Domestic life in Uruguay

We´re in Uruguay at the moment, getting some more beach time to make up for cutting our time in Brazil short. It´s a small country with only 3.4 million people and is known as a very laid back place with friendly people - so not entirely unlike NZ. There are lots of other similarities too - cows and sheep, emtpy roads, toitoi, gum and pine trees along the shores and even the quintessential kiwi bach! Actually the baches do look slightly different here, and probably more like the quintessential kiwi bach of about 40 years ago before it got all posh, but still we´re feeling right at home!

Chuck another shrimp on the barbie!

Our first stop was Punta del Diabolo (Devil´s Point) which was a crazy wee place full of ramshackle huts and cabins, some of which were half falling over, quaint rustic restaurants and 2 surf beaches. It would be a fabulous place in summer with a very laid back vibe but sadly we´ve missed the season by a good few weeks and the place was absolutely dead - luckily the only English speaker in town took us under his wing and rang his friend to find us somewhere to stay or we might never have found anywhere! Spent our time there chilling out on the beach, eating seafood and marvelling at the rather disgusting natural phenomenon in town - the streets and beaches were absolutely littered with the corpses of little black flying beetles that seemed to be dying at ferocious rate. We couldn´t figure out if it was just a temporary, seasonal thing or if it was always like that - pretty gross though!

Dave on the beach at La Paloma

We then headed to La Paloma, where we are now. We bumped into our friends Andrea and Matt as we were wandering around town with our backpacks who took us to stay at the same place as them which was fantastic - we´ve got a little cabin with a fully equipped kitchen and BBQ area, set in a forest of gum trees. They treated us to a fabulous BBQ on our first night which completely put our previous rather half-hearted efforts at backpacker cuisine to shame, but I´m pleased to say we have now invested in an enormous bag of salt and few other essentials and actually cooked ourselves a decent meal last night - Dave did a good job of practising to be a Aussie cooking prawns on the barbie! We´ve been having a great time pottering round in our place drinking wine, cooking and making our first cups of tea since we left London - it´s funny the things you miss. We´ve hired bikes as well so have been spending our days checking out the beaches either side of town and today watching some big dolphins playing in the surf. Don´t think we´ll be giving Ange and Silas a run for their money any time soon though, my a*se is so sore now though I can barely sit down!

Emms on the beach at La Paloma

Right, more BBQ´d prawns are calling me, chao everyone.

La Paloma Beach

Love Nest in La Paloma