Colita Dolorida

The title is my best shot at translating "sore butt" into Español. That is what I have after riding my bike on the bumpy roads here. Overall, the roads are kept in pretty good shape. However, most are not the perfectly smooth black-top we have in most places back in the States. You U.S. cyclists don't know how good you have it, with your bike trails and super smooth roads. However, the attitude here towards cyclists seems much better than in the U.S. As far as we have seen, drivers here do not exhibit the same sense of arrogant and sometimes angry entitlement that U.S. drivers have. Here they are accustomed to sharing the road. After all, it does belong to everyone, and bicyclists have the same rights and responsibilities as motorists.

Brief rant about sharing the road aside, this place has some lovely scenery to be enjoyed from a bike, but it is still not exactly a biking shangri-la. For instance, there are times not to venture out on a bike - like Sunday evening on the interbalnearia between La Barra and Jose Ignacio. Considerate as they may be, having one speeding car after another blow by us, we had had enough and decided to bag it for the day. This morning we did the same ride while the tourists were still sleeping off their hang-overs. Much better. The wind, see "On the Road Again" post, wasn't even that bad. The tone was dramatically different. Instead of tons of cars there were quite a few people out bicycling or jogging. Now I know how the beautiful people of Punta del Este stay beautiful. We even made a new friend, from Cordoba, Argentina. Barely understood a word he said, but I immediately liked him because he was a doppleganger for our friend Gaston.

Our rides are still on the short side while we get our legs back and my bum gets used to the bumpy roads, but stay tuned for the K&C Uruguayan Century!

A note on today's photos: I did not carry my camera on our bike ride, but wanted to post some pictures of Jose Ignacio, so I borrowed these photos from various websites.