29 july 2019: Bye bye Holland, hello Uruguay!

We had a wonderful time in the Netherlands, catching up with family and many friends. Celebrating graduations of nephews and nieces. This picture is quite special. Nienke with her twin sister,  her brother and partners. We all met in the same week 31 years ago and are still all together.

It was a sunny day when we visited the grave of our boys, we planted some new greens, replaced a few items. Still so sad and incomprehensible.

At the end of the same day, after a very nice lunch with my aunt in the port of Scheveningen we were not in the mood for cooking, so we ended up at a Chinese restaurant enjoying a buffet. Oh, those delicious sate's.

I already added a photo and clip in our last blog of Nienke visiting the 'old battle grounds' while in Utrecht to celebrate the lustrum of her student club. She had a marvelous day at 'The Club' on Saturday as well, while I caught up with my own fraternity club. On Sunday Nienkes fraternity club tested their nautical skills on the canals of Utrecht. Us spouses were allowed to board as well.

At times very unsteady weather directed us under bridges to shelter from the rain.

Back in Bathmen it was food again, Dutch mussels with our friends Han and Maaike. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that although we did plan to lose some weight, we failed with flying colours.

And then there was that long weekend with my family. Let's say there was enough food and booze to feed a regiment of hungry soldiers.

So the next day we requisitioned a few bicycles and planned to explore the surroundings of Teuge. Let's say not everybody's compass had recovered from last nights BBQ. The Netherlands probably has more cycle paths than any other country in the world, yet, we managed to have to cross the railway illegally (I'll stop the trains boasted my brother), plough with our bikes through a paddock, lifting the bikes over or pushing them under live wiring and cycle passed amused cows and stunned farmers. We did in the end reach the lake in Busloo, at least I think that was the goal.

On the way back we visited the market in Twello where some extra food was stocked. You never know when you might run out! Here is Nienke at the cheese stall. In the meantime the scents of fried fish from the Spakenburger fish stand became irresistible so the few lost calories from the cycling where compensated in no time.

Preparations underway for the second BBQ with the family.

One of the main traditions during these family weekends is playing Mah Yong, a great Chinese game. Here with our youngest nephew Gijs.

Feeling extremely guilty again in the morning we decided to pick up the bicycles again and go for a 31 km ride. Halfway we met up with the less sporty half of the family at Cannenburg castle. By pure chance (?) there happened to be a 'Monmartre' market (second hand market, specifically for very old stuff).

Unfortunately there was a old fashioned Dutch 'frieten tent' (famous Dutch fries). The owner would not let us pass until we had tried his fries. Well, you can't just ignore so much passion. A few minutes later we increased the speed cycling home in another futile attempt to do something healthy. Anyway, we survived the weekend.

One more lunch to go, with Nienkes uncle and his wife Marya, who gave us many tips on travelling in Chile.
The flight back to Porto Allegre was not uneventful. "Ladies and gentlemen, is there a doctor on board?". Nienke elbow-volunteered me awake. Half sleep drunk I made my way to the rear of the plane to discover that 3 other doctors had already attended to an older man. I was dismissed. An hour later however, when I walked to the toilet he started seizing again at my feet. The three Latino-docs stood and stared so I had a Spanish/French/English/sign language conversation with the purser and the friend of the man. I managed to diagnose him as an alcoholic with abstinence symptoms who was given some valium by his French physician (so nice of the dr. to give the patient an explanatory letter, NOT). As my Latino colleagues had already stuffed him full of valium at the previous attack I could not do more than to prevent them from giving him even more. Without knowing what he used to take/had taken (no jar with a label of course) the best thing was to just wait. The seizing stopped and he eventually fell in a deep sleep. Of course I did not.

