After yesterday's on and off rainy, windy, cloudy day, we awakened this a.m. to a bright blue sky, aquamarine ocean (okay, HUGE river) and nary a cloud in the sky. We ate a hearty breakfast of eggs, toast, yogurt and banana and had 2 cups of cafe con leche. Then we headed down the hill to the beach. We wogged (walking and jogging) on the beach heading south towards Solis. Families were already out enjoying the nice morning. People were sipping their yerba mate.

On you way back home, we decided to walk up to the duplex we had looked at last week with a realtor. The owner/builder is an Italian/Argentino who lives here now. We met him and his French wife the day we looked at the property. They spoke very little English, but the Silvio managed to get across to us how he built it---- a very proud builder. It is a very gorgeous duplex.

Anyway, as we were walking around the property this morning, Silvio and his wife drove up. They had come by to water the plants. We explained (the best we could) that we were out walking and wanted to stop by and look at the duplex again. (That's Bob on the motorcicleta in front of it)... Long story short, we were off in their car to see another duplex he built.

After looking at that one, we drove to their beautiful home, met their 13 yr. old son and had a tour of the place. It is big by Urguayan standards. Their yard is magnificent with fig, lemon, apple, lime, orange and various other trees growing in abundance as well as many other things like mint and some stuff we could not figure out. Silvio has a small bordega in his backyard. He bottles his own wine and liquor (he sells it in stores.) It was amazing to see all that he produces and how he does it. We found out that he is 76 yrs. old! No way would we have guessed that. Their son helped a bit with the translating, but in the long run, it didn't matter that we didn't speak each other's language because we were able to communicate through the beauty of friendship (and lots of hand gesturing and guessing).

The greeting between people who know each other in Uruguay is a peck on the right cheek and a little hug. By the time we left their home, we were hugging and kissing on the cheek and saying gracis over and over, smiling great big smiles. We departed with a bottle of Silvio's Limoncello liquor and a big bag of apples. They drove us back into town. We explained that in a week our amiga from Paris, France would be coming to visit us. We will get together with them again so that Silvio's wife can speak French with Beth.

It was a wonderful experience to be invited into their home and it made our day.
Adios,
Mary and Bob