Fotos de la casa

Hola a todos! Aca pusimos algunas fotos de nuestra casita en Punta del Diablo, para que vean que linda esta quedando. Todavia faltan mas arreglos y mejoras, pero por ahora es asi. Hello again everyone! We have added some photos of our house in Punta del Diablo, just so you can all see how nicely it's coming along. We still have a lot more home improvements planned, but this is what it looks like for now.

Home. (Punta. con punto al fin)

Bueno, resulta este blog ha sido el mas dificil de escribir, en parte porque tal vez de alguna manera no queremos terminar con este “viaje” todavia, y en parte porque demoraron mucho en ponernos la conexion de internet! Pero ya tenemos internet, y telefono, y estamos aca instalandonos en el destino final. Y a pesar de unos pequenios inconvenientes, ya nos estamos aclimatizando los cuatro a nuestras vidas nuevas. Este blog lo venimos escribiendo hace rato, asi que algunas cosas pueden parecer un poco atrasados, pero por lo menos les sirve para saber en que andamos.
Fue un dia soleado y frio cuando salimos de Montevideo, un poco mas tarde de lo pensado porque nos llevo un monton de tiempo organizarnos para salir. Salimos rumbo el este por la rambla, pasando toda la parte costera de Montevideo. Ibamos bastante lento debido al peso de todas las cosas (cajas de libros y cosas que habiamos mandado desde Canada hace meses) pero de a poco pasamos las ciudades de la costa, Piripolis, Punta del Este…Llegamos a la frontera departamental con Rocha cuando estaba empezando a oscurecer. Casi enseguida nos empezamos a sentir que la camioneta perdia fuerza cuando estabamos en subida (subiditas uruguayas que, despues de estar en las montanias, no son nada). Fue muy extranio. Pensabamos que le pasaba algo al canio de escape, porque despues de un rato la camioneta recuperaba fuerzas de nuevo. Inclusive en un par de lugares tuvimos que bajar a empujar! Paramos para poner nafta en Rocha, a una hora mas o menos de nuestro destino. Al arrancar la camioneta hizo el amague de nuevo, como que no quieria andar y no tenia fuerzas, pero alli salto y anduvo. Al rato pasamos la entrada para Castillos y despues la de La Esmeralda, y sabiamos que no faltaba mucho para llegar – estabamos muy ansiosos y emocionados! Al final, alli en la distancia vimos las luces de la entrada a Punta del Diablo. Con mucha emocion, doblamos para entrar al pubelo y…..nada. La camioneta no quieria ir ni para atrás ni para adentante. Alli estabamos estancados conmpletamente. Nos llevo un par de minutos para reacionar. Como? Si la camioneta nos llevo fielmente mas de 20 000 km como podia parar ahora, a solo 5 km de casa? Muy loco. No lo podiamos creerlo. No nos quedaba otro que reirnos! Despues de reaccionar un poco, llamamos a Isaac y Monica, que sabian que veniamos ese dia, y nos venieron a rescatar. En ese momento justo pasaba el taxi del pueblo, y nos tiro con una cuerdita los ultimos kilometros hasta casa. Cuando llegamos Miguel e Irene nos habian hecho el fueguito y entramos a nuestra casita quierida, por fin. Ahhh. Me pueden decir que no creen en el destino o lo que sea, pero es muy fuerte – como vamos a venir a quedarnos en la entrada del pueblo despues de recorrer toda Latinoamerica sin problemas mayores? Hablandolo despues con todo el mundo lo vimos muy simbolico ya que habiamos llegado al destino final y que nuestra querida camioneta ya lo sabia. Punto. El otro dia nos levantamos con el sonido de los pajaritos en los arboles, y el sol saliendo sobre el mar (vista que tenemos todos los dias de nuestro cuarto – un lujo total!). Al segundo dia Mateo empezo las clases, y ahora esta esperando la llegada de su propio laptop verde por el Plan CEIBAL! Ya esta bastante integrado, y el viernes 15 estamos de cumpleanios con los amigos aca en casa. Ariel tambien ya empezo en el liceo en La Coronilla (un pueblo a 30 minutos por omnibus al norte de aca) y esta bastante nervioso. Va a tener que estudiar bastante para poder pasar los examanes y pasar de anio despues de perder tantas clases. Pero esta entusiasmado y el sabe que lo puede lograr. Hasta tiene clases los sabados – esta salado el liceo aca! Esta contento porque tiene ganas de meterse a trabajar con un refugio de tortugas marinas ubicado en La Coronilla que se llama Karumbe (http://www.karumbe.org/web/index.htm).
