Postcards from Uruguay: Walking

One of our great joys here is taking long walks. Flat little Uruguay does not have much variation in scenery, and the sameness can be boring after a while for someone like me whose idea of hiking means steep trails. However, we have found some lovely places to walk which we have not yet tired of. Behind La Gaia is a large fenced in piece of land, maybe 500 acres. Tired of walking only on the road near the house, one day we climbed through the wire fence to walk through an adjoining field. The next day we did the same thing, but went further. Finally on one of our walks, we were met by a man on a horse, the caretaker of the property. We asked for his permission to walk there. After he realized we were not hunters, he gave us his blessing. The property has hills, outcroppings of lichen covered boulders, remants of old stone walls and strange steep-sided valleys. We have to skirt the occasional herd of cows. Even in autumn, tiny wild flowers in yellow, white, purple, pink and blue still manage to thrive. We see liebre (giant rabbits), which to my immense dissatisfaction, our dogs love to chase. I suspect that I will never get it through their thick skulls that this is unacceptable. We also see eagles and a strange long-necked quail-like thing that bursts into the sky with a sudden noisy racket. These creatures nestle unseen in the grass and do not reveal themselves until nearly stepped on, when they startle me as they take off. Also hiding in the grass is the occasional snake. Last week Cesar found a red, yellow and black snake. I said, "oh, that snake is just pretending to be poisonous. See how it looks like a coral snake?" Well, it is a good thing I did not choose to show off by picking it up. I looked it up in our reptile book when we got home and saw very clearly that it was indeed a coral snake. Note to self: stop picking up unidentified snakes. No, scratch that, do not pick up ANY snakes. I will put herpetology right next to mycology on my list of hobbies to NOT take up... With those, it is too easy to die from a misidentification. So, we made it home alive and I am typing this from beside the fireplace instead of from a hospital bed.