We wish you a great year 2009!!!

Our sand castle...

The sand castle builders after a few drinks...
 

Brian and Marie-France with Anya, Josh and Megan

But what happens when these two very different worlds collide? That all depends on the velocity of the motorcyclist at the time of impact. Let us say, just as an example of course, that you were a motorcyclist and were driving in a country like, say, Uruguay about a week ago. And, just for the sake of argument, let’s say that you were driving at about 100 kilometers an hour. Now in order to illustrate clearly what can happen when these two worlds collide we are going to have to assume that you are driving with your visor up. I know what you are thinking, nobody would be stupid enough to be driving at 100 k/hr with their visor up but please bear with me and remember that this is all just an example. Now the first thing that would hypothetically happen is that you would feel a very sharp pain near your left temple, the point of impact. Your first thought might be something along the lines of “hey stupid! You forgot to bring down the visor” quickly followed by “damn, I hope that wasn’t a bee”. It would be about at this point that you would feel the little bee legs trying to hang on to the mainly non-grey hairs that are near your temple.
Desperate to avoid crashing, you would quickly start shifting down from 5th to 4th to OUCH! The little bastard just stung me! to 3rd to 2nd to OUCH! AGAIN!!! to 1st and stop. Off goes the helmet and out falls a little bee.

From the bee’s standpoint the whole event would look considerably different. You would be minding you own business, just “smelling the flowers” so to speak when you would spot a red dot off in the distance. You might think to yourself “there is a fool sitting on top of that red dot with his visor up but surely I can make it across the road before he…”
Once you would regain consciousness you would quickly assess the situation. “Thank God I can still move my six legs but where am I? Oh yeah, the guy on the motorcycle. Who the hell does he think he is anyway? Sure, eat the honey for breakfast every day but heaven forbid that the little fellow who busts his balls making the stuff gets in the way of mister “I ride with my visor up”. Well, I can do more than make honey. Maybe I’m just gonna park my stinger right about HERE!. Oops, did that hurt? No, how about HERE!” Satisfied that you have extracted sweet revenge (by the way, everything is sweet when you are a bee) you would quickly fall into eternal sleep.

Not that any of this really happened on the road from Mercedes to Punta del Diablo when we were in Uruguay but I’m just saying, it might have. If, of course, I would be the type of person to ride with my visor up at high speed. But since I am not I can say in all honesty that my left temple is not slightly swollen and never has been...honestly...you can trust me.

We have spent the past two weeks in the town of Colonia del Sacramento at the south-western tip of Uruguay. The town was originally a fort built by the Portuguese over 300 years ago to smuggle goods across the river to Buenos Aires, then in Spanish hands. What remains of that era are beautiful old buildings and charming streets that attract visitors from all over the world.

In coming to Uruguay we were hoping to make our way to Punta del Diablo, a supposedly beautiful beach about 5 hours from here (towards Brazil). But it seems that the cold weather is determined to follow us for a few more weeks so we decided to stay put in Colonia instead (we have been staying in a nice guest house with comfortable beds!). But the beaches of Uruguay remain high on our list of places to go so we plan on returning here once we have finished visiting Argentina (in about 4 months).  

But first Argentina, or more specifically, Buenos Aires. Tomorrow we board a ferry to cross the Rio de la Plata into the capital of Argentina. The plan is to take the next two weeks to prepare for our final few months in the Americas and a journey which will take us right across Argentina, into Chile and all the way south to Ushuaia. Our target date for arriving in Ushuaia, the absolute bottom of the Americas and the most southerly town in the world, is November 25^th. By the time we get back to Buenos Aires (mid December), the weather should finally be nice and warm!