October 24, 2025 . Nearly Rained Out . Colonia del Sacramento.

This will be a fairly short post, as we were basically rained out. We had plans to drive to Carmello–another small town about an hour to the west. But we woke up to torrential rains and thunder. We had breakfast at the hotel and I used the time after that to work, while Mike searched for restaurants in Buenos Aires where we will head tomorrow. We monitored the potential invasion of Oakland and are glad evreyone is now safe… for the moment.

A few more notes about Uruguay:

• Because it is a very secular country, “Christmas” is referred to as “Family Day” (a holiday to honor families) and Easter week is called “Tourism Week”–a vacation time to travel.
• Uruguay gets all of its electricity from renewable sources, mostly hydropower..
• There are more cows in Uruguay than people; three cows for every person.
• Uruguay has one of the highest literacy rates in the world.
• It was the first country in Latin America to establish a welfare state.
• There is a national dish called “chivito” which is a sandwich that includes beefsteak, mozzarella, ham, tomatoes, mayonnaise, and olives, and often also includes hard boiled eggs, and is accompanied by french fries. We have not partaken… I hate mayonnaise! and there are just too many things in that sandwich for me.

Anyway, at around 2:30 the rain stopped or turned into a drizzle so we ventured out for a snack (croquetas) and a short walk in parts of the town we hadn’t seen yet.

Came back to the hotel (relatively dry) and did some work and also some planning for our time in Buenos Aires. And then we decided to head for dinner at a restaurant just down the street from our hotel — Bohemia. It was pretty good. We had sweetbreads and also a tagliolini dish with grilled shrimp. Basically they grill everything.

Hopefully the rain will end by morning.