Surf and Sand

Got to Uruguay yesterday! Our beach house is pretty cool. Cozy (meaning we are all sleeping in the same room)!

We spent a few (more than enough) nights in Buenos Aires partying (no surprise there) and I can´t wait to get back! We took the boat on Friday morning to Colonia, Uruguay, then a bus to Montevideo and THEN a bus to Punta del Este. So we have made it almost to the Brazilian border. Yesterday the weather was absolutely horrible, and nothing in the town was open. We were worried we´d be stuck here for two weeks without anything to do and in not nice weather!!! But we woke up this morning and the sun was shining!!

When the sun comes out, so do the people! It was awesome and I spent some time in the ocean bodysurfing. Feels great to finally get to the beach!

Our place has an outdoor BBQ and a couple of fireplaces inside and a fully equiped kitchen and a jacuzzi in the bathroom - so we arent really roughing it!

Other then that, we plan to take a day trip to Punta del Este tomorrow to do some banking (theres no bank here....only 700 people) and then spend the next couple of weeks on the beach!!!

Huacachina, Peru

Sorry, it´s been a while. Oh the stories,

Last Saturday, Suzy (my new British friend) and I got on a bus to Huacachina, which is an oasis town in the middle of the desert. That it was, check out some pics:

This was our hostel - definitely roughing it. It was actually hot enough for some sunbathing!

We spent the day Saturday just enjoying being in the middle of the desert and preparing for our sandboarding adventure the next day...

Oh Sandboarding. We decided to take the early afternoon tour in order to take advantage of the sun. The dune buggy ride was awesome! We were ripping through (and over) the dunes like nobody´s business. At one point we reaching the top of a dune and we couldn´t see the bottom of it...it was a ridiculous incline and we ended up going down the dune almost 90 degrees. I may or may not have screamed a little :S

Our driver took us to two separate locations - the first having three ¨small¨ dunes to conquer. It was hard to get started but after the second dune I felt I had the hang of it. So I sucked it up and braved the third ¨small¨ dune. I managed pretty well (i.e. I remained standing) until I got to the bottom of the dune.

Then I´m not sure what happened next...it equates to me doing some acrobatic moves I wasn´t at all prepared for, thus landing on my back, neck and head. Suzy said from the top of the dune I just turned into a cloud of sand. When I landed, I had no idea what happened, but I had knocked the wind out of me. I got up and shook it off, but man it hurt!

Here´s a shot of me after I decided to allow sand to inhibit every crevice in my body:

Hot, eh?

After making a quick trip to the doctor (yes, I´ve only been a week in South America before needing a doctor) I determined that I just badly injured some muscles and I´d be ok...

(needless to say, I went down the next hill on my bum...) Look at how big it was:

You win this round giant sand dunes.