"No worries, you´re perfectly safe here"

So sayeth the man we rented the condo in Punta Del Diablo from......

Punta Del Diablo is a small beachside town in Uruguay about 50 kilometers south of the Brazilan border. Apparenlty in the summer it is full of tourists, and since it is mid fall here now, we were only 2 of about 6 tourists in town. Nice. We rented a 2 bedroom condo on the beach with a fireplace, cable tv and a kitchen for around $35 per day. Here we are, all set to enjoy some fine Uruguay wine ($2 for the boxed stuff that is actually decent), cooking some great meals, reading and writing on the beach for a few days, and in general chilling out and relaxing.

Should have known that first night when Shannon said "this is so lovely, perfect, and cheap, what a great time we will have here!"

Never tempt the gods by expressing your gratitude for something good as it all goes to hell after that!

So the next morning, as I am leisurely getting up, getting the coffee Shannon made, and stepping outside to check out the view and fresh air, I hear yelling from the beach. Shannon has left me a note saying she is going for a walk on the beach. I assume for a minute that the yelling is some people playing around and am about to sit down when it occurs to me that this is most likely impossible, since we are, for the most part, the only people in town. I step over to the fence to see what is up and see a small dark head moving and nothing else. I hear my name and recognize the voice as belonging to mi amiga. I run around the house and am getting on to the beach where I can see she is down on the ground with 2 dogs on top of her and a man is just arriving with a 2 by 4 to beat the dogs off her.

Shannon risked the wrath of the gods by expressing her appreciation for our oasis and was rewarded by being mauled by two dogs on the beach. The situation was pretty grave. She was covered in lacerations and there was blood everywhere. A few men showed up to help her, and I ran to find the owner of the apartment to see if they could call for medical help. When we returned a few minutes later the police were already there and quickly loaded her into the car to go for medical assistance. She was pretty much unable to walk, and understandably shaken and terrified. And trying to communicate what had happened in Spanish! Thank god she actually has the Spanish skills to be able to do so!

We went to the medical clinic where they dressed her wounds, which covered the entire backside of her legs and arms, and determined that she needed to go by ambulance to Castillos, the nearest town with a hospital. The ambulance is about a 1964 station wagon which was driven by one of the cops as there apparently is no one else to do so. We were accompanied by this woman Norma, who is some sort of elected official and liason for tourists. She is also the wife of the cop who was driving. In what has now been determined as typical South American behavior, she and her husband were all over each other in the hospital. I was tempted to tell them Shannon and I could wait in the hall if they needed to get a room. Sheesh. There are people making out everywhere around her. I am a little surprised that they even bother to sell clothes down here as presumably no one spends much time in them.

But I digress: We believe we are heading off for a tetnus shot and rabies treatment. Of course Latin America being what it is, we went to 3 different places before finding the right one where they then gave her the tetnus shot and argued about rabies. Apparently Uruguay has been rabies free for 20 years and so they simply don´t have the treatment. Shannon really wanted it for preventative reasons, as that is one of the first things one would do in the States if attacked by animals. After much arguing and discussion, she was told there would be no treatment and so she was left to further ponder whether or not this might be a problem, on top of the all of the bleeding wounds and fact that she could not walk.

We spent the next several days in our little condo watching bad American films, which I must admit was probably good for my Spanish to watch so many subtitles, as she started to recover. She was in a lot of pain and was really considering going back to New York instead of continuing on with the trip.

When we went out for the first time, about a day and a half later, it was raining and windy. Every stray dog in town, which were numerous, came around us and it was really freaky. In fact, ever since then, no matter where we go, she seems to attract dogs like she is carrying a steak around in her pocket. Creepy. Somewhat amusing though was her newfound fame in the town of Punta Del Diablo. People were constantly warning us that a tourist had been attacked by dogs and they could not understand what had happened, although they admited that the tourists feed the dogs all summer and now had been gone just long enough that the dogs were starving. They were simultaneously shocked and secretly thrilled (I think!) to find that they were meeting the victim in the flesh. Shannon´s most frequest phrase for a while became "yo soy ella". I am her.

There was also this political undercurrent of the fact that the police do not have the jurisdicition to get rid of the dogs and there are two opinions of the townspeople: one that they should get rid of the dogs, other that it is cruelty to kill them. We did hear though that they had gotten rid of the two dogs. I guess a posse went out in the middle of the night and made the problem go away...unofficially, that is.

We left PDD and went to Colonia, which is a small conlonial town across the river from Buenos Aires where people go to get their passport stamped when they need to extend their stay in Argentina past the 90 day limit. It is a lovely litte town, and we spent the night there an spent an obnoxious amount of money on a dinner that was average and had no alcohol. Colonia is a weekend getaway destination for porteños, so the prices are understandably inflated. It was lovely though and we are glad we spent a bit of time there.

Shannon decided to go ahead and stay after all as our next plan was to go to Iguazu falls and knew that if she returned to NY, she would no doubt feel better quickly and be really upset that she missed Iguazu. This turned out to be true, and maybe tomorrow I will write about that portion of the trip. For now I am going to act like a local and go take a sietsa!

Here are some photos of Uruguaÿ:

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/Uruguay/