When having successfully negotiated the scrum that is the baggage retrieval at the ferry dock, you descend into the night-time street, only to collect your first dog. Are then passed by seven exhaustless motos, of which two have no lights, one has a mutiple occupancy of four persons, another has a brace of Yorkshire terriers. Further confirmation comes, as if required, with tethered horse outside the pub and the row of maté drinkers.
These are some of the physicals, then there’s the imponderables. Our ‘lancha’ arrived late, despite the captain’s attempt at catch up; he only slowed down to drop his wake when he passed a ‘Prefectura Naval’ - read police launch. So it’s late when we cycle unbooked, unannounced into a deserted camp ground. Empty because, for any self respecting Uruguayan this is the dead of winter. We find a guard, and of course there isn’t a problem. There never is.
