Making friends in Atlántida, Uruguay

In Atlántida, about 50 km north of Montevideo, after two nights of rest in a hotel, we met a couple while out walking with Black on the beach (the locals say that the beach here is 300 km long). We got to talking and we asked if they knew anyone who could rent us a room while we prepared for our departure (oil change, some minor repairs on the Toyota as well as getting the export papers for Black). Little by little it turned out that they were nomads like us and with extensive travel experience, amongst other from 16 trips to Patagonia. They are both former professionals – Florencia is a pediatrician, and Ricardo a dentist. Anyway, this chance conversation on the beach ended up with us staying with them in a small apartment in their house on the beach… If someone did not believe in angels is this a proof.

The world is small, and sometimes you just have a bit of luck. But our travels have taught us to be grateful, and never say no when someone offers a hand – much in the same way we do when we meet people in similar situations in Villa de Leyva or in Barcelona.

And the whole thing is truly a bit incredible, the probability is small for randomly meeting a couple on a walk on a long sandy beach who also have extensive experience from trips to Patagonia (they have also been on trips to Norway and have been to Svalbard, among many other places) and who have room in their hearts to completely adopt us for a week. But that’s life… it’s rich when you’re just open to gratefully accepting it as it plays out!

We ended up staying with Florencia and Ricardo in the beach house until we departed Montevideo and in addition to giving us detailed and well-documented suggestions to our upcoming Patagonia leg of our trip, they also put us in contact with a local mechanic for minor repairs and maintenance on the Toyota Land Cruiser.  Almost too good to be true, we eventually also ended up parking our vehicle in a spare garage in their house close to Montevideo airport and will pick it up there upon our return in November.