Bar by the beach in UY serving Vadaiss ???

It all started when I was sitting and chatting with a friend of mine with a bottle of ice cold beer,on the deck of the life guard hut on the beach...She was just back from Mozambique and we started discussing all her experience - scuba diving, Night safari at the Kruger & I was telling her how jealous was I of her just coz of the amount of travelling, camping, adventures she has experienced............
I admire when people can follow their heart for a little while.. and she was flowing on and on with stories - that even I started to listen - which is rare from my side ;-) !!

We were thinking of 2do options in UY - Skydiving was deemed unsafe - also joked about people packing the chutes with a hot mate or burning cigarette and the chute having a hole when opened (at a height of 10000+ feet hmmm... ), No scope for bungee - you got to fly to Argentina or Brazil , no to SCUBA - they do it in a pool ahhhh,,,, and the one left was camping... I took the bait as always something is better than nothing.........& wanted to get out of my office framework for a while coz it was biting a bit into me ..

Plan etched to go camping to La Paloma - 3 hours by bus from Montevideo... One of her friends had rented a house and we could pitch a couple of tents by the garden of the home and a group would join us.

DAY0: Finished all my pending work at office and left a bit early to be at the bus station for the 3 hour comfy journey to La Paloma.Packed my Nikon D60 with all three lenses & had charged both my battery packs the night before. we reached La Paloma around 2315 or so .. and some calls from work had to be attended to but didnt play spoilsport - they managed to behave !! Seafood paella and some lamb for dinner at a nearby restaurant while we waiting for our friends Juan and Caro to pick us up - we were hauled into a Mitsubishi pickup = i liked the rustiness of the place and the people incl the pickup truck - like the ones in Texas and those from those hostel series movies ;-)
We got in and were double minded on whether to pitch the tent tonight or just make ourselves cozy in the hall of the wooden home .. not to miss the fun from day0, we started unpacking the tent and fixed it soon.. and were ready to dig ourselves into our sleeping bags...

DAY1:My biOclOck always disturbs me a little early than the normal standard, so couldn't resist waking my friends up at oh-eight-thirty.. some frowned some just said ..its a vacation day relaxxxxxx tranquiloooooooo.. hmmm !! But the sun in UY can sting your skin when it is directly above you , so its always better to wander in the beach before or after.Diappointment#1 came down here - I took my camera and wanted to click the sleepy faces but as i got a good angle and clicked - the most disappointing words flashed on the display "No memory card inserted" - in the haste had left the memory card in the laptop slot. Leaving the disappointment behind We all walked to the beach and it was not so crowded.. just the right kind.. families,, children making sand castles,, dogs playing fetch with their proud owners,,

Too many jellyfishes in the sea didnt deter us from swimming and then hitting the beach for a bit of tan (hahah dont laugh even our skin gets a bit darker .. should i call it black than tan). After a couple of trips to the sea , ended up on the wooden chairs at Juan's beach side bar - and had some cold Kaipirinhas with some Buñuelos de algas (deepfried sea algae in a little batter of flour and beer), fresh mussels boiled in salt and a bit of garlic with the shell - thought i wont like it but this was just soft and melted in the mouth !!

After a great lunch from the sea, decided to take a walk to downtown for a bit of grocery shopping.We were walking for hours, confused on our bearings (no we didn't smoke though).. if we had walked straight probably couldve crossed the boundaries of UY.But the walk had its own surprises - a good beach where the water was clearer with lesser population of Jelly fish - better to spend some more time at the sea, a bakery with tasty masitas and churros and then we moved ourselves to the fish shop - my eyeballs from end to end searching for crab ,, its been long since i had it ! But there was no crab, but the meat was available of the smaller variety called Cirri - ok whatever get it was my reaction ! We bought some fresh prawns and crab meat.Still we didnt know our way back and the sun was threatening to go down his blanket to sleep ! After about 5 or 6 calls to Caro and an hour more walk on the beach with some questions to strangers on the way - reached our tent lovely tent ! Indian food with rice, prawn curry and crab masala with wine - cant get better with the company being awesome.

