Argentina Bound

Somewhat to my surprise I am sorry to say goodbye to Uruguay after a month here but it’s time to go north to fix our coolant leak once and for all, I hope, in Paraguay. Chris the German mechanic has received our parts from Rock Auto in Wisconsin and we are set to be in his workshop on Monday so now it’s time to get our skates on.

We had lunch with Julia in Montevideo Monday, she is settling in to her apartment:

And we promised of course to return in a year or so and see how she will be getting on after a year of residence in Uruguay.

Seafood stew for them above and grilled fish in a creamy scallop sauce for me. A $75 lunch so definitely first world prices. We had a shrimp empanada to go for dinner: $4 each…

Uruguay is vacation land for me, easy driving, lots of free overnight camping out of season, and even though Uruguayans are extremely reserved and shy if you do manage to break through they are as kind and cheerful as anyone. Really delightfully proud of their funny little country so often  overlooked by overlanders seeking dramatic scenery and hair raising stories to tell. I like it here and I think it shows to the locals. These guys offered any help I might need when they met me on the sidewalk in the town of Melo: 

Driving out of Montevideo we got several honks and waves and one guy pulled alongside on a four lane street and asked about our journey through open windows at 30mph…I have forgotten the man my age who came up to me outside the supermarket and introduced himself as “Roo” who spent twenty years in Australia and came home to retire. He laughed at my surprise when he addressed me in English.

Layne wants to cross the border at Paysandú because she believes the Argentine fridge check is less rigorous there. Once at the Fray Bentos border she got cleaved out by an unpleasant customs officer who took everything and we believe had lunch and dinner at our expense. By now we know what allowed and what isn’t but they have the last word. So we’ll have one more night in Uruguay, two or three days to get to Paraguay and a few days at the campground and then we want to drive at long last to Salta, a town known to us in arid northern Argentina. Time for some exploration as summer is supposedly about to start. 

Ugly Montevideo on the waterfront with its neo-Stalinist apartment blocks:

Everyone out to enjoy this year’s rare sunshine. 

This is where overlanders from Hamburg are reunited with their vehicles. That is the most popular shipping route across the Atlantic but we aren’t very keen on taking GANNET2 to Europe at the moment. 

And the cheese and salami guy we had to stop to check out. The best cheese in South America is in  Uruguay:

Don’t be fooled, he loves dairy: 

Unvarying Uruguayan countryside:

We are one hour ahead of eastern time so we might have to stay up tonight later than we like. 

Fingers crossed for the election results. I’m trying to think about other things. 

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.