El otro dia fuimos todos a Chuy, la ciudad pequenia que esta en la frontera con Brasil (a unos 50 minutos de casa, pasando la Coronilla) donde todo el mundo que vive aca va hacer las compras – literalmente, de un lado de la calle estas en Uruguay, y del otro estas en Brasil. Aunque nunca cruzas la frontera oficialmente, hay unos controles que te paran volviendo a Punta del Diablo y te controlan las compras (mas sobre esto despues....) Mas que nada es porque hay unas tiendas de Duty Free que oficialmente no podes comprar si no sos extranjero – es raro. Antes el Chuy era conocido como un lugar donde los uruguayos iban a comprar comidas y cosas de la casa muy barato, pero ahora que Brazil es mas caro que Uruguay, es donde van los brasileros a comprar electrodomesticos, etc. Por supuesto, nosotros seguimos yendo para comprar vinos tintos ricos y baratos! Uno de los aspectos mas interesantes del Chuy es la influencia palestina; pasando por sus tiendas uno los ve fumando sus pipas de agua y mirando el canal Al Jazeera por el TV cable. Y, por supuesto, Gustavo y los nenes comierons un bauru con ovo – un sandwiche caliente brasilero con un huevo en el medio.
El pueblo de Punta del Diablo ha cambiado un monton en algunos aspectos, con muchisimas casas nuevas (en la cuadra de nosotros eramos la primera casa, y ahora esta lleno!) pero en otros aspectos esta, por suerte, igual. Las playas son iguales, preciosas, y por el momento, vacias de turistas – todo para nosotros. El otro dia vimos focas en la playa, y una joven se quedo media atrapada entre las rocas, llorando hasta que vino una ola a sacarla de alli. Hace dos semanas habia un pinguinito cansado que se quedo por un tiempito en el pueblo, cuidado por la gente, hasta que recupero las fuerzas y se fue de nuevo al mar. Agosto y Setiembre son los mejores meses para ver ballenas en el agua, aca a la orillita nomas. La mayoria de los dias hay un sol rajante, y aunque haga frio hay una calidad inexplicable en el aire –es la luz, o el olor a mar, no se exacatamente que es–que te hacen despertar los sentidos y sentir completamente vivo. Desgraciadamente para la camioneta, vivir tan cerca de la playa quiere decir que hay mucho salitre en el aire, cosa que nos tiene un poco preocupados (vamos a tener que darle un banito de vez en cuando!).
Ahora, despues de otro viaje a Montevideo para buscar los resultados de la tomografia computada de Gustavo (que salieron muy bien) estamos de nuevo en Punta del Diablo. Mateo tuvo su cumpleanios el otro dia, e invito algunos de sus amigos para celebrar sus 10 anitos con una piniata de diablito, una torta hecha por Mimi y unos juegos divertidisimos animados por Ana. Manejando desde Montevideo con la camioneta llena de cosas – otra vez un domingo de tarde – nos vimos el atardacer mas hermoso que hemos visto en mucho tiempo, fue espectacular, un rojo vivo con el paisaje de las palmeras de Rocha y las vacas en el campo. Fue impresionante, y fue la bienvenida que nos faltaba. Este momento nos sirvio para subrayar porque hemos decidido hacer nuestra casa en este lugar del mundo. Es realmente un lugar magico…
Noticias: Magico o tal vez es un lugar mufa. Todavia esta por decidirse cual! El otro dia despues de dejar al Ari en su liceo, a Gustavo lo pararon en la “aduana” que esta en Coronilla (expliquenme porque hay una aduana 30 km de la frontera?) Les parecio “sospechoso” que Gustavo estuviera con la camioneta con papeles de turista al mismo tiempo que esta llevando a su hijo al liceo aca. Para hacerlo corto, a pesar de que todos los paperles estan en orden, se quedaron con la camioneta y mandaron a Gustavo y Mateo en el omnibus a casa! Mateo lloraba alli en frente de los aduaneros, y nada. Paso la noche con pesadillas – imaginense: hace 7 meses que esa camioneta es nuestra casa; ya es parte de la familia! Ahora tenemos que contratar un abogado para demandar que nos lo la devulevan, y aunque no hicimos absolutamente nada mal, eso va a demorar hasta por lo menos la semana que viene. Les hacemos saber como sale todo esto – por lo menos nos sirve de excusa para seguir con el blog un rato mas!
Ahora que llegamoshasta aca queriamos agradecerles a todos que nos han estado siguiendo – haciendo comentarios o anonimamente - en este aventura - le verdad que nos hizo sentir siempre acompaniados saber que tanta gente nos estaba alentando durante todo el camino. Gracias a todos!

Well, this entry has proven somehow to be the most difficult to write– maybe in part because it is kind of sad to know that it is the “last” one of our trip and we are somehow a bit reluctant to end it, and also in part because we have been waiting forever for our internet connection. But, now we finally have a home phone and internet service. Despite a few small glitches (to be detailed below) we have arrived at our final destination and are all four of us just now beginning to settle into our new lives.
