The Golden Van: To The Beach

Thursday morning dawned slightly overcast with some sunshine and more cold wind blowing in off the Atlantic. By noon the solar panels had us up to 80% charged by one pm once again.

Yesterday’s irritation was Starlink shutting us down as they caught up with our location away from the US where we had registered our service. For us it’s a disappointment but for those who work on the road Starlink’s new restrictions are catastrophic as it will now cost $650 a month for 500GB for travelers switching countries frequently. You can re- register in a new country every 90 days so maybe we’ll do that later. For now we rely on Verizon’s international cell service which is a decent stop gap. Updating this page when we are in the wilderness may not happen…

The road to the beach pictures which completes the drive on Monday is below, downloaded with a cell signal. Adaptation is a human trait.

First I said goodbye to the free roaming horses in the park where we had stopped to take a break in Treinta Y Tres:

Then we got driving again much to Rusty’s disgust.

Arroyo of the Dead Indian Woman, below. Every river bridge in Latin America is labeled though where the roots of the names lie is any traveler’s guess.

Unlike Argentina in Uruguay they repair roads and build new ones, inconvenient but nice to see.

Like most Uruguayan towns Rocha, the capital of the department, feels run down and not well loved, neglected and allowed to deteriorate. I saw several large parks and my goal, another Ta Ta supermarket to get a few perishables for my planned stay at the beach.

The first Christmas offerings I have spotted.

And Rusty got his urban walk, not far, just tree sniffing on all four blocks radiating from where GANNET2 was parked.

Forty minutes from Rocha is the beach we first stopped at on arrival in Uruguay. I want to see if I like it as much a second time (I do), but it has no facilities.