Hot springs, carrots and a truck

Uruguay, our fourth country in four days. During the dark early hours it dropped us in the middle of nowhere opposite a large supermarket and a garage in a very small town. The girls saw a truck and looked pretty horrified, I looked over and got excited, this must be our lift.

Juan (our Gaucho guide) said to me, you are the vegetarian yes? I nodded. This is your food. He showed me a big bag of carrots. If you don´t go to the supermarket this is all you will eat. He said this seriously. Tired and confused, even seeing he was a joker I felt the need to check with Catherina and she wound me up too. I really did feel like crying. I was that tired. And a wimp. She noticed and laughed at me. Phew!

Juan´s truck had wooden slabs wonkily nailed to the sides in various places and most of the top was covered by a some wood. We wouldn´t get too wet. It looked as though Juan had been making a small effort every week to improve his truck for passengers. He´d made seats from wood then nailed seatbelts (the ones you get in the centre back seat of a car) to the sides. At 5am wearing all of our warmest clothes for our ride we huddled together in silence. Peering at the open view from the back of the truck, people who were mad enough to drive at that time in the morning pointed and laughed at us, then followed these gestures with waving. We looked like illegal immigrants.

After two hours we arrived at another small town with time to eat and spend an hour in the cold weather swimming in hot springs. After a night bus this was LOVELY. With wet hair we sat on the truck for another 5 hour drive to Juan´s ranch. There were horses in his drive way wandering freely. Surely this is heaven!