It was a bright and sunny but crisp day when we left Montevideo just after the last blog entry. We ended up leaving later than we expected because it took us a while to get ourselves organized, but we finally piled ourselves as much of our stuff (we had shipped some boxes of books for my thesis, the kids books, rugs, etc.) as we could cram into the westy and took off. We drove along the rambla (which is a long and rambling boardwalk all along the Rio de la Plata, which basically extends from the old city to the outskirts of town, the entire length of the city) enjoying a typical winter-yet-sunny day. As I said, we were quite loaded down so we drove pretty slowly, passing the small towns on the coast just outside of Montevideo whose populations have exploded in recent years with people who are tired of living in the city; we passed Piriapolis and Punta del Este and by the time we started to reach the departmental limit with Rocha, it was starting to get dark. We also started to notice that the westy was losing force whenever we came to a small incline. We knew we were loaded down, yes, but this just made no sense – after all of the mountains that we drove on throughout the trip, how could it be that the westy was losing force on these dinky Uruguayan hills?! It was very strange. And it kept getting worse – at one point Ari and I had to get out and push! After about a half an hour of wondering whether we should flag someone down and call a tow truck, the vehicle suddenly accelerated – vroom – and started to drive normally again. We were perplexed, but thought that maybe the filter was clogged, or that something – maybe a banana!?- was stuck in the exhaust pipe and got spit out. Anyway, we kept driving until we got to the town of Rocha where there is a gas station right on the highway. After filling up, the westy did not want to go into gear and drive, but after a minute or two it did the same thing and jumped forward, driving fairly normally on the highway. Weird. It was now completely dark at this point and so we couldn’t really see very well, but we were starting to get all antsy, feeling very excited to be so close to home! Finally, off in the distance we saw the turnoff to Punta del Diablo and we all started to congratulate ourselves for having made it at last. At the highway exit we slowed down to turn right onto the main road and…nothing. The westy had completely frozen. No matter how many times we tried, it would not get it to go into gear. We could not move neither forward nor backward. Desperate, we tried to push-start it a few times in second gear (which worked once, very briefly, and we had to jump in after it was moving – remember Little Miss Sunshine?). But it just did not want to budge. It was an amazingly starry cold night, and we just sat there and scratched out heads; for the first few minutes we just could not believe it. Once we recovered our wits, we decided to call Monica and Isaac who were expecting us to arrive that day, and ask them to rescue us. A few minutes after the call, the town taxi happened to drive by, and he ended up towing Gustavo and the westy by rope the last km from Highway 9 to our house, while the kids and I rode in Isaac and Monica’s car. You can tell me you don’t believe in fate, or destiny, or karma, or whatever…..but come on! The westy faithfully carried us from Hamilton all the way to Uruguay, with only a few small problems here and there (which seemed to happen in exactly the places where they needed to happen) and now it gives up and completely dies on us? We drove more than 20,000 km and the last five km we had to be towed with a flimsy rope by the Punta del Diablo taxi driver? It is just too much. Talking about it later with others, we figured out that it must mean that we are finally home: the westy took us to where it needed to take us, and decided that it that was it. At least for now.
That night we walked in to our very own little house, which was waiting for us – it was like it was frozen in time or something – Miguel and Irene had already made a nice cosy fire for us, and had taken good care of the place for us while we were gone. We woke up the next morning to the sound of birds in the trees and the sun rising over the ocean (a view we have been enjoying fully every morning out our bedroom window -we truly are privileged!). We saw a whole band of bright green parrots outside welcoming us home, along with a big red-headed woodpecker and many other little birdies, who sometimes come right into the house regularly by mistake if we leave the windows open. The next few days were spent cleaning the house, visiting with people, and getting the westy fixed. This task was made relatively easy, thanks to El Vampiro, the guy who provides firewood and also happens to be a mechanic. So we got a load of firewood too (he also cut down a pine tree that was leaning dangerously over the house -and blocking our view - you’ve got to love Punta del Diablo!). On the second day, Mateo started school and is already settling in well in his class. He is waiting for his own little green “One Laptop per Child” laptop, which should be arriving for him soon! He had his 10th birthday party the other day and invited some old and new friends to celebrate with a devil piñata, a cake made by Mimi and some really fun games animated by Ana. Ariel started high school, and although it looks like it is going to be tough getting caught up, he is motivated and excited about it. We both have some serious studying to do in the next few months, because in order to pass the year he has to write some difficult exams at the end of term. Poor Ari: high school is really challenging in Uruguay, and he even has classes on Saturdays! He also has to take a bus on the highway every day to La Coronilla, a town which is about a 30 minute ride north of here. But it is a nice smallish school, and the people seem really friendly and open. He is especially excited about getting involved with a sea turtle sanctuary in Coronilla called