Uruguay and internet pimping....

"Vhat ze fuck iz zit?" I was awoken by my panic stricken German room mate rolling up her sleeves to show me a pink rash that was covering most of her arms. "Vhat iz it?" she asked me again, her voice reaching levels of hysteria as she rolled up her trouser leg to expose and point at more of the rash. "Don´t you know?" I asked her, remembering that she had told me the night before that she had spent the last seven years studying medicine. "No, don´t you?" she asked, her voice now quivering with anxiety as she continued to pace the room itching and freaking out over a rash, which honestly didn´t look THAT bad. I eyed her up with great suspicion, mentally pronounced her the "fake German doctor" and restrained my urge to provide an imaginative diagnosis. "All signs point to Leprosy, get yourself a bell immediately before your arms fall off".



My room-mate. Bit of a hypochondriac if you ask me.

Once again, I was playing the waiting game. I had arrived in Uruguay and had to sit tight in a nice quiet beach resort called Punta Del Esta, whilst I waited for my credit cards to arrive. There was very little to do there except occasionally go to the beach to add to my freckle collection and get to know the conveyor belt of gringos that were passing thorough what I came to think of as MY hostel for the nine nights that I waited there.

Punta del Esta is a pretty, laid back Uruguayan beach town with beautiful sunsets, one of which I watched with another guest from the hostel, Christopher, an English nineteen year old gap year student. Christopher had a cheerful, boyish face mismatched with the deep and raspy voice of a much older man. He not only sounded but also acted middle aged and said things to me like "I´ve always dreamed of watching the sun set over Uruguay" and "Ever since I was a child, I´ve wanted to come to South America". "You´re wasting your youth, Sonny" I thought, "You should be binge drinking in a bush like the rest of us were. Did me no harm" I thought as I went unconscious from trying to bang a nail into the table using my head.

Another guest I befriended at the hostel was an English guy, whose name I can´t remember, lets call him Pinocchio. Pinocchio had a job which I coveted, he was a ghost writer for men who 1. either are too busy or 2. too shy to write to women on Internet dating web sites. So, Pinocchio writes to the women pretending to be the men who hire him. He gets paid on the success of the dates, which both fascinated and baffled me and led me to raise a number of questions, such as what constitutes a "successful" date? Did he get $100 for first base? Was there an STD money back clause? So many questions. I considered Pinocchio a literary pimp of sorts and was in awe of the possibilities that such a job held. The potential for bending the truth at the expense of others was so attractive to me. I imagined the trouble I could cause with such a job, which I would only hold for one day before being fired, but oh, what a day it would be!

Sample of some things I might write....

Dear "Desperate and Thirty"...
I recently lost my job. Out of interest, what do you think constitutes as "sexual assault" in the workplace?

Dear "On the shelf".....
How do you feel about conjugal visits? Visiting hours are between one and three.

Dear "Lonely Loser".....
Whats your home address? The authorities are watching mine.

My credit cards arrived on day ten, so I headed to Montevideo (the capital) for one night before catching my flight to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil the next day. A reunion with my travel companion, Julie awaited. "Ciao Ciao Uruguay" and "Hello Hello (in Portuguese) Brazil! Whoop Whoop!!