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:
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.
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.