Karumbe – check it out online (http://www.karumbe.org/web/index.htm). We have been going regularly to Chuy to do some errands, do banking and pay bills, etc.. Ah, Chuy…it is a strange and wonderful border town in the northeast of the country (about 50 minutes from here, past La Coronilla), where you are literally in Uruguay on one side of the street and on the other side of the street you are in Brazil. While you never actually physically cross a border, coming back to Punta del Diablo from there you come upon these weird customs check points where they control what you have bought (and legendarily ask for bribes – more on this later). Chuy is a typical border town, a bit shady with lots of duty free shops, a casino, and commercial stores galore. Another interesting aspect of Chuy is the Middle Eastern (especially Palestinian) influence; walking by their shops you can see the merchants smoking water pipes and watching Al Jazeera on cable TV. Chuy has been known for years as being a place to buy cheap goods and foods. For Uruguayans it was back when Brazil was cheaper than Uruguay, but now Brazilians flock to Chuy to buy electro-domestic products. Of course, we still go to the Duty Free shops for cheap bottles of good wine! And we love going to the supermarket on the Brazilian side for coconut yogurt, chocolate bars and tahini. The kids and Gustavo had bauru con ovo, a Brazilian grilled sandwich with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in it (peppers, olives, mushrooms, cheese, corn) and a raw egg cracked in it before grilling to crispy perfection. Speaking of food, we have been slowly going through all the foods that we had stashed in the cupboards of the westy for the whole trip (Maseca, arepa flour, quinoa) and the other night we decided to make a Pad Thai kit that we had bought way back at Trader Joe’s in Cincinnati, Ohio - It was delicious!
The town of Punta del Diablo itself has changed a lot in some ways, with lots of new houses and construction happening all the time (in our block, for example, we were the very first house and now it is full!), but in many other ways, it is exactly the same. The beaches have not changed much, for example. The other day we saw a seal on the rocks, crying and alone until she figured out how to get past the waves and back out to sea. Two weeks ago a penguin was stranded on the beach and hung out for a while with the people in the town, before recovering strength and taking off out to sea again. It is whale-spotting season, and with our eyes glued on the horizon we are looking forward to seeing them any day now. Most days are sunny, and even though it is cold as this time of year there is an inexplicable quality to the air here –the light, the salt in the air, I am not sure exactly what it is - that awakens the senses and makes you feel completely alive (of course, the part about the salt in the air is an unfortunately detail for the poor westy, who will have to have regular washes to keep from rusting all to hell while we are here).
Now, after another trip to Montevideo to get Gustavo’s CT scan and blood test results (which are all fine, by the way) we are back in Punta del Diablo once again. This time we are finally starting to relax and settle in. If you want to see more photos of and information about Punta del Diablo check out www.portaldeldiablo.com.
Driving here from Montevideo – again, on a Sunday afternoon -- we witnessed one of the most spectacular sunsets that we have ever seen. It was translucent fire in the sky behind the fields of cows and the famous tall, thin palms trees of Rocha. It was breathtaking - an incredible welcome home, and only served to reinforce for us why we have chosen to make this place our home. It is truly a magical place…
Update: it is either magical or jinxed, we are still trying to figure out which (at least for the poor Westy!). The other day as Gustavo was driving back from dropping Ari of at La Coronilla, the customs guys stopped him (can anyone explain to me why there is a customs office 30 km from the border?) and thought that it was “suspicious” for him to be driving on a tourist permit while taking his son to school. To make a long story short, even though our paperwork is entirely in order and there is absolutely nothing legally wrong, because it is “unusual” the guy decided to confiscate the vehicle, and Gustavo and Mateo (who was crying inconsolably) had to wait on the side of the highway to take a bus home. They took the keys and the vehicle. Some people we talk to think that they are either looking for a bribe or hoping that there is actually something wrong with our paperwork, in which case they might eventually keep the vehicle themselves. Others think they are just doing their jobs. I don’t know, but we were all pretty crushed, and Mateo was plagued by nightmares all night. It is difficult to explain, but after a 7 month trip like the one we just had, the westy feels like a part of our family and we felt somehow violated. We had to get a lawyer to write an official letter of complaint and are now waiting for a judge to tell them to give us our keys back! There is no doubt that they will, but bureaucratic processes like this take a long time here, and meanwhile we are braving rainstorms and cold weather without a vehicle! We will keep you all posted as to how this turns out: at the very least, the incident serves as an excuse to keep the blog going a while longer! Speaking of the blog, for a while now we have been wanting to thank all of you who have been following us (whether publicly with your amazing comments, or anonymously – and you know who you are!) on our journey. This adventure has been made all the more exciting and ratifying for us knowing that we have not been alone, and that so many people have been cheering us on during our adventure in the last few months. Thank you again to all!
Ariel wants to let you all know that you should be prepared for our next big journey which will be our trip in ….Africa maybe? Or Asia?....