Packing up
Having spent 4 nights at La Postegada it had become quite like home, so it was quite a wrench to leave this morning. Having folded up the tent and spread the groundsheet out to dry, along came the old black dog and promptly settled himself down in the middle of the folded tent. As we found before, when he came in the tent, once settled he is difficult to move. The only thing was to add a few pellets and rattle the food bowls. This shifted him and we were able to pack tent and be on our way.
Countryside
Being Sunday the road was quiet. There were few trucks. It was the usual beef cattle and arable farming. Soy, millet and sunflowers mainly. It is all very neat and tidy. Wide verges, all beautifully mowed. In Uruguay they seem to like having nicely cut grass.
After our lunch stop the scenery changed to predominantly forests of eucalyptus. The trees are neatly planted in straight rows and are all identical and perfectly straight. Tall but very thin, though. One wonders what so many of these spindly trees can be used for.
Tonight’s camp
We knew we must be approaching our campsite as we could see water on both sides of the road. We are camped by a huge reservoir, caused by the damming of the Rio Negro. It is another hydroelectric project with the dam at La Palmar. It is one of the largest artificial lakes in South America at 423 square miles or 1070 square kilometres.
Our campsite is basic. It is a public park and camping is free. We had to register at the administration building. There are toilets but no other facilities. We are the only campers here, so it is nice and peaceful.
The last of the diesel bought in Paraguay. It should get us to Montevideo.
We put up the tent and found a wet puddle inside. How could this be when there had been no rain? The smell soon identified that the old black dog had piddled on it. I think he had an incontinence problem. That wasn’t the end of our problems, though. I spotted a scorpion running around my feet. As I was only wearing flip flops (jandals or thongs – wherever you are reading this), it was rather disconcerting.
Dennis sprayed the scorpion with insect killer, but it didn’t seem to have much effect, even though it wasn’t very large. I had to deal with it with a tent pole. Dennis swabbed the smelly floor with disinfectant, which seemed to produce a more pleasant odour.
Today’s Weather
The day has been mainly overcast with odd breaks of sunshine. Temperatures have been pleasant, around 26 degrees. Several times it looked as if rain was coming. It is forecast to be wet next week. So far, however, it has remained dry.
After dinner we got out of the tent to see hundreds of sparkling lights . Fire flies were everywhere.
It gets dark at about 7pm at the moment. By the time we had finished eating and clearing up it must have been between 7.30 and 8pm, so properly dark.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow we will continue south to the town of Trinidad, about 59 kilometres away. The Parque Centenario da Cidade de Trinidad is a park in the city which allows free camping. It, apparently, has clean bathrooms with showers, so hopefully it will be a nice place.
Roadside flowers
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Regarding the very straight uniform Eucalyptus trees. Probably going for pulp, no doubt they are like many Brazilian forests and are clonal having been grown from cuttings. Eucalypts grow well from cuttings in that climate.
Thank you Bob. Great to get it from an authority. We passed a sawmill today that seem to be milling what may be 1×1″ sticks? Not sure what they would be used for? Many of the stems on the logging trucks wouldn’t even allow that! Higher quality paper?
Best
Dennis