Montevideo

 The rumor in Uruguay is that El Niño is wrecking summer prospects here on the Atlantic coast. Rain comes and goes and when it comes it is like a catastrophic tropical waterfall except the water is cold and it feels like winter.

We left the campground under sunshine but with the threat of increasing clouds. The fridge was empty and Layne wanted to get to the supermarket  so that was our grave accomplishment. I walked Rusty around the block and Layne shopped. We stopped for lunch at a place called Tsunami which gets rave reviews. We expected fish but it was mostly a meat menu. Weird but okay. 

We shared an appetizer that supposedly had fish and we got meat chicken shrimp and mussels with some vegetables. It was very filling. 

We shared a steak which seemed a safe choice in Uruguay and it was excellent  and Layne ordered a salad which came with a lot of kale. With two lemonades we spent $75 which seemed the usual high cost of eating out in Uruguay. Thank you for the birthday wishes by the way.

So that was lunch for my birthday and as usual the heavens opened. The cataract lasted about 15 long minutes. It hit so bad even this fisherman I could see on the beach gave up but he hung in for a while. 

Rusty was tucked up on his bed though I did see another dog in the restaurant. 

It was a short drive to the capital wet and dark. 

It’s not the massive flooding seen in South Florida and Key West lately but it is wet.  

It’s rather odd knowing where we are going but we decided to go back to the park near the airport as we have a lunch date in Montevideo on Monday. 

Rusty got some time outside  and then the heavens opened again. 

Rain is forecast all week. Bugger. I hope it’s drier in Paraguay.

Parking assistance while we got birthday pastries. They take baking quite seriously.  

Spring foliage I think. 

Franklin Delano Park Montevideo. Home for the night. 

Orbit Completed

 Webb Chiles the noted writer (new book coming out November 14th - Gannet 6 - on Kindle) is also a traveler and he gave me grief because I did not include a photo of the buried hand at Punta del Este so I scurried to the internet to repair the error. Someone was proud of their ride to the beachfront spot and posted it and I thank Google for it to make up for my slackness. Behold the hand: 

Joking aside Webb inadvertently opened a line of thought provoked by my recent solo two weeks driving Uruguay. It has come to feel as though what started as a journey to South America  has become merely a ramble around South America usually with a camera in tow. My Lumix GX9 with my favorite travel zoom.  The photos are for me (and you) not Instagram which tends to mangle them or demand I make a video which I don’t like. So I do as I please and am grateful I don’t need to beg for money online. 

Layne has returned from California and has set about emptying several suitcases of essential supplies from Trader Joe's and elsewhere, making life aboard a bit crowded. 

I retreated outdoors to test my new folding stool which is surprisingly comfortable and I am slowly learning how to deploy it as rapidly as the instructions claim it can be done. 

Two weeks alone with Rusty took me back to basics, as we explored this small underrated country by camper-van. I paid for one night at a formal campground as I recall, otherwise we free camped in one other of Uruguay’s many parks or in roadside rest areas or on the slivers of wilderness found here and there. This below is a Fiat Strada pick up, a vehicle fascinating to Bruce who has not seen them before but are commonly seen in Mexico and points south. 

The solo drive was not about finding Instagram worthy pictures or notching up tourist attractions and that realization only dawned on me towards the end of the two weeks when I found myself noticing how much fun I had had accomplishing  nothing.  I was like Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, doing  the equivalent of messing about in a boat and thoroughly enjoying it. In this Swiss Paradise HOA the streets are named for Swiss cities. Bern the federal capital the street outside the campground: 

Summer is coming which is the three month window of opportunity to explore Patagonia again so the southern wilderness  calls but my idea in the coming year is to try to recapture the mindfulness of short hops, slow travel and long pauses. I hope I can succeed. Ramble is the order of the day. 

This vehicle really is a weird one. Theo a German emigré to New Zealand is making a new life in Uruguay and he and his wife travel in this origami camper built by Mercedes Benz called a Unimog. 

It’s an interesting machine but too much military off road style for me. It’s like a tree house to climb into with a top speed of fifty miles per hour and off road capability I’d never use. The folding box in the back is clever but it wouldn’t make a home for me. I like the wood and permanence of our home aboard GANNET2. 

Rusty makes his home where the shade is:

Today’s my 69th birthday and like lots of old people I feel 25 inside and slightly puzzled where the time has gone. Next June this page will be twenty years old and that will I think be real a mark of the passage of time. More rain is in the forecast for today. What a drag. 

Punta del Este

Punta del Este (easternmost point) is the Miami Beach of Uruguay, the glamorous capital, the winter home of the rich and the beautiful. I therefore, am not suitable. 

But I did get an oil change there which was very satisfying. We are now good until 140,000 miles though the coolant leak is back, ever so tiny but I did have to add a half pint after driving around for more than a thousand miles. Not catastrophic but I want it fixed in Paraguay soon.

Wednesday was absolutely gorgeous in Uruguay. The cloudy morning gave way to a glorious sunny day, barely seventy degrees, but hot in the sun despite a slight cooling breeze. If I could order it up every day I would.

I had my eye on the oil place after I found it on Google Maps, and I figured it might close for lunch so I packed us up, reluctantly at one o’clock and got going to the big city an hour away.

Uruguay is a very modern country, often viewed as boring by overlanders most likely because they live and work and dress like us. 

Classic beach architecture.

Thats because it is a beach. 

It was an easy drive on a smooth four lane highway and I sat in the slow lane enjoying my day.

I was pleased when the mechanic took us in right away and I was also relieved this task had finally been completed. GANNET2 has put on 135,500 miles since 2020 and I’ve had the oil changed every 5,000 miles. 

Punta del Este and its broad waterfront. 

I found a spot with some grass as well as some shade to let Rusty enjoy himself. 

For a town as swanky as Punta del Este you might think it would be full of no RV signs, no overnight parking and everything but there are none and the waterfront bid essentially one big parking lot. Uruguayan RVers say it gets packed in the summer and they fear the openness  may change but for now you can overnight pretty much anywhere from what I could tell.

I saw a huge fleet of dinghies racing well offshore: 

It felt like the US tradition of Wednesday night racing was being observed here. 

Layne in Santa Cruz had dinner with a friend at the harbor last week and she sent me a picture of the end of the Wednesday races. 

It was a pleasant break and I half wanted to spend the night at the beach. 

But I also wanted to get settled in at the campground before Layne arrived Thursday evening from California. So we said goodbye to ritzy Punta del Este. 

And for the next few days we are at the Paraiso Suizo full service campground.