It rained in Porto Alegre, so no reason to hang around. We headed down the coast towards Uruguay. In São José do Norte we had to take a ferry. A lot of confusion, no signing, plenty of useless men walking around giving different advise. In the end we ended up parking on the side of a road somewhere. It turned out to be the for the ferry!? Not completely reassured (as we could not even see the harbour anymore) we bought some food at a nearby shop, just to be on the safe side. Eventually a rumour reached our car, the ferry was approaching. Out of nowhere somebody appeared selling tickets for the ferry, so we hoped. Suddenly we found ourselves stuffed tightly on a ferry. Nienke and I agreed that as soon as the dangerously nose diving ferry was making water we would climb out of the windows onto the roof.

Of course nothing happened and so we ended up in a nice hotel in Rio Grande where in order to do something for the environment they collected the screw tops of the bottles they sold to prevent them from ending up in the water. I guess it will compensate for the very small plastic water cups offered to guests! Crossing the Brasilian border the next day was easy. No one noticed the dates on our car import form were different from the ones in our passports. The office of the Uruguayan customs looked more like a medieval stable. Dirty, smelling of smoke, and clearly manned with some people who somehow managed to offend their bosses in the past. Not at all like the rich (so we were told) Uruguay we expected to see.

What we did expect to see were beaches, endless beautiful beaches.

Punta del Diablo, a nice hippie town just over the border with Brasil. We rented a nice little cottage from a lovely couple (always great to get a hug from someone you meet for the first time). As we had a few concerns regarding the temperature (with only 12 degrees during the day we were kind of jealous of the 41 degrees the Dutch were enjoying) Pablo supplied plenty of firewood, even starter packs. The town was an assembly of huts, shacks, container houses and even some decent buildings. I do not think any architects have been involved here. It all looked pretty cool though.

During the night we heard thunder and rain, the wind howling, but the next day it was all blue again, with mighty waves pushing foam onto the beach.

Unfortunately we found quite some dead Magellan penguins on the beach. They looked all right (apart from being dead) so we had to guess what the cause of death was.

Found a dead seal as well, neatly parked next to a plastic bottle. It was shocking to see an awful lot of  plastic particles in all colours on the tide line on this remote beach.

In the surprisingly good Museum del Mar in La Barra we read that these penguins are caught up in oil, manage to clean their fur, but then die of oil poisoning and freezing to death. So proud to be a human being 😕😕😕.

The nearby fortress of Santa Teresa, build by the Portuguese, was beautifully restored, and guarded by Uruguayan soldiers (you never know when the Portuguese might return).

Our little trip to the Laguna Negra was not so successful. We managed to squeeze our Beast through a very narrow opening, but ended up at a spooky forest only to discover that the Laguna Negra is called like that because the water is extremely murky.

Back at 'our' beach this faithful dog was keeping an eye on his brave owner who was surfing in the cold waves.

Walking back to our cottage we passed this, eh.., house (?). Great sign though, it says "Silence please, we are listening to the sea"!

July 13th 2019: The Netherlands

Wow, a few weeks have passed. It's not that nothing has happened, but we've been quite busy (or lazy, depends on how you look at it). We left of at the canyons in Brasil. Spend the night in a luxury lodge with a nice Brasilian couple. She was a very good cook (delicious dinner and breakfast) and he managed the horses for the trek to the canyons. I've only been on a horse once and that was no success. Every time gravity brought me down the horse came up which did not improve the quality of my voice. So we enjoyed the meals and the wine (Pedro was convinced that the huge wine glasses had to be filled to the rim) but skipped the horses as I've never been a fan of jodeling.

Visited one more set of canyons before descending to beach level again. It was hot and very busy. We forgot to look at Brasilian holidays and as punishment were confronted with a very busy 5 day holiday. Lots of people in inappropriate city clothing with the wrong shoe-wear, lack of supplies, overestimating themselves. Had to tell myself that in ancient times I took the Hippocratic oath as you really don't want to be a doctor with so many idiots on an unintentional suicide mission. Of course the main activity for the day was taking selfies again. For this picture we had to queue up half an hour (OK, a minute, but still ....).

Impressive sight.

