Who stole my body clock?

Hola nosotros familia y amigos para Sur America!!!

20 hours on a plane is a long time. But 20 hours on a plane with a two year old is quite simply insane. However, despite Isabel´s periodic attempts to find out who could scream the loudest - her or 4 Boeing jet engines - we arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay, safe and sound on Thursday afternoon. And boy was it a relief to get off the plane and out of the airport. We had travelled a long way, to a different country, a different time zone and into a different language. One thing that wasn´t different, though, was the Uruguayan community´s ability to complete tasks by involving as many people as possible - preferably huge crowds if any just happen to be available.

We encountered our first Uruguayan rent-a-crowd when we left Sydney way too early on Thursday morning. Our three car convoy almost made it to the airport intact, but aggressive early morning Sydney traffic split us up just before we reached our destination. We regrouped at the airport, checked in and grabbed about seven tables to seat everyone who had come to join us for some breakfast before we departed Australia.

Our first stop was New Zealand for a quick refuel. 45 minutes after we got off the plane, we were back on and heading for Chile. This leg of the journey took 14 hours and gave Isabel plenty of chances to work on her voice projection skills, much to the joy of our fellow passengers. Not that we would know - we just put our headphones on maximum volume and left her to it. If only...

We passed a few hours in Santiago Airport by watching planes land and take off, land and take off, land and take off - two year olds love repetitive activities. Dennis sampled a pisco sour, the national drink of Chile (a mix of whisky, lemon juice and ice) and due to a lack of sleep, ended up getting a little piscoed himself.

We all managed to get a bit of shut eye on the final leg of our journey from Santiago across to Uruguay. As we walked out of Uruguay´s brand new airport, we were greeted by Uruguayan rent-a-crowd number two. About 15 of Andrea´s relatives had turned up to meet and greet us. It was completely chaotic and pretty cool. We went back to Gladys and Eduardo´s place for a long overdue catch up with our family. It was so nice just to see everyone again. We now have the unenviable task of waiting a few days for our body clocks to join us. It´s an 11 hour time difference and is already proving to be a challenge. We´ll let you know how it goes.

A big shout out to Mick - happy birthday bruz!

And any news from Jim and Ronnie yet?¿?