Wings over Uruguay sounds like a movie title or a book you should have read in high school.  But it is real and reality is good for dove hunters looking at Uruguay as a destination. 

Colonia is a small town with a lot of press due to its location (50 minutes on a fast boat from Buenos Aires) and nature.  The cobblestone street and quaint town of Colonia is enough to write a great travel article about and describe the European flavor, great beaches, pedestrian friendly main street and the wonderful cuisine that only South America can provide.  Yes, this is Colonia; however, we write about hunting trips and Colonia is a great hunting destination for wingshooters. 

Dove hunting is unbelievable, with the endless doves that cover the sky and the few restrictions on dove hunting.  First, there are no limits.  Take ‘em as they say.  Second, there is no season, take ‘em anytime.  Wow.  OK —now tell me what is wrong.  Well, nothing.  Those going on a hunting trip or bringing non hunters along will find Colonia a perfect destination. 

You can fly into Buenos Aires, Argentina and see the sites in Buenos Aires before boarding the boat for a quick 50 minute ride to Colonia.  Here, you go maybe 15 minutes to the dove field, get your shotgun ready and take ‘em.  The doves are harmful to the farmers and their crops, which makes up more than people in Uruguay, so dove hunters are a welcome site and the hunting pressure is low and the dove population is high. 

Enjoy Colonia and enjoy your next hunting trip wherever it may be.  Read more about  Uruguay dove hunting in Colonia  here.

Continuing the hunt story from last post…

Astrid closed the door and looked at her sister. “Well, I wasn’t expecting a herd,” said Ingrid. “We can still take ‘em though.” She went to her duffel bag and withdrew a gun case. “Got a shotgun here,” said Ingrid, “Pike’s got his sword-on-a-stick thingy, and Astrid’s got a carbine. In the back of the truck I’ve got a chainsaw. I figure Astrid takes out a couple from here, we go outside and take out some more on our way to the truck, and carve up whatever’s left.”

Pike was all for it, enthusiastically informing us that the naginata was used against four-legged as well as two-legged adversaries. I asked Ingrid how I could help the operation. She told me that since we didn’t know if we had seen the entire herd, I should go out on the porch with Astrid and watch for attacks from directions other than the front of the driveway. Since I had no weapon, Ingrid gave me her bowie knife.

Astrid opened the door again. The cows were now halfway up the driveway, but they were motionless except for their swishing tails. Astrid and Ingrid looked at each other, and they both nodded.

Astrid, Ingrid, and Pike ran out the door. The cows charged.

Astrid placed herself at the corner of the porch, crossing in front of the cow from last post, which was sticking out of a window. She took aim and fired at one of the six, dropping it. The other five chased Ingrid and Pike.

Ingrid took out the closest pursuer with the shotgun. Pike placed himself in a firm stance and swung the naginata low, severing the front legs of the beast chasing him. He directed a downward stroke at the head of another animal, but only cut off its ear. By now Ingrid had reached the truck. She jumped into the bed, retrieved a chainsaw, and fired it up. Astrid took another shot with the carbine, and the one-eared zombie cow that was confronting Pike fell down. Ingrid felled a cow that leapt at her where she stood in the bed.

I didn’t see what happened with the one remaining fully mobile cow, because there was a commotion in the house behind us. I looked through the open door and saw another cow charging through the living room. I gave a holler to Astrid and pulled the front door of the farm house shut. But instead of hearing the advancing bovine strike the door, I heard and saw it crash through the remaining front window of the house. The front railing of the porch halted its trajectory. It quickly squared itself and glared at me, who was between it and Astrid.

The creature snapped at me while I jabbed at it with Ingrid’s knife. Neither of us connected. After a few seconds I saw a snowball strike the left side of the cow’s head. The cow looked in that direction and I heard Astrid’s voice telling me to cover my ears. I kept the knife pointed at the cow and covered only my left ear, which muffled the sound Astrid’s carbine made when she shot the creature.

