The Long Walk

Yesterday I decided to go for a long walk. I headed toward the Galle Face Green, amused by the fact that no 'touts" (Con artists) approached me on the way (They would come later).
I passed the Galle Face Green and walked past a hotel only to come to a road block and some guard telling me I couldn't go any further, you think so? So I had to double back, which I found myself doing a few more times.

It was crazy hot and the humidity was awful.

I'd find myself at a traffic circle with no real way of getting to the other side short of just running across at the appropriate time. Hard to explain or visualize.

This young kid approached me with the elephant festival scam, I noticed a tri-shaw close behind him. I realized he had gotten out of the tri-shaw as they work in teams, looking for tourists. Oh tri-shaw, no more tuk tuk, like a tri-shaw driver told me, only Americans and Europeans call them tuk tuks, they are called taxis, tri-shaws and three-wheelers here.

Back to the kid. I decided to mess with the kid, act excited, like a dumb tourist, only his English wasn't so good. So when I am tired of all of this and cannot believe how stupid he is as I am acting like the most gullible tourist and when I finally explained to him that I live here and know that he is a 'tout' he didn't understand. The tri-shaw driver understood, he explained it to the kid, or so I thought, as the kid still didn't get it. I just walked away which I should have done in the first place.

I passed some busy, noisy markets, I had to have been the only Westerner.

It was pretty hot and all I needed was one tri-shaw driver to ask me if I needed a ride and I would give in. When one of them did ask me, I jumped at the chance.

This also served a purpose. How? I wanted to see how to get back to my apartment! I was surprised to see that all I had to do was turn right and keep going, and going and going, but it was the main drag.

I will have to say Montevideo was so much nicer a city for going on long walks. All I had to do was leave the apartment and go right or left and ended up at the rambla and I could walk unobstructed for miles.