The day started with me waking up to the sound of a mosquito 🦟 passing my ear inside my mozzies net. I’d always felt safely cocooned away from these little flying blood thirsty sucking insects but now they have destroyed the few moments in my stress free life. I wondered what part of me it had munched during the night as I lay sleeping! I am so allergic and will come up in huge itchy lumps where ever it is!!

There were three other volunteers in my middle section of the accommodation and there was no partitions between the other two so putting on the light to search and destroy the invader was not an option. The only chance I had of catching it was to put my phone torch on dim and shine it onto the net.

Found it, flying around with his mate and I’m ashamed to say but I squashed to death. The amount of blood that stained the mozzie net meant they had had a good feast – it certainly was their last supper!

Although it was my day off, I wanted to attend to Segway, to give him his food, treatments and medication. He was looking even stronger today, he could eat by himself, stand and hold his head up for longer periods of time. Things were looking up!!

The original plan for today was for Gary and his wife to come and pick me and we’d all travel up to Chuy, a city divided in two by the border between Uruguay and Brazil but I had so much to do. There had been a problem uploading my blog for the last 4 days and I was way behind. If I waited any longer I’d completely forget what I had done.

So plans were changed, they would pick me up late in the afternoon which was perfect, it would also give me the chance to take a leisurely stroll down to the beach that I never get tired of visiting.

Writing up the days I missed took hours and eventually I gave up, picked up my camera and headed out of the centre. My time and photographic opportunities were now was limited, I was due to leave on Thursday and I wanted to savour every moment of the variety of flora, fauna and the wonderful environment.

Once again I walked down the little wooden steps onto the beach and turned right along the shore towards the suspension bridge. Even though I have crossed it many times, it still scares me. It wobbles so much no matter how hard I try to walk down the middle in a straight line.

There were men fishing at the mouth of the river with large nets which is prohibited but they do it anyway – they always do it. All I could do was to contact Alejandro to send someone from the turtle sanctuary to ask them to stop.

Following the coast round the curve I continued walking for almost a kilometre and settled on the platform of a disused lifeguard station which was painted in bright colours with a variety of fish in the sea on the walls. I sat for almost 40 mins watching the stilts, sandpipers and gulls running up and down the shore feasting on the little live bits and pieces that were came in with the tide and watched the fishermen with the nets to sea if they had caught any turtles but they were watching me watching them that made me uncomfortable.

Time was ticking on and I was being picked up at 5:30pm so I climbed off the platform and headed for the dreaded bridge.

Perfect timing, Gary and his wife Matilda were just driving into the centre as I arrived back. A quick hi to everyone and we were off to Punta del Diablo, 8 km away. We chatted constantly about the experiences we had had, our children and our lives back home. Before I knew it we had arrived in this quirky wee village that was filled with the most quaint houses painted in every colour under the sun and built in such a variety of styles – no wonder they love the district, it was a mish mash of old and new.

A BBQ was on the menu. Matilda and I prepared the vegetables: eggplant, sweet potatoes, onion, potatoes and pumpkin and Gary started the all important coals. We had stopped off on our journey to collect wood and pine cones as kindling – he certainly knew what he was doing so Matilda and I left to go a long walk along the beach towards the lighthouse. We were loosing the light, and the clouds were gathering high in the sky.

We were so absorbed in chatting we completely forgot the time and had to turn and hurry back along the beach to the BBQ chef who was probably wondering where we had got to.

I would love to see the area in daylight for a night it had such wonderful character

We arrived back at little compact house to feast on the BBQ beef, pork and veg washed down with a little glass of red wine – delicious!!

I was conscious that Gary had to drive me home at the end of the evening and didn’t stay too late. I had taken a bottle of red wine which they gave me back to drink on my last evening at Karumbe.

What a wonderful interesting couple, I could have chatted to them all night. They were very experienced tango dancers and I tried to persuade them to demonstrate their talent but Gary was too shy and wouldn’t participate but Mildred was certainly game.

Just after 11pm and we headed back to La Corollina. Matilda came too to keep Gary company on the way back. We said our goodbyes and I climbed into my bunk with all the elegance of an elephant.

Nite 😘