Looking in the direction of the sound, I saw Astrid at the stairs leading to the porch. Pike and Ingrid joined her there, Ingrid having switched off the chainsaw. Pike was pointing a video camera at me.

“Guess that’s a wrap, huh, Pikester?” Ingrid said. We took a walk around the house to see if there were any remaining adversaries. We found none and Ingrid took the opportunity to quiz Pike about the naginata. Ingrid and Astrid determined that the hunt was over for that night, and we returned to Ingrid’s home.

Ingrid invited us in and we stayed in her living room for a while, discussing the hunt and wondering about how the zombie herd had been created. The two sisters didn’t have any leads, since it had been a few years since they had encountered zombies and those were the human variety. So we were either dealing with a spontaneous paranormal force or a supernatural mastermind with a strange sense of humor.

Ingrid’s house was the starting point for the hunt last night. Both Pike and Astrid were there when I arrived. Astrid was dropped off by her husband, who also brought their daughter with him. I said hello to Astrid’s daughter and asked if she remembered telling me “see ya, shorty” the last time I saw her. Instead of responding she smiled at me with only the right half of her mouth, making her look a little saucy.

Astrid rode in Ingrid’s pickup and I rode in Pike’s car, and we followed the sisters to an empty farmhouse. We crossed the porch and entered the two-story home, Ingrid and Astrid each carrying a duffel bag and Pike carrying a video camera and a wooden pole with a curved blade on the end, which he called a naginata. He also had a sword at his waist.

Inside there were four folding chairs, a card table, and a camp lantern. Astrid explained that she and Ingrid had deposited them there when they checked out the house earlier in the day. From her duffel bank she removed four flashlights, a pair of binoculars, night vision goggles, and a sound amplifier. Before she could tell us what the plan for the night was, however, we heard a sound from the front of the house: a metallic ca-clang clang.

We each took a flashlight and went onto the porch. At the far end of the long driveway our lights illuminated something that wasn’t there before. It was a cow, looking at us and swishing its tail. Around its neck was a cowbell.

I was about to ask whether cows were normally nocturnal when the cow plodded down the driveway toward the house, its bell making the ca-clang clang sound. As it approached we saw that something was wrong with it: its skin appeared diseased. When it got closer we saw that it wasn’t disease: it was decay.

ca-clang clang

“Huh,” said Ingrid. “Let’s get inside.” She and Astrid entered the farmhouse but Pike and I stayed on the porch. Pike was filming the creature. “Wow,” he said, “This is…horrifying and hilarious.”

ca-clang clang

“You guys!” snapped Ingrid.

“What?” I said. “We’re in a hurry to get away from zombie cow?”

ca-clang clang

“Yeah,” said Pike. “It’s not like it’s one of those 28 Days Late-”

ca-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang

The cow was charging at us.

We ran back into the farmhouse and closed the door. “OK, tough guys,” said Ingrid. “Going to listen to Ingrid now?” We were. “Now,” said Ingrid, “I think we’ve got the right tools for…”

CRASH! The cow had smashed its head through one of the windows at the front of the house. It jerked its head up and bellowed a grotesque moo. Pike drew the sword from his waist and Ingrid reached into her duffel bag and took out the club hammer she used in the duel with the frog statue in Verona. She strode over to the undead bovine.

“Time to get tenderized, Bossy!” Ingrid cried, and smashed the creature’s skull. Pike struck at it with his sword. Bossy was still and silent.

“Well,” I said, “This hunt took less time than I thought it would.”

ca-clang clang

The sound was coming from the same direction we had first heard it. Astrid opened the front door and we looked outside. Her flashlight illuminated a single cow wearing a cowbell, standing at the far end of the driveway. The other five cows standing in a line next to it were not wearing bells. All six were looking at us and swishing their tails.

“Huh,” said Ingrid.

I got a call from Astrid explaining the hunt Ingrid was referring to in her comment on Tuesday (the story of the first hunt I went on with the two sisters begins here). Ella isn’t going to be able to make this one but Pike will be going and so will I.