DAY2: Read DAY1 one more time, as if it is put on writing it would be boring but believe me after a month of streching on work you can do the same thing again and again without getting bored and the same thing should be defined as - swimming, lying on the beach, drinking kaipirinhas and eating sea food from Juans bar .. lol
The only different thing we did today was - to get smarter and do the shopping with Caro in Juan-s pickup - veggies , prawn , wine and crab meat.This time the group was going to be about 10 - Caros and Juans friends wanted to taste some spicy food as they missed it (Most of them had worked in Indonesia).
Thank that someone who invented automobiles - reached our place early enough to prepare - fried rice with veggies, prawn masala even topped with coriander leaves and crab masala. For drinks there was Mango cocktail from chile which my friend presented and Wine from Argentina. We sat outside on a clear night with lots of talk and food - I could hear the whoooos and aahs from most of them , Juan was ranked#1 in accomodating spicy food ;-). We had the antidote of curd and pappad ready for those whoo-aaah sickness and it was well appreciated.Juan has forwarded an invite to me to cook Indian food (vada, prawn masala etc) at his bar.A nice day ended nice.

DAY3: you know the start ... now !! The different thing is we visited the the "youngster" beach at La pedrera about 20 - 30 mins from La paloma. I loved the countryside ride on top of a pickup. The houses are different the scenery is different.Too much visible energy on the beach.
A bit of souvenir hunting and then back to the bus base for our return back to Montevideo and Monotony (a different kind which i dont like)

Next Action Item: A Weekend camping but as an employee of Juan at his lovely wooden rustic bar by the beachside , not only sipping free kaipirinhas & munching on sea food but also cooking some Indian spicy food for sale - awesome a part of my dream come true - owning a restaurant starts in the kitchen !! I am all for it .............and being employee of Juan for a weekend means free surfing classes !!!

Crashed by Car & Washed by Wits .........

This working week ended on a great note with a meeting with the ex-CEO and current vice chairman of my company. He was on a tour to south america , and was a lucky to share a meeting table with him. It was a great eye opener for many of us.. and helped us put a different perspective to what we do...

Then there was a "cant say NO " invite from a group of friends to a place called El Pinar - the goodies on offer were a great home by the beach, lots of music, BBQ , the twin W's - wine & Whisky, and great beautiful friends to chat off the night...

Was so thrilled to get off to a beach home with a energetic group as this NY eve was spent alone by the beach lying half in water and half in sand.. watching the firework lit sky ....

2230 my friend picked me up from my home and then as my lovely jinx always does wonders - the car goes dead !! We tried almost everything common sense (the little we have) ordered us to -- I now remembered my Dad's words during my university years when I was trying to graduate in Mechanical Engineering : " Try to be a real engineer not a one on paper" -
I think I couldn't keep his word on this, apart from many others of course ....

By the time we needed some drinks 4 thought and the first W to speed into our throats was the 12 years old Walker. Then the 4 of us had a crazy idea of why not spend the night at the beach in carrassco... LOL we were laughing at the idea but the sleeping bags.. and the right rocky place we scouted in a bit ensured a 100% participation !!!

The wind the rhythm of the sea, little guitar tunes from Juan kept us going the whole night - did I miss Luci's songs ??? We should have slept about 2 - 2.5 hours , then the early morning sun , the waves and the birds woke us up !! It was awesome just like the one I spent on a catamaran back in india - but this one was on the rocks rather than in the Sea ! the effect on the crazy meter is the same .. believe me or not ....

How could we resist an early morning dip if the stay place offered a very large pool with depth varying from an inch to a few 1000 meters ,moderate temperature, no lanes, no time or space restrictions ;-) ? We all swam in the morning water for sometime .. wiping off all the sand that had made love to us the night ....

Returned to my home around midday , with a smile cut across my face thinking of the last 10 or so hours ... life has its twists and turns...its easy to accept and improvize than to resist and ruin !!!