Sunday was going to be a road trip day no matter what and we hesitated only briefly as light drizzle descended on central Uruguay. Yesterday started out raw and wintery with cold damp air and flat gray light and all that made a trip anywhere unappealing.
On the other hand GANNET2 cane from the factory with a powerful cabin heater, a byproduct of our V6 engine, the one that burns $8:25 of regular gas every 15 miles or so. It was not going to be a cheap day trip, nothing is in Uruguay, but we had the tools to cope with the weather. We got on the road, two hours north to a set of caves.
We invited Rusty fully expecting him to decline and he paused and thought about it, we’ve left him behind twice already on shopping trips always at his request and I could see him debating whether or not this time…but yo my amazement and joy he jumped in the van preferring to suffer with us than luxuriate alone. He loves living in a house. The day did not look promising.
We left at eleven and drove trough some drizzle on largely empty roads. As a rule traffic is very light on Uruguayan highways and on a cold damp Sunday morning the small unremarkable towns we drove through looked deserted.
Backwoods Uruguay is marked by poverty. This country of three and a half million is said to be the wealthiest per capita in South America but away from the beaches and the playgrounds of the elite in Punta del Este there’s lots of tin roofed, trash lined, rusty car poverty.
I’m sure a donkey powered peasant in Mexico would consider himself lucky to be poor in Uruguay but it is a little startling to a gringo in a mobile home. Had we an inverter our empanadas for lunch would have been warm but even cold they weren’t bad as imma sucker for a meat pie. Lacking rest areas or pull puts we improvised and found a flat area for Rusty to enjoy the grass as we ate.
Not Iowa corn fields though they could be.
I hoped he wasn’t regretting his decision to spend the day with us instead of sprawling in the grass in front of the cottage.
It was a funny old day in the road with no bed in the car, no 110 volt electricity or any of our usual supplies. We were traveling in a car and not in our home.
This is not a country endowed with much in the way of natural wonders as you can see. Personally I love a cornfield as much as the next diner but I concede that if the United States consisted solely of amber waves of grain I might get tired of road tripping. Uruguay had to make the most of what it’s got.
These natural oddities were discovered in the late 1860s on private land. In the 1930s the government bought about 42 acres of the land and set it aside as a municipal park. In 2014 it was turned into a national monument amid much fanfare apparently.
I get the feeling being president of Uruguay is akin to being the mayor of a small town. This isn’t a country of much political drama, they have elections between more or less left and right wing parties but everything bumbles along without drama in between votes. It’s quite refreshing. So when they have a set of modest little canes not only are they worthy of being protected but everyone gets in for free. Education is totally free in Uruguay. (Yes I know it all gets paid with taxes but everyone benefits from as much schooling as they want).
Six of us showed up for the two ovlovknyour and got a video presentation to start explaining how the caves were formed. Fabian the guide looked relieved when we said we understood Spanish. There is a display of local rocks.
I was fascinated by two and a half million year old piece of petrified wood:
And an ancient bee honeycomb:
We walked a half mile to the caves down an avenue lined with non native trees. Apparently this was the choice a hundred years ago to emulate the “European style” of formal gardens. Nowadays they are trying to add native plants.
No one in the group spoke to us or each other for the 90 minutes we were together. They avoided eye contact and acted as though alone. I’ve got used to Uruguayan stand offishness possibly a product of shyness and I noticed they didn’t exclude us so much as they ignored each other, in Argentina we’d have all exchanged life histories but this is close to Argentina, and similar in many cultural ways but not at all as friendly, so there it is.
There was a myth attached to these caves that a prince and princess escaping the Spanish holes here had made it their palace, hence the name The Caves of the Palace, but really it’s a matter of rising seas flooding the area millions of years ago.
The waters receded leaving behind silt that got compressed unevenly and rain water washed out the loose silt leaving columns of compressed blocks. I know it’s not as much fun as princesses on the lam but there it is.
A Brazilian geologist penetrated more than three hundred and fifty feet into the cave system and provedcyonevrryinesxsatidfaction that it is the action of rainwater and not subterranean streams that erodes the soil leaving the compressed pillars.
Apparently the cars are five hundred yards wide and at least 150 deep and not all of it is exposed yet; but the action of time has also eroded some of the exposed aves down to nubs of rock.
Fabian our guide, a nice guy got a tip from us at the end, gringo style.
Faced with a two hour ride home we got on with it and as dogs aren’t allowed inside Rusty had to sit out the tour aboard GANNET2 so he got a walk afterwards.
We stopped on the way home to pick up some critical supplies.
It was not an exciting drive home but we arrived at dusk. Driving at night in Uruguay isn’t a problem as roads are well marked and there aren’t animals or drunks loose in the dark. At least not that I’ve seen. 
Rusty was ready to get home, eat a large dinner and pass out. I hope he judged it a good day; we did. 
