Friday 9 November 2018

Uruguay Housesit - October 2018

A gorgeous sunset, Playa Pinares
The border crossing just north of Concordia into Salto, Uruguay really was the biggest joke so far.  We all got off the bus and got our passports stamped then lined back up outside while a customs guy looked inside the baggage container under the bus, asked James where he was from and then wandered off.  A MAF guy then got on the bus, had a look around, got back off then we all got back on and off we went!  We have yet to be asked a question at passport control in all our border crossings in South America.  Central America was much more tricky.

We were only in Salto for one night which turned out to be a blessing.  Our hostel left a bit to be desired along with the town.  We finally found somewhere to try the local dish, Chivito ... or so we thought.  It turned out to be nothing like the picture but was pretty good, nonetheless.  Ordering food in Spanish can be a bit of a challenge at times.  Fortunately we don't eat out a lot.  We had also mentally prepared ourselves for the cost of living in Uruguay.  Everything is at least twice the price of Argentina.  Fortunately we were here only for a month and would be house-sitting all of that time.

The bus journey to Montevideo was really pretty.  The countryside is lush and green.  At Montevideo we walked a short way to a local bus stop and caught a local bus which took us an hour or so down the coast to Atlantida to our house sit.

Thatched roof, reminiscent of England
The flora in our garden was surprisingly like New Zealand.  There are cabbage trees and flax in the garden, and being springtime, the wisteria was showing off splendidly.

The back yard.  Unfortunately the weather
was not yet warm enough for swimming

Clare made a bouquet of flax flowers 
Our charges were Meg, a gorgeous fluffy rescue who was such excellent company both indoors and out.


And Ginger, a stray who had moved into the house after his brother had been killed by a dog :-(


Janet and Wayne had organised a BBQ to introduce us to some of their friends.  Nothing quite like a BBQ in Uruguay .... In fact, after they left we were inspired to buy beef for the BBQ from the local butcher.  They have a unique way of cutting meat here.  It comes in one long piece as pictured and when we said we wanted half of it, he cut it in half length-ways with a bandsaw!!!  We don't eat a lot of red meat (unless we harvest it ourselves), but this just HAD to be done.

Not a snake ... a piece of beef

Meatfest
Our primary reason for wanting to house sit here was the beach.  We were not disappointed.  It was a short walk from home and on our first beach walk with Meg we discovered that the locals do a lot of fishing off the beach!  Hit the jackpot here!  



We spent a lot of our time playing with Meg (and her friends).  There are a couple of street dogs that Meg knows well that live close to the beach and they would usually tag along with us if they were around when we went past.  We called them Zorro and Shorty.  We de-ticked them and took food down to the beach for them, usually our leftovers.  We didn't worry too much about them as someone from the neighbourhood was apparently feeding them.  They were great fun and Meg loved to play with them.  The only real problem arose when, in typical street dog fashion, Zorro loved to chase the horses on the beach.  Fortunately we could see them coming a long way off and Clare would take the dogs up into the dunes till the all clear.  The horse riders seemed less bothered than us.  Expect they are quite used to it.



Meg liked to dig holes and Zorro would try to catch the sand

She would end up being a very sandy gal




This big guy joined us early one morning too

Big softie
And of course, LOTS of fishing got done.


Our first fish, hmmm, think we can improve on this

Introducing Meg to here first live fish



It wasn't usually very busy except at weekends, except for the fishermen who came out in force when the tide aligned with the time of day.  We soon realised that the best time of day for bites was either sun up or sun down.  Catch improved greatly!


And who was the very grateful recipient of the littlies???


Even when we weren't catching it was not a bad place to while away our time.  Meg loved it too .....



The sunrises where certainly worth getting up for



The sunsets were magic too.  One night we watched an amazing lightening display over the water and a few nights later we watched the phosphorescence dancing in the crashing waves.  Words cannot describe and pictures not even possible.


Evening storm a-brewing
Our final morning fish yielded the biggest fish and our biggest haul.  We had some lovely feeds, so did Ginger, and we left a fair amount of fillets in the freezer for Janet and Wayne.  They were reportedly very happy recipients.




When we got home from our fishing ventures, there was always this cheeky monkey to welcome us ... and peruse the catch of the day.


Ginger has more dog characteristics than cat. He has an enormous sense of humour, is extremely friendly and wags his tail when he's happy ... rather than annoyed.  He and Meg get on famously.



Playing hide and seek in a carry bag
Ginger ninja
Apart from being wonderful company, Meg had her other uses too.  One morning, around 2am, we woke to her pacing in the upstairs hallway.  As she was usually not a night time warrior, Clare got up to investigate, only to discover that the hot water cylinder on the upstairs mezzanine had slit open at the reservoir and 50+ litres of water was leaking all through the spare bedroom. As if that wasn't bad enough, the power went out as the water had seeped through to the electrics causing the RCD to trip ... which of course is what it is meant to do!  So began the tricky task of  stemming the flow and moping the water by torch light.  No lasting damage was done and fortunately things had dried out sufficiently in the morning for the power to reset. but we did spend a day or two drying out some clothes that had born the brunt of the water spillage.

At the end of a busy day, there was always snuggles at bedtime.



We enjoyed this sit and this spot in Uruguay very much ... especially the company of these two mischiefs