended up in central Maldonado. Montevideo had not been very yielding of useful shops and the traffic was terrible, so I headed back and hit Maldonado, surprised to find it was a city. Evening found me pounding the streets looking for things that should be simple. 25 litre canisters and a simple clear A3 plastic folder sealed with a popper. Those were the elusive things. I started the old familiar game of ping pong. You go into the shop and ask for the thing. You show a photo. They shake their heads and try to sell you a slightly different thing that is no good. You shake your head. They point down the street and say words. You follow their finger and try the next place. You keep doing that until you go back on yourself and when that happens you change district.

I know the city of Maldonado pretty well now. It’s unusual.

A businessman called Pedro has put speakers on top of his car like out of The Blues Brothers. He has called himself “Pedro Publicidad”. He’ll drive around advertising whatever you want.

The streetside parking is on a very very quick turnover, and someone has issued homeless people with high vis and given them the brief of helping people park. It is actually quite useful most of the time. I’m going to remember to have cash next time. They stop the traffic so you can reverse, they tell you when you’re about to touch the next car. I found myself in a position where the car in front of my pickup had parked touching me and the one behind had left an inch. With one guys help I was able to get the thing out of that squeeze much easier than it would have been without him.

It’s a CITY in there though. Like a US city but pedestrianised better. I crossed the town square a few times in my quest. It is dominated by General Artigas, hero of Uruguayan independence. This place was Spanish, then annexed by Brazil, then in federation with Argentina, and since 1828 it has had independence.

I like it here. It’s quirky and whoever is in charge is clearly idealistic and trying to dig people out of poverty. The mood is upbeat. Even the graffiti is considerably less angry than Sardinia – much more tagging, art and jokes, less politics. It’s strangely happy here on the surface. Everything is much more expensive than I could have imagined though… And I’m only scratching the surface.

I got the canisters. The A3 pouch is proving elusive…

The wind was up hard this morning. The lads had all inflated tons of tents before I even got on site, but we ended up having to deflate them all again. This wind is harsh and is forecast for the next few days. By the coast in Punta del Este we are building another great big race, but while we are in the build phase then there’s little point in exposing these inflatable tents to more wear and tear. They are incredible feats of engineering and make so much possible. Despite this, and even though we made a sand bag factory and significantly reduced the huge pile of sand we started with to make weights, it just made sense to take the issue away entirely by dropping loads of the tents until the wind drops.

Working all morning in the wind was obliquely fun just because the team is fun. I didn’t expect rolling up tents this early in procedures, and that’s the one that skins your hands. I haven’t got gloves again. Again my little aristocratic hands are atrocious. Again I know they will recover and look like they’ve never done a thing. But I’m gonna remember to buy work mittens next time I go to the hardware store. We hauled things and filled things and shouted and rolled.

Above us the eagles and falcons and vultures enjoyed the wind. Some are huge and remarkable protected birds, buffeted by the wind but using it to cover more ground. So many, and they come so close. There was even a safety talk about them today. I missed it though as I was lending an extra hand to haul tents. We need to take them into account as we are in their territory here right now. Similar to the cows in Sardinia, but smaller and sharper and above us. It isn’t breeding season. So it’s just about how they interact with the cars and the drones, and remembering that they are protected species – and beautiful with it.

I thought I had avoided jetlag. I landed and then stayed up, woke at six local time this morning and got onto site nice and early. Suddenly at lunchtime, I started to feel like I had been totally wrung out. My body was trying to reject the pineapple juice I had with my lunch. I have never experienced a shutdown quite like the one that I started to experience, but thankfully the site was being evacuated until the wind died down so I shoved a salami sandwich into an unwilling mouth and missioned it back to my hotel room as my body growled about the juice. 25 minutes back over the weird bridge and back to my odd hotel where they’ve fixed the shower so I got in it, washed off the dust and collapsed for two hours of deep deep sleep.

Evening took me back to walking and discovering Punta. A good walk and catch up with John, who with Kester made all this international joy possible. And then I sat at the rising tide with sunset and a bird.

Bed now. Hopefully that shutdown today was the end of it. I’ve got shit to do.

Punta del Este. Two hours drive eastwards of Montevideo. A long time ago this little patch of Uruguay was favoured by what I’ve had described to me as “dirty money people” from Argentina and Brazil.

Driving out from the airport it was the familiar South America vibe of semi lawless streets with full pick-up trucks vying with each other as they pass angry roadside gardens loaded up with scrap and old fridges and dead cars. I’m driving a pickup as well. I fit right in but I’ve got no acceleration so I’m useless in the language of the road. It’s 2WD petrol. There’s no purchase in first and second gear, it just revs and rolls until it finally gains momentum in third. It has no numberplates, front or back, but the guy at Enterprise assured me that the stickers in the window were enough. He might be right too. The toll gates open for the benighted thing.

