San Jose, Uruguay

Jan 18, 2006

I´m never going to make it to Punta Del Este.

I spent about ten days in Buenos Aires, because a friend left me his apartment for five, and then couldn´t get rid of me for another five. The first two days were stifling hot, then it started to rain, and rain and rain. Finally, last Saturday, I took the ferry to Colonia de Sacramento, taking advantage of a lull in the rain to get onto the boat and across the river.

The ride takes about an hour, and there is a duty free store, so I was able to get some things you can´t find in the stores here, like hot sauce.

Colonia is an old city, and the city center has been preserved. It was the capital of Uruguay when the Portuguese ruled here, and is as close to Buenos Aires as you can directly get.

Normally I would have driven around to the first international bridge and riden across, but the Argentinians have closed all the bridges, because they are protesting a pair of paper mills Uruguay is building across the river.

I figured that because this is the vacation season and it is difficult to get to Uruguay, that there would be a lot more vacancies there than Argentina. So I got to ride in a boat. I then went to Mercedes, where I spent a lot of time last year, and got stuck for another day in a torrential downpour with lightning strikes and thunder.

After seeing pictures of lightning strike victims on one of my favorite macabre websites, I have decided to pass up riding in lightning storms for the time being. From Mercedes, I set out
yesterday for Punta Del Este, and got to San Jose, then hit the first of the toll roads, and this is where it got very interesting.

Because of the recent torrential downpour, the entire road as far as I could see was under water. There were people fishing off the sides of the part that entered the water. Of course I should have known something major was up, because there were three traffic cones set at the edge of the road, just in front of the fishermen.

So I returned to San Jose, about 25 miles back, and was told the road would be open by this afternoon, and that I should stay at the hotel. The guy who told me this actually works at the hotel, and it seemed pretty empty at the time. Now, as I ask more people, who are not in any way renumerated by the hotel, I find out the road will probably remain submerged for a couple of days.