Batten down the hatches....the devil visited Punta del Diablo

Hola!

As I get closer to the Brazilian border (about 30km away now), it's getting hotter and hotter, and the waters getting warmer (yay!). Weather is also more volatile.....

Well, when a storm hits a village made of wooden fishing cabins (even the shops are in wooden cabins) with a population of only 700, you really know about it. It started with the wind on Tuesday night. Mother of God. I thought I was going to get blown away in my cabana, Dorothy-from-Kansas style. Tried to walk on the beach yesterday morning, but the wind was so strong that I got sandblasted within an inch of my life (hello microdermabrasion - I look 10 years younger head to toe)- so gave up on that and decided to just pop over the border into Brazil for the afternoon and do some shopping. I caught the bus to Chuy -which was cool. The town is half in Brazil,and half in Uruguay, so I had such fun crossing the main street (the border) and saying to myself "I'm in Uruguay! Whoops, now I'm in Brazil!".And yes, I stopped in the middle of the road and thought, I'm half in one, half in the other..... There is a post office for each country on either side of the street, different cops on either side of the street, etc etc.... the street signs are in Spanish on one side, Portuguese on the other.... Totally bizarre.

Also a totally shady place where there's contraband everything up and down the main street, mixed in amongst the Duty Free shops, so no pictures I'm afraid. I feared for my personal safety at times. Made it back though, even though the bus got blown across the road aquaplane style ....not an experience I'd like to repeat in a hurry. But I did achieve my goal of walking across the border to Brazil! The immigration procedures are difficult to work out,so basically I spent the afternoon in Brazil as an illegal alien. Will cross legally tomorrow though,on my way to Floripa!

For now seeing the weather is back to hot and sunny, I'm going to see how far I can walk up the 60km odd of uninterrupted beach and back in one day......