Hello everyone, I need to tell you a little bit about Uruguay before I forget. I am so tired and sore from horseback riding that I have been slow in catching up with the daily updates. We had a really wonderful time in Uruguay. We took the high speed ferry (BuqueBus) from Buenos Aires directly to Montevideo in 3 hours. In Montevideo we rented a car a drove the two plus hours up the coast to Punta Del Este. It was fun driving the five speed standard transmission Chevy, brought back old times with the Toyota Corolla. We saw many pretty coastal sites along the way as we leisurely made our way to Punta Del Este. We stopped for empanadas in Pinar (see picture) and enjoyed the tasty treats along the way. We reached our hotel, The Golden Beach Resort at around 3:30 P.M. where we quickly headed to the indoor pool for couple of hours of relaxing swimming. There were four major memorable things about our trip to Uruguay. The first was our whole day of driving and exploring the beautiful towns and villages up and down the coast from Punta Del Este. We saw one beautiful seaside vista after another. The town of San Ignacio was another major highlight with it's pretty lighthouse and beautiful seaside scenery. We had lunch here at a restaurant called "La Huella" which was highly recommended and open year round. It was situated right on the beach with precious views of the sea, beach and offshore rock formations. It's a beautiful restaurant with an awesome looking bar and nautical Uruguayan interior. I had here probably one of the best meals that I have had so far. We shared a delicious grilled provolone with tasty seafood salads that were delivered to each table. I had a freshly caught and grilled Cobina that was served on a wooden plank. It was an amazing piece of fresh fish with a mesquite like flavor from the local wood used in the parrilla. Great friendly service and fine way to have a Saturday lunch. After our lunch we headed to the other side of Punta Del Este to Punta Ballenas (Whales Point). This was a beautiful place with amazing views of the beaches and coastlines. The highlight here was the hotel called CasaPueplo. It is famous for it's very intersting construction that is built right into the hillside overlooking the sea. It is the brainchild and work of the Uruguayan painter Carlos Paez Vilaro. The legendary painter and sculpter who still spends much of his time here at his beloved CasaPueblo in a home adjacent to the hotel. We had the good fortune of running in to him as he was being honored by a Brazilian art delegation. The hotel is a shrine, museum and a home to many of his works. No two rooms are the same and each is focused on maximum exposure to the sun. The sunsets here are an amazing thing of beauty and are religiously honored and observed. Vilaro is also an amazing man well into his eighty's and still going strong. He was very good friends with Picasso (some of his originals are on display here) as well as Dali, Miro, Albert Schweitzer, Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro. His son was also one of the survivors of the famous plane crash in the Andes in 1973, where the survivors had to eat human flesh to live. His story of finding his son is an amazing and unbelievable tale(read the book "Alive"). I was able to get some nice pictures with this legend who has visited nearly every country in the world. What a life!! We headed back to Buenos Aires on the BuqueBus which turned out to be a little bit of a dicey trip. We ran into a heavy storm with rain and strong head winds. These caused serious whitecap conditions that almost cost Bridget her lunch. The Buquebus full-throttled it through the waves and Bridget kept it together until we pulled in to Buenos Aires. A very nice couple of days indeed!!