Am planning to see if the lighthouse is open and may also try the museums, but I saw loads of people eating outside Mercosur and have decided to have breakfast/lunch. This feels quite pleasantly decadent... It is Sunday though, so I can't be too smug about it.
15:40. Just been up the lighthouse. Not stunning views but pretty cool all the same. Took loads of photos with vague hope of being able to construct a 360 degree panorama. Varied from being deserted to rammed up there, when I left people were queuing up outside in the street to get in.
I geeked out slightly and took GPS readings (which were apparently accurate to 3m) at the top and bottom. So I calculate the viewing platform is 22m plus or minus 6m above the street outside. Quite a bit margin of error there in relative terms...
16:25. Just been round the Museo Municipal - quite interesting in parts - then popped next door to Museo Casa de Nacarello, a 'genuine representative of a typical Portuguese house' as the sign says. One ticket covers all the museums. They shut at 16:45 alas.
There are about five rooms in the house. I zoomed through and then worked my way back a bit more slowly as I wanted to make sure I saw the whole place if only briefly in case they chucked me out. I took some photos in the 'later' rooms, as I got back round to the front the woman at the desk saw me about to take a photo and said very loudly it wasn't permitted to take photos. Why the fuck not I do not know. There is no shop where they're selling postcards of the interior so it can't be financial. I wasn't using flash so it's not damaging. Maybe my camera will steal the soul of the building?
Honestly, I wasn't desperate for photos but this sort of thing makes me want to adopt stealth photography measures just for the sake of it. Pretend to be listening to a voicemail on my phone while snapping randomly with the phone camera, that sort of thing.
Oh, there was no 'no photography' sign either.
I will definitely upload the photos I did take to flickr and even take care to label them, just on the offchance someone searches for photos of the place.
At least with my working backwards, I wasn't feeling guilty or at risk of being caught taking the pictures in the rooms round the back, which I would have if I'd been told off before I got round there.
It occurs to me I could have gone over to the desk and made a point of erasing the photos I'd taken illicitly round the back in an overdone gesture of contrition. Or - heheheh - had a dummy camera and smashed it up to show I wasn't taking any forbidden photos out. :-)
17:15. Wandered over to the old port and then browsed a bit for somewhere to have a drink. It's too early to eat again and I don't feel like going back to the hostel. Found somewhere charging UYU160 for a portion of chips, which is the highest I've seen yet.
I am having a beer at Mercosur (I am not that desperate to drink by the 'river', at this time of day you tend to get the sun in your eyes a touch annoyingly, even if the view is nice, and so I'm not keen to pay the premium prices), will then perhaps go eat again and maybe go back to the hostel relatively early for a spot of surfing and organising.
I need to do stuff like book a hostel in Buenos Aires for Tuesday night and somewhere in Panama City, though I may put that off until I have had the flights reconfirmed. I also need to write up my evidence to submit to my useless e-mail forwarding people to 'prove' that some mail is getting lost or severely delayed and it looks like it's their fault. That isn't a big job but it's tedious, especially using webmail (Google Mail) as I can't have the two test mails and the mail I'm writing open at the same time.
I just noticed there is a big lump of ice in the beer bottle. It must have been kept in a freezer causing the beer to partly freeze. I hope it thaws in time for me to drink it. :-) I am a bit surprised this doesn't affect the taste, but it seems OK.
18:30. Just finished that beer, I am going to eat here. There was a place just down the road which looked OK but it was shut earlier and appears to still be shut and although I'm not that hungry, I don't want to wait. I will probably have something to eat, maybe one more beer and then go back to the hostel.
20:15. Have eaten and having a second and probably last beer. Was quite engrossed by the account of Cortes's conquest in Enock's book, having previously known about it mainly from West's book and a single read through of an English translation of Bernal Diaz's "Conquest of New Spain".
However, I am feeling a certain disquiet. I think - I am practically sure - I'm a little apprehensive at having to arrange the trip to BA, the one night there and especially the trip to the airport, which sounds a bit dodgy based on recollections of the guide book. Also the onward trip to Panama.
I am sure it will all be fine and really it's more of a nuisance and perhaps a bit unpleasant rather than a major problem, but it does seem to be preying on my mind somewhat.
The boat trip over to Buenos Aires may be quite good fun assuming I am not racked by concerns about getting to my accommodation afterwards and with jitters about the trip to the airport the next morning.
I do take some vague comfort from reading that Cortez was 34 when he invaded Mexico. It gives me hope that I'm not quite past it yet. :-)
20:55. I am coming to the end of this beer. I think I might have one more. I am sort of enjoying myself sitting here and reading but to be honest I think I am partly thinking of staying because I don't fancy having to do those relatively minor arrangement chores when I get back. They are not really a big deal at all but I am building them up in my mind into an enormous effort. All I really need to do is forward the flight details to my parents to ask them to reconfirm (it's easier for them to call than me, having no landline and so forth) and ideally, and I could put it off if I wanted, decide where in BA I want to stay and book a ho(s)tel for Tuesday night. The hostel is no big deal except for deciding on the location, as I will only be there one night so it hardly matters what it's like, though wi-fi would be desirable so I can book accommodation in Panama if I haven't had the flight confirmation by tomorrow night. Nearly everywhere has wi-fi though so that's not much of a consider
ation.
I note that book was written in 1909. I have a strong suspicion that some sort of revolution occurred in 1910, while it doesn't exactly invalidate the book, I do wonder if the author was rather mortified.
I am a bit astounded to learn from that book that (modern - I don't believe territory has been gained or lost since 1909) Mexico has an area nine times the size of Great Britain. I would naively have assumed it was more. (Apparently, before the territorial losses to the US, it was the third largest country in the world!)
23:00. Back at the hostel. Quite a few people around and a bigish group of apparently Americans (from the accents) are having a barbecue in the courtyard. I can hear them from my room. Maybe my prejudices are showing but they do sound a bit wanky. I am sure if I met them I'd say there were cool people, but I might as well indulge my preconceptions occasionally. :-)
Just booking hostel in BA. Was going to stay at (and I deliberately name them) Hostel Suites Palermo. But since they say you must reconfirm your booking within 24h of making it, and within an hour if booking on the same day as arrival, they can fuck off. I AM BOOKING ONLINE AND GIVING MY CREDIT CARD DETAILS. WHY WOULD I CHOOSE TO FUCK AROUND TELLING YOU *A SECOND TIME* I BOOKED? The 'same day' requirement is particularly arsey. Oooh, because I might change my plans within an hour of making my booking on hostelworld. It just shows incompetent IT and/or management skills on their part. Basically they are saying "we have no faith in our communications with hostelworld, so please tell us independently you booked". Maybe we could adopt this system in banking IT. It would save a lot of paranoia if all trades had to be reconfirmed after being submitted.
The presence of those guys vaguely tempts me to go back out and have another beer. Illogical but there you are. But I think at least Mercosur shuts at midnight except Friday and Saturday and I've already had three litres and sod it, why should I? It is slightly tempting to try the hostel bar but should it be shut I might look like an idiot. On the other hand, why should I care? I might give that a try for the sheer hell of it...
23:30. Yeah. Down at deserted hostel bar but I got a beer. I would prefer to sit outside but the courtyard is intimidatingly rammed (and it's very small anyway) so no way would I get a table even if I could get a seat. I have no desire to try to force my way in, I'm just not feeling that interested, desperate or strong. As I say, I would have gone out had I not had severe doubts about the closing times of the fairly poor local places. (Though I must admit it was fairly pleasant down at Mercosur tonight, even though it is definitely not really a 'bar'.)
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