What New Jersey Has in Common with Uruguay-Day 3 of Solo Bike Ride Across South America

I grew up in Philadelphia, and every summer my family would pack up the station wagon and drive down the Blackhorse Pike to the New Jersey shore. The road there was flanked by farm stands offering sweet corn and peaches often waving colorful banners to help their particular goods stand out. As I biked along the Uruguay coast today I couldn’t help, but feel certain similarities. The farm stands, motorcycles with couples heading to the beach, the heat radiating off the pavement, the occasional store with 40, enticing beach chairs lined up-but that is where it ended. Here are the differences:

The peaches at the farm stands in Uruguay are so juicy, that when you take a bite the juice runs down your chin and onto your only white shirt that you brought to wear for a month before you can stop it. Totally worth it.

The motorcycles, with the couples roaring by, are often driven by women with the man in back! This sight has been on my bucket list for a long time. I have never seen it in the United States.

The roads here are lined with medicinal smelling Eucalyptus trees, as well as, what I deem to be Trufula trees, and they are all filled with parrots and other shrieking unidentified birds, creating a multi-sensory cacophony. Often there is a healthy-looking horse tied up to them, just doing it’s thing. Behind the trees are endless fields of sugar cane. No barbed wire-no private signs-just wide open.
And unlike New Jersey-Uruguay isn’t flat. Who knew? The land rolls up and down, and up and down…and up and down.

So needless to say, by the end of the day, I was an overheated, sticky, toasted marshmallow. My face was swollen with heat, my skin had turned crispy and my head was filled with goo.

I was feeling a bit depleted when I got to my campsite, but up popped a new friend, Brittin. He is six and he helped me set up my tent, fill my water bottles and taught me how to play rock paper scissors in Spanish. Just what I needed.
Tomorrow I head to Colonia de Sacramento. It is only supposed to be 96 degrees. Piece of cake.