Part
This entry could be a chapter of the Practical Guide to learn Uruguay "or the series" How to make tourism in Uruguay and not die trying " but I did not stay very long title, I chose the one that got. Anyone can say that is a blatant contradiction, but that anyone who read it will realize that not necessarily.
The story begins with an invitation I received from a friend who is a professor of art history, with other colleagues had organized her friends una visita a Conchillas y a Colonia del Sacramento, en la que ella oficiaría de guía. Con lo que sabe de arte y arquitectura, con lo que me gusta Colonia del Sacramento (a la que hace bastante tiempo que no iba, entre otras cosas por aquella lluvia tremenda que nos agarró a mi amiga Laura, a su fiel auto el rojito y a mí cuando íbamos hacia allí en plena sequía*, que casi perecemos ahogadas) y con el interés que me despertó conocer Conchillas, localidad a la que solo conocía de nombre y por el revuelo que se armó cuando la empresa “Montes del Plata” comunicó que iba a instalar una planta procesadora de celulosa allí, no dudé ni un segundo en aceptar la invitación.
the last Sunday of summer, morning, Rumba Pa ' Colony, the first stop was Conchillas, a village about 50 km of Colonia del Sacramento, a 40 km Carmelo, 7 km from the shore of the river and 7 km the road ... Who came to a village far from everything? For the English!
Conchillas turns out, whose name comes from the same, everywhere there is a people-made prepared as a result of the construction of the "new" port of Buenos Aires, back in 1880 and recently, to build a port to compete with others in the area, stone and sand needed, raw materials were not there but the opposite bank. Since the area was rich in deposits of limestone and granite , as they say, a lime, and sand, there turned their sights towards the English company of Charles Walker. Clear that the operation required some detallecitos such as boats carrying stone and sand to Buenos Aires, a port from where boats depart, a line railway transport raw material from the mine to the port, and manpower to do all this. So without thinking twice, as indicated by its name, Mister ** Walker toured half of Europe offering work, and so they came to this inhospitable place even more people from different origins: Russian, Bulgarian, Austrian, Italian ... and this is officially born in 1887 Conchillas. The idea was to make a passenger seating, so it is built barracks for the workers lived.
The houses are made stone, with a tin roof gable and the windows have glass shutters on the outside and inside, and during the harsh winter "British" can be opened to let in light without having to freeze.
As the ground was very hard, the houses were built without foundations, the walls have a slope that (wider in the base than at the top) that allows them to stand without problems (the test is one hundred and twenty years later there they are, dead laugh.)
... The kitchen was shared between a family who occupied a room (the couple and any children they had) and a number of single workers, who occupied another room. Housewives not only took care of his family, but also cooked for the "tenants", and I washed the clothes, the unmarried, yes, they had to pay for these services (other services, if any There were no records left.)
In this photo, the fireplace is a shared kitchen in this kind of single to married housing.
Of course there was no toilet, bathing and washing clothes, was the stream, for various stools, there was a toilet outside the home, that due to the hardness of the ground already mentioned, had no black hole or any other color, the debris is collected in a container with handle that every night was drained by the "nochero" (also official Walker). The nochero had a car that was carrying with the fruits of their labor, and then went to download a wagon: in the morning, the train carrying the stone from the quarry to the port, carrying the wagon "tank", which was emptied on the beach ... Say as a spa, left much to be desired. Not until the mid-twentieth century that this system is prohibited, and the beach itself can now be enjoyed by the few locals.
and set a mine, a railway line, a running water system standpipes, a power plant, port and people, the British set up a church and a school, an Anglican church, which is now a Baptist evangelical church (no Catholic chapel in the village, I tell them if they like going to confession).
Conchillas But history was just beginning ... The best-and worst-was yet to come.
not miss the next chapter!
** Walker, Walker
