The past weekend was definitely an interesting experience. I went to a little town in the east of Uruguay called Cabo Polonio. The bus ride from Montevideo was about 4 - 4 1/2 hours. Once we got off at the right bus stop, we had to take a 4x4 truck over the sand dunes to the actual town. These trucks are very interesting. You can fit A LOT of people on one truck. They have an interesting frame-thing on the truck with a ton of seats.

It was about a 20 minute ride. The town was very interesting. There aren't blocks like they have in most towns. There were houses just kind of stuck wherever. I arrived at the hostel and was showed to my room that I would share with three other people.

Small, but secure. See the door lock?

The town was awesome. Sitting in one of the hammocks at the hostel I saw a group of people on a horse ride on the beach.

Here's a cow eating some grass. This is in the middle of town.

And this is the sunset that closed my first night in Cabo Polonio:

It's not the most beautiful in the world, but the environment was so great. Everyone was relaxed and having a good time. Because you need a pretty tough truck to get to the town, there aren't cars. There's no traffic. It's quiet and peaceful and animals graze in the middle of the town. It was a really great place. I think it would be nice to visit for a week or maybe even a month every year, but to live there would be a little too much. It's a long way to get to any big place, things are expensive there, and there's NOTHING to do besides sit around at the beach. It was a really great getaway though and it was worth the 4 1/2 hour bus ride from Montevideo and the 4 1/2 hour bus ride back.

Let me tell you a little about my hostel. First off, Cabo Polonio is pretty much a hippie commune. And there's a water shortage. In the hostel if you used the bathroom, you didn't flush unless you needed to. If you deemed it necessary, you did a half-flush by pulling up the little plunger thing in the tank. If you wanted to take a shower, you would rinse yourself, turn off the water, put on shampoo and whatnot, rinse, turn off the shower, etc. Probably the most eco friendly shower I've ever taken. It was a great experience though and everyone was very friendly.


Thursday I went to Las Llamadas. It's a parade in Carnaval with a bunch of different groups of drums (candombes) and dancers. There can be 50 people drumming in one group. It's very loud. And very powerful. The energy is amazing. I didn't get very many good pictures. My phone can't handle movement.

This afternoon, I was making some food inside the school/my house and I heard candombes. I went outside and there was a group going past outside. They went right through the middle of the street. The cars went other ways or waited. It's pretty cool to see. They weren't in costume or anything, but it was still impressive.

Friday I went to a small street fair and bought tomatoes, carrots, garlic, potatoes, and onions. Today I went to the big street fair that I went to my first week here. It was pretty cool. I bought some cheese and cookies (they were cheaper than at the grocery store). There is seriously EVERYTHING for sale there. That's my life up til now. If anything else exciting happens, I'll let you know.