Uruguay 2nd half the photo tour.

Not really being one for stories and this keyboard is a little frustrating here are some pics from Uruguay.

The Third Highest mountainin Urugury all 400m of it we rode

Typical Uruguay motorway

Sea lion at Punta del Este



The engineers of uruguay must have thought that there was not enough hills there so they added some to the bridge otherwise somones calcs went way wrong

Beach at Jose Ignatio

Beach at Jose Ignatio for lunch

When the campground at La Paloma was closed for the Off Season we were told to continue along the road 10km to the next town. this was a welcome sign

The Tirantula infested campsite. shoe checks were manditory in the morning

The barge accross laguna garzon no barge for the next lagoon


Aguas Dulces Beach front
Aguas Dulces Main street
Aguas Dulces The sweet little Hostel that let us camp on their back lawn

The sunset at Santa Teresa that matched my tent

Tucan Time

The fort at santa teresa started by the portugese and finished by the spanish




Not a bad view for lunch at punta del diabalo
The Baker version one the oven needed a little work

Version 2 in the flinstone oven

Fin

Aguas Dulches was very Dulches

The Atlantic Coast from Punta del Este to the Brazillian border...

Ben looking like some sort of giant 20 storey high man in Punta del Este

We eventually left Punta del Este suitably revived and considerably out of pocket, to head north along the coast towards the Brazillian border. Things were looking pretty sweet, towns were considerately placed about 50km apart, the road was quiet and mostly followed the coast, there was little wind and sunny pretty much the whole time. So awesome training for Patagonia then.

Anyway, had out best day yet leaving Punta, biked along the coast through little beach towns, had a collective bike meltdown about an hour into the day which meant some emergency side of the road repairs. These "repairs" are still being repaired now.

There was an unusual bridge for Ben.[photos to come]

We had a really bad luch of stale bread and dulche de leche and then another, better lunch of hamburgers and fries in La Paloma.

Typical Beach. Sun, sand, blah blah blah.

All the campgrounds we closed as its not quite high season yet, we found a family run place on the road just outside of La Paloma. Naturally there was hilarious language difficulties as the guy jabbered away and we understood about one word in 10, he was probably telling us to watch out for all the giant spiders in his property, but we clearly didn´t catch that little titbit of information. There was these small rabbit holes everywhere, about 4-8cm in diameter and obviously freshly dug. As we walked around in jandals we sensed that we didn´t want to stick our fingers down and meet the owners of the holes, but didn´t know what they were. We did our bags up pretty tightly went we went to bed just in case. Internet reseach later revealed they were probably tranchaulas, which was not comforting. not at all.

We biked on to Aguas Duches, literally "sweet water" where the whole town seemed deserted. There was a small flyer in the window of the closed tourist office advertising a hostal that spoke english and because it was hot and we were shitty and didn´t want to bike anymore we went there. Best move ever, as it turned out, they were awesome, let us camp in the backyard, made great coffee and the best breakfast ever. We splashed out and brought cream and butter and made a curry that tasted like a normal meal.

Aguas Dulches. 

This is actually not in date order. Somewhere amongst this the road ran out twice at lagoons, with huge detours implied. We had head that there could be a ferry across the lagoons so biked on confidently. the first one had an awesome little barge that was free, we free camped in some trees next to the beach just along from this. The next lagoon we weren´t so lucky, and had to pust our bikes in the sand around the waters edge, which was fun, and then not so fun.

Bike pushing around the lagoon. At this stage, still fun.

The Timaru of Uruguay and Punta del Este

Breakfast of champions, this lasts about one hour until an emergency pastry is required. The jam has been supersceded by dulce de leche [caramel condensed milk]

Our travelling roadshow has continued on its happy way from Montevideo [forever remembered for the discovery of empanadas, whose quality remains unsurpassed to this very day, 3 days later]. Due to impossible time constraints between sleeping and eating, this is reduced to a sensational highlights package.

Highlights include:

1. Empanadas. See above.
2. Cycling through the Timaru of Uruguay. Bustling, busy, and never ending.
3. The sun. Sunny, but not too sunny.
4. A magical town that sounded a bit like Atlantis. It was right where the map said it was, there was a supermarket right at the start followed by a tourist office where a super helpful english speaker pointed us towards a campground. We met another cyclist there. His notable characteristic was his large calves. That will never happen to us as we are too weak to bike large distances.
5. There were no highlights in Piriapolis. No one should ever go there.
6. Swimming in the Atlantic at Punta del Este even though no one else was, it was 10am, and we were all wearing our woollen undies, which got saggy when wet. We are blending in with the locals seamlessly.
7. Anna G tasted mate for the first time.
8. Anna F managing to stay up past 8pm, once. For one night only.

Lowlights include:

1. Mosquito bites all over Anna Gs face.
2. Anna F falling off her bike while completely stationary. It was like a tree falling.
3. Anna G riding 50kms with her front brake on and wondering why it was so damn hard.
4. Anna F being allergic to the grass and breaking out in a rash.
5. Two consecutive lunches of condensed milk and slightly stale/squashed bread. Good at the time, but its a bit tough to look at bread right now. But we´re having again tomorrow!
6. The constant headwind in every direction we ride. This is 6th equal with the first three occasions we tried to stay at a ´beach resort´ it was either windy, raining or the water was mud brown.
7. Possible, yet to be proven caffine and laxative effects from Anna G tasting mate for the first time. Watch this space.
8. Bens refusal to buy jandals, resulting in him walking around on the beach in 24 degrees with woolen socks and shoes on.

The campground at Atlantis*

*not its actual name, but similar.





Ben looking relaxed at Piriapolis, where it rained for the first time.