Here I sit, stuck in La Paloma. Yesterday was a beautiful, hot, sunny day. Today it looked like winter. From midnight until about 3PM, it absolutely poured down rain, and a strong wind out of the south brought temperatures that never climbed above 60 degrees. What a miserable day. So, one more day at the beach for me, although I won´t be going near the beach in this weather.
During a lull in the rain this morning, I went out and bought the newspaper, and, the choripan carrito being closed, stopped by a similar carrito selling hamburguers. Uruguayan hamburguers are interesting, to say the least. An extremely wide, extremely flat piece of meat is served on a "bun" that looks more like a piece of pita bread. They are edible, but are very strange looking.
Returning, I talked a while with the hotel owner, who leads a rather fun life. He runs the hotel from November until Easter, then leaves it in the charge of one of his sons for the rest of the year. Parked out front is an ancient school bus that he owns, which has been converted into a kind of mobile home, and has cooking facilities, a bed room, and what amounts to a full bar set up inside. The owner finds a temporary girlfriend, sometimes the same as last year, sometimes not, loads up the bus, and heads to Brazil for three months, with no particular set destination. When the money runs out, he comes back home. He has gotten as far north as Belem, Para, which is probably 3,000 miles away from here. All in all, it is an interesting way to live, and one of which I fully approve. I suggested he knock off the trips for a few years, save his money, and try to drive the bus all the way to the United States.
The hotel´s animals also travel in the bus, which must be fun. One enormous dog lives with a much smaller dog that looks like a dust mop, and they both coexist with a cat. In the vacant lot owned by the hotel next door is a pond which is full of some of the loudest frogs I have ever heard.
All in all, I could be stuck in worse places.
About an hour and a half ago, it stopped raining, and I took the bike out for a little while. Riding into the wind was an experience. Hopefully the wind will go away by tomorrow. For now, I have the use of the hotel´s laptop computer which I am using to listen to the Redskins´ game, so I am content
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