21-Jun-2004 --

Well, there we were, standing beside the open pampas (prairies) of Uruguay. It was bitter sweet though.. I thought leaving Saskatchewan, Canada and flying across the world I could find somewhere other than prairies but conquering a new confluence was worth it. The adventure started in treinty y tres, a small town near the confluence. Kevin and I were were waiting for our meal to come with only 15 minutes until we had to catch the bus past the confluence. The food came with 10 mins left and we ate the 4 plates of food in 3 minutes. We made it on the bus and were on our way.

The next thing that happened was absolutely hilarious. We asked to jump off in the middle of nowhere. The locals thought it was hilarious, but they finally agreed to let us off by the open fields. They shook their heads, laughed and the the bus drove away.

As it turns out, these fields weren´t that easy to cross. We had to trek over many varieties of prickly grass and plants in our sandals. And then there were the random lakes everywhere to go around. There were also vast fields of strange mounds. The inhabitants seemed to be ants or termites or something. Anyway, these guys build these mounds up to 3 feet high and make fields of them. See the picture on the right.

Finally we made it to the confluence and to our delight it was in the middle of a sheep field. For the victory celebration, we spent a substantial amount of time chasing and trying to ride sheep. We really wanted to mount some of these ostrich type birds but they were just too fast.