Astrid informed me that over the last two weeks, deer carcasses had been discovered in the woods northeast of town with smashed skulls and wounds that didn’t resemble those that would be caused by known predators. The most bizarre aspect of the attacks was the absence of the deer’s brains. A close second was the bite marks, which looked like they were caused by an animal that attacked only with its lower jaw.

The carcasses were found in a roughly circular pattern, and during a daytime investigation Astrid and Ingrid discovered an abandoned farm at the center of the pattern. The plan is to station ourselves at the farmhouse at sunset and observe the area, and perhaps “take action,” as Astrid said.

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From last post:

I asked what our cover story was going to be, in case our pursuers weren’t on board with the we’re-curing-a-werewolf concept and we needed to buy Astrid some time. But before any of us could figure one out, they were upon us. A light shone in my eyes, so I couldn’t see who was behind it.

And then I heard a full-bodied yet cautious feminine voice say “Arthur Ormand?” It was my pastor. You know, the hot one?

“Pastor Jill! Hi!” I said, as if we had just met on the street. The light moved from me to Ella, and I could see that Pastor Jill was the one holding it. I could also see there were three or four people in their late teens with her, and I remembered seeing something in last Sunday’s church bulletin about a youth retreat at the home of one of the members.

“Is that Ella from the bookstore?” Pastor Jill said. “It’s me,” Ella responded. She continued, “Did you get my message about that Douglas John Hall book coming in?” “I did, thank you,” said Pastor Jill, in the same cautious tone she used when she first addressed us.

“Hey, I’m Ingrid,” said Ingrid. One of the people in Pastor Jill’s group was already illuminating Ingrid, her rifle, and her machete. “Oh, my,” said Pastor Jill, before introducing herself.

Pastor Jill said something to the guy standing closest to her, who backed up a little and started calling a number on his cell phone. “So, um, yeah, we were just…um…yeah, it’s good to see you,” I said to Pastor Jill. “Is this that youth thing I read about last week? You’re out here youthin’ it up?” I heard a sound that could have been Ella sighing.

“That’s right,” said Pastor Jill. She lowered her flashlight but tilted it upward, so it was illuminating her face. She moved closer to me. “You must have heard that strange animal sound that we did,” she said. “Uh-huh,” I responded. I think I mentioned before that she had a pleasant voice. But now she sounded downright mesmerizing.

“We came out here to investigate and were surprised to see someone else on this property,” she continued. “I don’t mean to sound unfriendly, but may I ask what brought you and your friends here?”

“You heard about that wolf, right?” I said. “Killed the cows? Yeah. We were, you know, going after it.”

“I had no idea you did that kind of volunteer work,” said Pastor Jill. She was moving the flashlight left and right slowly. “Yeah, well, you know,” I said, watching the shifting pattern of light on Pastor Jill’s face. “Sounds dangerous,” she said.

“Oh, It’s not that dangerous,” said Ella, moving closer to me and giving me an uncharacteristically jovial punch to the shoulder. “Not with Ingrid here.” “You’re being modest, Ella,” said Pastor Jill, still looking at me.

At this point I heard a howl close behind me, similar to the one the creature made when Ingrid shot it. But this time the timbre of the sound changed, so that when it stopped it was unmistakably a human cry.

“What the…what was that?” said Pastor Jill. I was seriously tempted to say. “Um…the wind?” just for the sake of amusement.

“OK,” said Ingrid. “See, my sister’s a doctor and she’s got a guy back there who she’s, um, helping.” “Helping out with what?” asked Pastor Jill. “We can’t tell you,” said Ingrid, “It would violate confidentiality.”

“Yes, I believe the HIPAA laws apply in this situation,” said Ella. “HIPAA?” said Pastor Jill, aiming her flashlight behind us. Fortunately, Astrid came forward at that time, supporting a man wearing sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt. Even luckier, one of Pastor Jill’s group was also a patient of Astrid and could confirm she was a physician. This gave Astrid instant authority and credibility as she explained that she was treating someone attacked by the wolf, which was still at large so everyone should probably get out of the woods.

