I arrived in La Paloma a couple of days ago. It's a pretty tame beach town, not quite as non-touristy as I'd hoped, but it turns out that most of the tourists are Argentinian, not European or North American. I still managed to find an empty stretch of beach to catch some sun and do some snorkeling. One of the beaches here is a few hundred meters behind an island.
As a result, the surf is gentle enough to swim easily, but the water was still too murky to see much. I decided to ditch the snorkel and head to a different beach where I played in the waves with the rest of the kids. Hooray!

As sunset approached I realized that the rosy hue I'd noticed in the sky was in fact coming from my nicely scorched skin. Not my smartest move, but I might never get another chance to frolic on an Uruguayan beach with Argentinian tourists, so no regrets. On the way back to the hostel I grabbed a humongous sandwich from two very nice Uruguayan ladies, who I will refer to as the Harbringers of Doom until further notice. The Harbringers of Doom worked in a roadside stand that made grilled sandwiches for very cheap, which was what attracted me. When I walked up to the stand, I saw them pulling off three sandwiches that needed to be flipped with a snow shovel. Sign me up. I ordered one and while they scooped out an unreasonable portion of meat to make the innards I worked with one of the Harbringers to put together my condiments. She managed to talk me into taking everything but pesto and onions on my sandwich, so it consisted of spicy mustard, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, peppers, salsa, corn, ham, cheese, an egg, and the meat itself. Sounds pretty good, and it was, but about a third of the way through the half I ate for lunch, I realized that most of that stuff was not only washed with, but probably mixed with, local tap water. I'd been so used to the relative safety of all things liquid in Buenos Aires that I didn't give it a second thought. Now I sit here typing frantically to finish my posting before the gastronomic disaster I feel may be in my immediate future. I guess I shouldn't blame the Harbringers of Doom, since they really did make me a great sandwich, and they didn't force me to finish the first half after I realized my error. They certainly didn't play much of a role in my eating the second half for dinner a few hours later. I figured if the bacteria hadn't fully blossomed in the heat of the outdoor stand, a few more hours nestled in a warm sandwich bun should be enough to spell disaster. You'd never think my mother used to inspect restaurants for the health department. Sorry mom.

Tomorrow I will drag my sunburnt and hopefully healthy tail off to Montevideo for the day, then it's another border crossing back to Argentina. La Paloma was a terrific choice to visit for a couple days. It's only costing me around $12 per day between my hostel and gourmet meals. Very nice.