My Home Away From Home
- By Chuck
- February 24, 2015
- No Comments
7039- I thought it was about time that I showed you where I am living and introduced you to my neighbors. My friend Jerry owns a chakra, which by definition is a small farm, outside of Atlantida and that is where I am staying. Jerry’s chakra is approximately 11 hectares or about 27 acres and contains five buildings. In Uruguay, there are no addresses for homes as we know them, so you simply name your house, chakra or estacion what ever you want to call it and include the street and town you live in and you get your mail, not just in rural areas but everywhere in the country. Jerry has chosen to name his El Oso Amistoso, which loosely translates to the Friendly Bear. Jerry lives in the white building, I am staying in the casita that is shown in the middle photo and the third photo is kind of like a dormitory. He also has a large galpone, which is a garage/storage building, and a bunkhouse that I don’t have photos of.
In addition to Jerry, there are two farm cats named Carbon and Lucky. Lucky is the small black cat and is named Lucky because Jerry and I found him cowering in the middle of the dirt road to Jerry’s chakra at about 2am one night when we were heading home. He is lucky that we didn’t hit him and lucky that Jerry has a soft spot in his heart for animals and was willing to take him in as black cats are considered unlucky down here and seldom find permanent homes. In addition to the Jerry’s cats, we have a herd of fourteen cattle that graze in the pastures. I say “we” because I bought in on the herd and have become a South American cattle baron (my description, but then who is going to challenge me). I have a friend who used to refer to some people as “all hat and no cattle”, well I now have a hat and cattle.
There are also eight geese and four to five ducks that are wild but choose to live here as Jerry is very generous with the groceries and even though they can fly away, they don’t as they believe this is a good place to stay as well. The cats and the birds have an uneasy existence as Lucky has taken to stalking them as he learns his hunting techniques and they don’t necessarily appreciate that. As soon as they turn and confront him, he is gone.
On the wilder side, we have two monitor lizards that live under the buildings. They are at least three feet long each and wander the property eating table scraps and fruit that the parrots knock from the various fruit trees. They don’t seem to be to worried about humans and the cats give them a wide berth as they probably have had some experience with the lizzards tails. In addition to the lizards there are various types of spiders and bugs as well as tarantulas that have literally been coming out of the wood work. I have relocated several of them to the outside including the one I took this photo of in my bathroom that was easily 4 inches from tip to tip of his legs.
This is where I am, but we are only minutes from the beach like the one in the picture below. I took it from the restaurant we were having dinner at last night. All in all, I sleep like a baby and I am relaxed like I have never been before. Ahhhhhhhh
