La Corona - es muy bonita!

Hola from La Corona! We're staying at an estancia, an estate house in the middle of company plantations. It is absolutely beautiful here, from the grounds to the estate itself. I'm so excited to do field work in this setting and with this weather, I can't actually believe how great it is.

I DROVE to La Corona from Montevideo, which I didn't anticipate doing. Thank god the rental car was an automatic; the Montevideo traffic was stressful enough. It turned out to be fun actually to drive in a city, although I think it was pretty obvious I was a gringa. I didn't weave through traffic like the locals, and I actually stuck to my own designated lane, which was an obvious tip-off.

We got to Tacuarembo and were greeted at the mill by several employees. Then we were escorted to La Corona and shown the estate. Apparently girls are ranked higher than guys, as I seemed to get a pretty awesome room. I have since changed rooms, but I'm actually considering it an upgrade. Pictures to follow....

This was my entrance the first night to my bedroom. All the rooms on the main house have these entrances from the outdoor courtyard.
This room was beautiful, and sandly the pictures do not do it justice. The furniture were all antiques, the ceiling was unbelievably high, and the floor was some type of stone. I think I was so tired that I slept pretty great.

This is one small picture of the center courtyard of the estate. There's a well in the middle of the courtyard; I don't know if it's used but it's kind of cool anywayAlso, there's a lot of fencing in the area, which control the intensity of cattle grazing. Well, and other grazers - in our drive up the dirt road to La Corona, we spotted cows, feral horses, sheep, and today we also spotted nandus (like emus) and plenty of birds. It's pretty awesome.

When we were wandering the grounds, we started checking out the trees on the grounds (some of which were said to be cork trees) and noticed a ton of epiphytes living on the tree trunks. One example was a succulant-like plant with awesome pink and purple inflorescences. They were hanging on to the tree by a tiny root structure.

Oh, yeah, we also spotted cactus growing in the trees. Yet another surprise from Uruguay.