Merry Christmas Everyone

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The devil and the deep blue sea, what a connection. That was firmly in our heads when we started the on the bus again, another trip but extremely uneventful. So safely arriving in Diablo only took a few hours and Em had spent most of that dribbling on my shoulder. Diablo was to be the most exotic place that both of us had spent Xmas and we were looking forward to getting some time with our own place, cooker, kitchen and our own toilet - perfect.
We encountered our first problem when we stepped off the bus, how were we going to get in touch with the owner of the cabana that we had hired. Again with a level of embarrassment we got in touch with Alfredo and alerted him of our arrival, he told us to stay still. So with no movement at all we waited and were met by his daughter and to our relief she spoke English.
The cabana was just on the outskirts of town so we took a taxi up there, it was great the Taxi was an old 21split window combi van; I thought to myself that I was going to like this place. The cabanas were great, a bit on the new side but they had everything that we needed and fortunately as they had been refurbished recently all the stuff was new. We hired a couple of bikes for the five days, thinking that we would get down to town a little quicker or venture out onto the open road. Really, we should have known that the Xmas curse would engulf our emotions and the only thing that would be possible would be to drink cheap wine and have early evening assado´s. An assado is a BBQ but with wood rather than coals and most of Uruguay people live off the stuff.
The cabana was near pine forest, which I think caused the influx of wildlife into our room. Now travelling around the place you get to see roaches a plenty, rats and other less loved creatures but we had a new arrival was in the form of scorpions. Yes the kind those have poison, pincers and the love to be around our bed at night. Smith was duly appointed chief scorpion catcher, this was done with a sturdy espresso cup and sticky piece of paper. They were constant but after a couple of hours of good hunting we got Em down from her chair and all were safe. However we had to move places because our shower didn’t work so the process was repeated only minutes after changing. We checked with the local handyman if they were lethal or not but he just smiled and turned away the panicked westerners.
Not many of the other places were filled so it meant that we could just chill out and enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of the place. The next day we opted to take the bikes down to the supermarket to get supplies for our stay, there was plenty of choice and as we would be staying there for five days it meant we wanted to stock up. It was busy but not like Morrison’s in Barry I could imagine. With enough food to feed most of the village we opted to return to the cabana and then come down later to pick up the liquid refreshment, to my delight the tire on my bike had blown so I walked while Em rode on up ahead.
It was great just to be back in our own place and we looked forward to Xmas, with a couple of more visits down to the village we were all packed away and we had enough to last the whole time we planned to visit. We actually had enough food to last the time that we had been away from the UK, Em did say that it was better to have more that not enough. I think that it is an Ovenstone trait, to right too.
Later in the day we walked down to the beach, checked out the waves and Smith opted for a dip. Em watched on the beach and tried not to be disgusted by the yellow grime that touched the beach edge the waves were very similar to that in the UK a poor comparison to the Pacific countries of S.America. That evening we made our way through the red toilet water and assadoed a massive amount of ribs on the burning embers, it turned out well and we could almost be mistaken for locals.
So Xmas eve we awoke with the sun streaming through the Scorpion soaked window and we had a surreal moment. It was the time of year that we naturally associate with terrible TV, over priced shopping and being a temperature that never really drives past a few degrees. This was going to be strange; both of us wished a little that the old would morph with the new. We spent some of the day on the beach, catching some rays and then in the evening we had a few drinks after dinner. With wind in the sail we decided that we would go into town to see what life was to be found. Well after a small search we bumped into an English couple just outside an empty bar. They were really cool and we spent the whole night catching up and soon the bar was over flowing. After too many beers we were joined by some locals and swapped word in varying languages, all good natured and friendly. One of them was the spitting image of Paul Merton, however far less humorous.
We awoke on the big day with eyes duly craving more sleep and our heads banging like the drum in the Duracell bunny commercials. It was a common feeling for Xmas but we were a little disappointed not to buck the trend for this year. The Santa costumes had not been rented and nor were the reindeer sliding along with the sleigh, in Punta Christmas day was purely for the beach and a well stocked BBQ. We opted to take a stroll through town and clear the heads. with a short failed game of bat and ball our only option for survival was to grab another cold one and hope that it would bring us through to the promised land of 'non hurting head'. The rest of the day was spent at our cabana, getting the BBQ stoked and slapping on some of the largest pieces of meat not seen since Swartzanigger wore a tight fitting t-shirt. As we listened to the croaking of the frogs and biting of the mossies all that was left to do was to clink the crystal and wish each other a happy Christmas.

Boxing Day started with the traditional morning of sporting excellence, this year it was not a footy game with the boys from Bethesda but a quick dip ion the ocean and trying no to think about the influx of sharks that Uruguay was experiencing at the moment. The sun was out but the wind drew its heat for most of the day, as we played on the beach we were reunited with our English friends that we had met on Xmas eve and arranged a BBQ for the evening. As our fridge was stocked more tightly than a pair of Big Daddies shorts we thought that sharing some before we had to leave would be the best way to go. We had a great night with our newly acquired friends, enjoying some stories of back home and morsel a couple of laughs about something and nothing.

Our next day was a bit of rush, with our poor Spanish we had misinterpreted the owners on the check out time and they were there waiting on us to get going sharpish. We waddled down the road and waited at the bus top, until our transport arrived and took us to the border town of Chuy.

Chuy is a bit scally, it leaves you with the feeling that you have been sat down on the set of the Royal family. As it borders Brazil they have no tax paid on any goods, making it a haven for cheapness. We had teamed up with a couple of young German girls as one of them was far more proficient in Spanish, so they could unravel what turned out to be the most complicated border crossing of our trip so far. Usually you get to a border and the country that you are leaving stamps the passport then you walk through no mans land and then onto the country that you hope receives you with open arms. However ours was far more complex, firstly we were told that a bus straight to Porto Allegre would be going in two days. So we chose a bus that would take us as far as Torres and then hopefully jump on a connection. Getting stamped from Uruguay meant that we had to endure a 5km walk across town to then wait with a hoard of people that looked like they were casting for footballers wives. Then once we got back we had to take a bus 30mins to a police station to get stamped by the Brazilian people. But once back at the bus stop we chilled until our late departure and onto our next stop of Porto Allegre and onwards to Torres.

Happy Birthday Marie!

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