Makes for great sunsets!
Makes for great sunsets!
OK, red herring. Actually, I think I must have said “hell no” at some point when a web site asked to see where I was located. So this was the result when I looked for the distance to the closest branch of Scotia Bank, whose debit cards are replacing the Tienda Inglesa points cards.
Hint: we’re only about 40 km away.
But presumably I know now the geographic center of Uruguay, which is here:
So naturally, rather than do something productive, I switched to satellite view to find out where I “was.” Looks pretty remote:
But wait a minute! What are those shapes?
Why, L-shaped and triangular patches of forest, of course.
You can find all sorts of fun tree patterns on Google Earth in Uruguay, which apparently takes the growing of Eucalyptus trees more seriously than its neighbor to the northeast, Brazil.
But triangles … why triangles?
Weeks away from being here five years, walking most days with dogs to the beach, and I’ve never seen this. We’ve had a couple lovely days in the mid to high 70s (°F), but wet and colder weather is due to return presently.
I’ve never thought of myself as beach person. The thought of hanging out on a beach for hours makes me a little numb. That said, I love being able to walk to, and on, the beach daily. During summer – January and February – it has to be early or not at all (and I will find sun-worshippers at 8 AM). Off season any time of day works.
But there remain two issues: 1) the waves are tiny, and 2) they’re often brown.
1) Why are the waves tiny? Theoretically, you could sail in a straight line from Uruguay over 16,500 kilometers before making landfall (and you’ve always wanted to visit Myanmar, no?). That much open ocean and diddly little waves? Why?
2) Brown waves – let NASA tell the story (even if they can barely get within 90 degrees of correctly identifying north).
On the day of this photo, we enjoyed blue or green waves ‘north’ (actually east) of Montevideo. A little change in current and winds, and you have brown waves.
Sometimes we have fresh (brown) water; sometimes we have salt water at the beach. So sometimes the fisherman catch freshwater fish, and sometimes saltwater fish. And sometimes the wrong ones get caught in a shift, and their carcasses end up carpeting the beach.