happy campers! (for the most part)

Last week was Semana Santa (Holy Week), of course, so Z had Thurs. and Fri. off work. The kids here had all week off school. Luckies! Also, Semana Santa is better known here as Semana Turística, which just means "tourist week," so basically, vacation time! That's just interesting to me, that it's better known as that, instead of Semana Santa. Helps highlight the fact that Uruguay is the most secular country in South America.

Luckily, we can enjoy the time off as well as keeping in mind the reason for the time off, so we decided to go camping on Thursday. Seemed like half of Uruguay had the same idea! The first two campsites we hit, up near Minas, about 2 hours northeast, were full. As in FULL. We wouldn't have wanted to stay there even if there HAD been space. We did, however, let B&N play on the playground at one spot.

Slide of doom. This was a seriously tall and rickety slide. There were rungs in the ladder missing and everything. It was such a long climb up that about 3/4 of the way, Nuala got bored and wanted to go back down...AS IF! Hard enough to help her up it, there was no way we were going down the gaping ladder. It was slick and fast, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. Thankfully, both of our bums survived the descent, clothes and all. We've had 3 or 4 separate pants casualties courtesy of these wooden slides. Grrr...

Toy car that Bran loved. Very rusty on the inside with loads of sharp edges. Really, I wish you had a peek inside... still, it was pretty cool. We do enjoy the playgrounds here, but they are quite a contrast to the super-safe ones in the States. Apparently people are a tad less sue-happy in Uruguay.

The third campground we tried was perfect! Only 3 or 4 campsites, tucked off away from everything, right by a little stream...nice.

There was a herd of cows nearby, and this one little fella tied up near the bathroom. Poor guy...his location and also his misfortune at being terrorized by Nuala and Bran. He could only run so far back and forth on his rope. No, we didn't let them REALLY terrorize him, but yes, we let them do it a little...I mean, the only way you're gonna find out if a little bull will let you pet him is by chasing him a bit. We brought their little bikes and they had fun riding up and down the dirt road leading to the campground. Zachariah always ends up carrying Bran's bike whenever we venture out with them. Good thing he's such a strong, strapping fellow!

After loading up our pockets with rocks, we "hiked" and explored and enjoyed our starting-to-turn-cooler weather. Wow. I really should get some new clothes. That pink shirt appears in quite a few pictures...And I'm not even one of those into-pink girls! But I do like that shirt.

Despite the cooler weather, we still waded in the little stream by our campsite. The fellow who owns the cows was out and about, and I just had to get a picture or two of this modern-day gaucho. Don't tell him I said so, but he's so cute in his tall boots and sweater vest and little hat. He actually reminded me of farmers in Ireland, yet here he is, on the other side of the world. The woman and boy in the background were part of an extended family in one of the neighboring campsites who later invited us over and were very friendly. That was fun, getting to meet their family and hang out for a while. They even laughed at one of my rambly jokes in Spanish (joking in a non-native language is sometimes tricky business). I appreciated that. We gave them a bag of marshmallows.

[As I was loading up this picture, I just had to go look at information about gauchos (focus, Fiona!), and apparently the baggy trousers they wear, stuffed into boots, are called bombachas!! This is only important because two (?) posts back I mentioned that "panties" are called bombachas, so guys couldn't talk about THEIR bombachas, etc. etc. (I'm so funny), but anyway...apparently MEN wear bombachas as well, just a different sort. So maybe I should get Zac some bombachas, and he and Nuala can wear their bombachas together! :) snicker, snicker...mmmm, Snickers...Focus! Focus!]

Then we built a fire. Bran and Nuala are awesome helpers.

Our dinner consisted of roasted hot dogs (panchos) on buns with ketchup. And, afterwards, marshmallows. Phew! Thank goodness ketchup counts as a vegetable! We almost had an unbalanced meal there! haha... Oh, we also had a bunch of cherry tomatoes. That redeems the meal slightly. Of course, all the Uruguayan campers probably thought our dinner was pretty pathetic, seeing as how they were eating stuff like...

....lamb. This was the dinner of that nice family. Seriously, our hot dogs are pretty sorry looking next to that. They invited us to come back and eat when it was ready, but it was going to be a little while longer and we had two pooped-yet-wired kiddos to put to bed. Also, look how little that lamb was! I don't mind it so much when it's just in pieces, but seeing him/her all splayed out like this just made me feel a bit sad for the little fella.

After a pretty chilly night, we were up nice and early. See the steam rising off the stream? See that cheesy scrunched-up grin? He makes me smile :) Lots.

We started the fire again and had fun poking sticks into it and waving the flames about. This was slightly dangerous, but obviously we like to walk on the wild side.

We have NO CLUE as to what started this. It had to do with someone eating something Nuala thought should be hers, I think... Anyway, she just cried for several minutes, sitting stock still, with her arms sticking out...yeah...it was rather humorous, so I took a bunch of pictures. Then she said, "All done cwy," and was all done. I showed her these pictures yesterday and asked her why she was crying and she said, "Zip up Noona!" Apparently she assumes she was crying because that blanket that's behind her had come undone. She had been all wrapped up in it, and ever since they spent 2 weeks in their little tents, being "zipped up" means to be tucked in.

We had fun, but later that morning packed up and headed home. I had to pee pretty badly. That's not the reason we left when we did. We were just ready. But, man! The toilets there were sorely lacking. Huh...rather, it would have been nice if they had been lacking...LACKING in poo smeared all over the walls, LACKING in the box of used toilet paper overflowing beside the hole in the floor where you squat, LACKING in the actual pile of poop in the box... Yeah, it was not a pleasant experience. One go at it was enough to convince me I could survive on very little water for one night/morning. And I did. After one time, my whole body and mind were on the same page, no part of me wanted to repeat the experience. I was also extremely, EXTREMELY grateful that neither child is potty-trained. I probably said that to Z about 15 times while we were there. "Thank goodness for diapers!"

On the way home we stopped at a roadside alfajor stand. Yummmm...we love the alfajores from Minas...and I still have a few downstairs. I best go make good use of them...

It was fun camping! We have realized, however, that we need to get Bran and Nuala actual sleeping bags. They were snuggled in several warm blankets, but kept wriggling out and then waking up cold. Lucky for me, Z hopped up and re-snuggled them each time. Yep, he's a keeper alright!