About an hour into the drive the suburbs begin to yield to agriculture. Pigs and chickens in gardens at first, then crops and vines, or grazing for cattle. You cross many rivers. The coast is always on the right but rarely visible from the road as the strand and the sea view has been taken up with properties. The further you go the wilder it gets until you swing into a slow turn and you start to notice the gates getting more impressive and forbidding. This is you approaching Punta del Este, and all the houses on the right suddenly have huge footprints, set back from the road, screened by trees, opening on the sea. Great big low rise clustered villas with panic rooms in case they work out what you did. Vast seaside landscapes, fifteen to twenty million a pop, where you can flip burgers on the barbeque in your Hawaiian shirt and fall asleep on your bed made out of cocaine. As the paunch spreads and the drive wanes you can live out your Scarface or Tony Stark fantasy overlooking the same patch of ocean as the good people of Buenos Aires just across the bay, but you can be in a country where you’re considerably less likely to have to deal with a weapon wielding psychopath that wants your coke-bed. It’s pretty safe, Uruguay. Or so I’m told. I’m not wearing my Rolex. But I’ve got my Fitbit on. I don’t think someone will cut my arm off for it here.

It’s a strange mix of money and poverty here. It’s also incredibly branded, mostly with banks and monetary instruments. These three photos were taken from the same place.

Visa and American Express are everywhere, and Santander gets a good look in. Some smaller names and boutique banks get their signage too. But signage is LOUD here. All down the roadsides are great big billboards, often marring otherwise gorgeous vistas.

Nevertheless, cash is still king here in South America, as it is in much of the world. I’ve withdrawn 200 quid in Pesos. 10000. Unlike London, the people working the tills can still count. They don’t resent you for having to cash up at the end of the day. And I’ve worked out a quick conversion. Deduct two decimal places and double it. Pesos to pounds.

My first purchase was a Panama Hat. My second purchase was two empanadas. Now my jet lag is setting in and I might have to find food before I sink into a proper sleep after that plane. I’ll find out more about what is actually going on tomorrow.

I’m in this plane and it’s about to leave Spain and fly to Uruguay. Spain has been very very locked down with COVID and has only recently stuck its head over the parapet again. As a result we all have to wear masks. I didn’t have one. £4.50 in Boots for about 0.13p worth of manufacturing and distribution and I’m at least allowed to be here. I tried to botch together an exemption certificate on my phone cos I’m gonna have to sleep on this plane and then drive an unfamiliar car for two hours immediately on landing. I didn’t manage it so I’ve got something that is an obvious forgery and if some bugger wakes me up when I’ve clawed the thing off my face in my sleep then I’ll try it and say I have sleep apnoea or somesuch.

Until I sat down in my little seat here on the aisle surrounded by other humans it didn’t occur to me that I’ll be in the air for usual blog scheduling time. So I’m writing this to you now, my darlings, while they give us the safety brief and warm up the engines. It’s over twelve hours this flight, but it leaves at midnight and lands in the morning local time, so if I sleep it might just short circuit the jetlag. So far, nobody has sat next to me. I’m not holding out much hope though as I boarded much earlier than my usual habit. I like to be one of the last so I can avoid poison seats if necessary.

Ok there’s one person next to me now. Please please no middle seat occupant. Oh hell. More coming. This is not looking good…

The flight is Iberia Airlines. They are piping the same few musical phrases on repeat. The toddler in front and to my right is shouting. “Shaysha”. The one to my left is excited. “Ayo! Iyay oyayshi. Ano. Ishita.” I’m hoping their parents drug them.

Nobody directly to my right. I might be lucky here. They’re closing the doors. Go Go lucky lucky Al. Most of the seats are taken. This was my automatic allocation. I think I’m next to one of the only vacant seats on the plane. Dougie changed his seat and paid to do it about an hour ago when he realised he was in the middle. I think that his expensive action has positively impacted me as well.

The music is TERRIBLE. Someone was paid to make this. How can they live with themselves?

All loaded up. No more music. When using the inflatable slide don’t wear heels etc etc. So. Flight time. Bollocks to it but I’m gonna have polyester on my face for a bit so nobody marks me as a troublemaker and I can hopefully sleep maskless without one of them waking me up…

Tomorrow morning I’ll be in Montevideo. It’s summer. Something to look forward to.

Front left toddler has just started shouting “No! No! No!” as the engines warm up. I know how they feel.