sand dunes and cold showers

i´m off on another set of travels.  this time i´m touring the southern part of south america.  i started in Uruguay to visit some friends.  lucky for me they decided to take their summer holiday at a tiny town along the coast called Valizas.  it was an amazing 5 days of sunshine, sandy beaches, body surfing, sand surfing down dunes and strolls through neighbouring towns. oh, and lots and lots of fresh fish and BBQ meats.

the place they rented was a new one for them and they were even shocked to find it had no electricity.  it also didn´t have running water.  the water had to be pumped from a well outside the house.  the toilet was flushed by dumping water into from a bucket.

what i enjoyed the most about this experience was having to think a different way about my daily routines.  i would plan out when to take a shower so i could handle, maybe even enjoy, the refreshingly cold trinkle of well-pumped water.  you had to turn a little nossle on the shower head to make the water flow.  to conserve pumping you would turn it off while sudsing up.  it made me so very aware how much water i could save if it was this easy to turn on and off my faucett at home.  even better, it would be great to see how much water i'm consuming during my shower.  anything to make me better informed and help me conserve.

another thing i would do is read in the early evening before going out for a late dinner (an early dinner in Uruguay was 9pm, so sometimes we qualified as early).  when i got home from dinner it was late, dark and i was sleepy.  it worked out pefectly.

it was fantastic to step away from technology.  it was a much faster process to decompressing.  of course, i´ll admit i loved the hot shower i took when we got back to Montevideo.  and, i soooo enjoyed hearing the toilet flush.