I found an interesting track going into the canyon we had admired from the top. Following a river and crossing it about 20 times (no bridges). Unfortunately we were not allowed to go by ourselves. Apparently it was dangerous (translated:  lucrative for locals) and we had to sign up with a guide. The lovely old lady of the hotel we stayed in coincidentally knew a guide (her son) and yes, he was free to accompany us the next day. One more couple? OK (reluctantly). At the start of the track it turned out that that one more couple had more than tripled and unfortunately lots of other people from the city decided to 'explore nature' as well. We got special protectors for our legs. Against snake bites, very reassuring for my lovely wife. With so many people on the track snake bites is the last thing you have to worry about.

And thus we had to cross the river hand in hand like in kinder garten. Every crossing our guide dropped to his knees to make a picture of our group, hands in the air and cheering as if they were sitting in a rollercoaster. Oh joy.... They can probably photoshop that smile on my face again.

Never really got that feeling of being alone in the world like we had elsewhere. It was like walking the Tongariro crossing nowadays.

Managed to get one picture without selfie taking idiots. The end of the canyon. 2 days earlier we were at the top at the very end.

Found a pub in Praia Grande, the small town we stayed in, with some live music. The daughter of the singer had been dancing to mams music all night and as a reward she was allowed to sing for us. Lovely.

So we met up with the ocean again. Behind me the south. Endless beaches all the way to Montevideo in Uruguay. That's what we'll do when we come back from Europe.

As we were a bit early for our air BandB we drove slowly along the coast enjoying the views, weird buildings, typical Brasilian villages and amazing colours. Pink was apparently cheap at one point.

Our last address in Brasil before our Europe trip. A nice place on the river.

We had forgotten about rivers, heath and mosquito's. Luckily they had one of those 'electric tennis rackets' with a still working battery. I practised tennis every evening before going to bed. Overhead backhand shots, simple volleys, must have killed hundreds of them. But of course, some got to me anyway, causing my body to grow lumps the size of extra limbs. Who cares about dengue fever, Zika virus or chikungunya, it's the bloody itch....

We have already put 'the Beast' up for sale and even got some reactions. I did put on some pictures, but was asked to send pictures of the motor. We had a brief look under the hood and had to decide that the last trip over rocky dusty roads had made our vehicle unpresentable. So we took the beast out to the beauty salon and discovered that under the multiple layers of dust a beauty was still hidden. So with a shiny Beast we head of to the airport in Puerto Alegre for our flight to Lissabon. Arrived at the long term parking where I wanted to park the car. 'No sir, we'll do that for you'. Eh, well, but...... Anyway, we had to go to the airport in order not to miss our flight. So they've got our car, our keys and access to some of our stuff. Let's hope we'll find more than the dust of the tires when we get back.

Great time in the Netherlands, meeting up with old friends.

BBQ in the Hague, with some guys of my old student home and their wives. Apart from some additional wrinkles and first signs of bellies nothing had really changed.

Our friends Peter and Floor took us for a boat trip over 'de Vliet' with their daughters.

Enjoying the typical Dutch landscape from the water. Quite hot.

Nienke and Floor after cooling of in the ocean. We sailed to Katwijk and had a quick dip. The daughters had abandoned ship by that time.

It's not Kapiti island, but still very nice.

Windmills of course.

Typical Frisian landscape. The neighbours of Nienkes parents were so nice to take us on board for a trip over the lakes around Sneek.

Yes, flat as....

Nienkes parents on the right, enjoying the hospitality of some really nice people. Thai soup with a Chilean wine on Frisian lakes.

Celebrations in Amsterdam. High school exams had just finished and we were able to celebrate with the children of Nienkes twin sister,

and her brother. 3 kids ready for uni!

The timing of our trip was such that Nienke could attend the lustrum of her student club in Utrecht. Mature woman being 'young' again.

Like in the old days. Well, there was a bit more male attention when they were dancing then. They're having fun though! That's all folks. Of to Utrecht myself to see some more friends.