Montevideo: Alive Uruguay Rugby Team

Montevideo: Alive Uruguay Rugby Team.
March 31.

I slept late and missed breakfast, finally showered, and Irmante told me she was going on a free walking tour of the Montevideo.  I decided to join.  This city has a great vibe.  I am not sure why I like it here so much, but it seems to be really cool.  The Rio de la Plata that runs along the banks of this city is the widest river in the world; 220 kilometers of girth.  A 220 km wide river?  Wow!

Our tour guide told us that Uruguay had a deal with Spain to populate the country.  For every 100 tons of food that Uruguay sent to the Canary Islands, Spain would send 10 families to Uruguay.  People for food.  Awesome.

That was pretty much all I got out of the tour besides good city vibes, and we were told about ‘Muso Andes 1972,’ which is a museum for the Andes survivors and the lost members of the Uruguay rugby team that plane-crashed in the Andes in 1972, could not be found, and had to eat the deceased to survive.  Sixteen of the team survived being marooned in the mountains for 72 days.  Most people can remember a movie and a book that came out called ‘Alive.’  It was a fascinating museum, and $10 U.S. that I do not easily part with for museums that was very well spent.  There are plenty of pictures, parts of the plane, inventions the Uruguay rugby team made to survive, and I even got to touch a sleeping bag that they made out of insulation from the planes air-conditioner which the members used to endure -40 Celsius conditions through the mountains for 10 days to find help.  Irmante asked me what I thought the first meal was that the survivors had once they got back to civilization.  I guessed, “Vegetarian.”

As we were about to leave, we met the director of the museum who took us to show us a suit that they received 15 days ago from a mountaineer who was recently at the crash site.  The same mountaineer, 34 years after the Uruguay rugby team plane crash stumbled along a suit that fell out of the plane was it split in two after the crash before the front of the plane continued on a a toboggan to where it eventually remained after the crash.  Inside the suit, were some possessions of either Eduardo or Aldolfo Strauch who was part of that Uruguay rugby team (I can not remember which surviving brother it was).  The mountaineer called up Strauch and said, “I found your $30, your passport, your luggage check, and your suit.”  What a phone call.  The mountaineer gave the possessions to Strauch, but left the suit as the gift for the mountain who takes.  Then, years later, he went back to collect the suit.  The director showed us the suit and I got to touch it as well.  What a thing to be in contact with…

We went out for a fancy grill of meat and wine and only meat and wine.  They brought us a lot of cow, including cuts of the throat, liver, and kidneys.  I did not enjoy it that much, as it is hard to get my mind to enjoy eating organs.  But hey, at least it was beef…