Mucho mas a La Corona

I don't think any pictures really do this place justice, but here's a better taste of life so far at La Corona. It's pretty rough. I'm sure every graduate or other unversity student has a similar experience when they study abroad...

The surrounding area below La Corona (which is situated on a top of a hillside) is owned by Weyerhaeuser. The landscape is a mosaic of forests and grasslands. There is quite a bit of work that goes on at la estancia. Traffic comes and goes, and you can hear a truck approaching for a long ways before you see it.

The building below seems to be where the mechanical things go on. You can also see the horses that freely wander around during the day.

The inside of the house was completely revamped several years ago. Apparently in 2001 there was no electricity - people just worked when there was daylight, and bedtime was imposed when you could no longer see. The estate has at least 9 or 10 complete bedrooms, some with private bathrooms and some that are shared between two rooms. All the bedrooms have doors that open up into the outdoor courtyard. Also opening into the courtyard, and surrounded by a porch on the other sides, is the common room that functions as a living room and dining room. The dining room can seat a huge group of people, and is set according to each meal.

The living room functions as a multi-purpose room. Where you are looking now is usually our office, complete with a wireless router in the corner for internet access. It's funny to be disappointed that the connection is slow, until you remember where you are and are surprised there is any internet access at all, really. The window below look out onto a porch and over the valleys shown above. It's incredibly beautiful.

The dark wood doors lead out to the side porch, which overlooks a pond. At night, there are several sounds coming from the pond. We identified a frog, crickets, and some weird bird-like noise, but we can't see what it is. The noise level in the morning and night is pretty high, but the sounds are completely different depending on the time of day, and much different than what we're used to back home.

This is my current bedroom, which doesn't look nearly as great in pictures as it does in person. The bed is pretty comfortable, and there is a small twin bed against the other wall that I'm currently using as a personal office. The ceilings look like they are about 20 ft high, and covered in beadboard.

This is the hallway leading from the inner courtyard to my bedroom and bathroom. The flooring in this place is awesome. There are old wood floors in the dining room, slate looking rectangular tile in the living room, and more slate or some other stone in the rest.

And to start the day, we have to have a good breakfast. The typical breakfast of Uruguay (at least for visitors) is toast with choices of butter, honey, and marmelade, different varieties of sliced meat, a platter of assorted fruit (this morning was mango, kiwi, strawberries, and what appeared to be something like a honeydew), cereal, thin yogurt (tastes like a combination between yogurt and a little sweetened condensed milk), juice, coffee, and tea. It's different than the hotel breakfasts I had the last time I was here - there aren't endless platters of sweetened pastries, which is probably a good thing...