Hola from Paradise (at last!)

Hello from Punta del Este - paradise at last

Well, what can I say, I´m on a Point with gorgeous beach on the left, and gorgeous beach all the way to Brazil on my right.... I´m staying in a place on the spit where I have one beach 20m in one direction (surf!! scary surf!!) and another beach 50m on the other (bay! placid bay!). In all, it´s very nice, and I think I´ll be very happy here. I´ve left the dull waters of the Rio la Plata far behind.... Montevideo was worth the pain - although the last day was great. Thank God I met the Carnaval guy who pointed me in the right direction..... or I´d still be suffering in that dirty, stinking hole.

Last night I went to the heat of the Montevidean Carnaval - it was really cool - lots of music, dancing, colour. It goes all night so I had to call it about halfway through - they´d already lost all power once, so I was sitting under the stars, in pitch black, with about 4,000 non English speaking very excited Montevideans..... you´d have to be there to believe it. ¨But, the show went on, in the dark... A very kind policeman put me in a taxi to go home! Service!

Internet has been really accessible so far - all the places I´ve stayed have it gratis. However, I don´t plan on doing much for the next 15 days until I hit Rio, except beachhopping (eg. reading, swimming, surfing (maybe if I can find a calm enough beach - it´s scary here), eating seafood and drinking cerveza cerveza cerveza) my way up the coast, so there may not be the action in my posts that there has been until now.... but you never know. From here on in it´s getting off a bus, and wandering around tiny villages trying to find a cabana...... So for the next 15 days all you people working probably won´t want to hear about what a boring time I´m having ; )

In more exciting news, I did get ¨attacked by wild dogs¨ a couple of days ago. In Colonia there are a lot of strays and I was cornered by a couple of snarling ones. I was really terrified - until this dottery old 80 year old lady beat them off with a stick, and then I was just embarrassed..... better than being shat on though.

Yes yes to you all nagging me - I´m going to try and post some photos soon!