Pastor Jill assented and Ingrid, Astrid, Ella and I went with her and her group, separating when we were within sight of the house where they were holding the retreat.

“Well, that was an adventure,” Pastor Jill said to me. “Yeah,” I said, “Maybe you can use it as a sermon illustration.” “Oh?” she responded, “Is there a moral to this story?” “Um… keep on keepin’ on?” I said. Pastor Jill chuckled. “See you in church,” she said.

=====

Ingrid approached me on the way back to her truck. “Hey, you were right about Martina Luther there being a hottie,” she said. “Yeah, I suppose,” I said. “You suppose?” chortled Ingrid, “Is that why you and Ella aren’t an item yet? Holding out for a little ecclesiastical action?”

“I’m not looking for action with my pastor,” I said. Ingrid chortled again, saying, “Yeah, she’s probably a little too much woman for you to handle.” “I can handle plenty of woman,” I said rolling my eyes.

At this Ingrid giggled. “Dude – are you hitting on me?” she asked. If you want to be polite, you can’t really give a negative answer to that question without qualification, and if you’re not careful with the qualification you may need to qualify the qualification, so I spent the way back to Ingrid’s truck amusing her, Ella, and Astrid by explaining that no I wasn’t hitting on her, not that she wasn’t attractive, which wasn’t to say that I was planning to pursue her, which didn’t mean she wasn’t worth pursuing, etc.

Last night I went to Ingrid’s house to see what this werewolf stuff was going to be about. Ella was there wearing her Miskatonic sweatshirt and I saw a woman who must have been Ingrid’s sister, whose name I learned was Astrid. She had long blond hair like Ingrid, those hers was curlier. That and some similarity in facial features were the limit of the physical resemblance, however. In Ingrid’s words, “She got the speed, I got the power.” Astrid was much shorter and more compact than her sister and moved like a panther.

I asked Ingrid how she and Astrid knew that we were dealing with a werewolf and not a regular wolf. She said there were lots of signs and showed me one: a photograph of a patch of dirt that had animal tracks leading to an area where the dirt was disturbed, with a single pair of shoeprints walking away.

She added that the werewolf had killed two cows. I asked if that meant the cows would come back as cows that would turn into wolves but Ingrid told me I was thinking of vampires and zombies.

Astrid informed me that the cow killings (bovicides?) had occurred in the same area, which is where we would be hunting. She withdrew a syringe from a backpack she was carrying and explained that it was the lycanthropy cure. Ingrid, meanwhile, was carrying a rifle and machete. She had a flashlight for each of us and her husband had supplied a pair of infrared goggles.

Ella and I rode with Astrid, with Ingrid following in her truck. We stopped by the side of the road and followed the sisters to the place where we would be waiting, which bordered a clearing that I assumed was near where the cows were killed. Ella and I spent much of the time talking to Astrid, who confirmed that her daughter means “see you shortly” when she says “see ya, shorty.”

I wasn’t keeping track of the time so I don’t know how long we had been there when Ingrid announced she had spotted the target and hoisted her rifle. “Tranquilizer darts. Honest,” she notified us. She moved to the edge of the woods and I could see an animal that looked like it could have been a wolf, but was a lot larger than a normal one. Ingrid fired the rifle and the creature emitted a harsh, frightening howl.

It ran through the woods and we switched on our flashlights and pursued it, Astrid in the lead and Ingrid whooping with delight. We soon came across a motionless yet still fearsome animal that looked like something out of a Grimm Brothers story rather than an actual wolf. Even though the creature wasn’t moving I preferred to keep my flashlight on Astrid, who removed her backpack and suggested the three of us move away while she applied the serum.

We agreed to leave Astrid alone while she did her work. So we were the ones to first hear the sounds of people approaching and see flashlights from the direction we had come. I asked what our cover story was going to be, in case our pursuers weren’t on board with the we’re-curing-a-werewolf concept and we needed to buy Astrid some time. But before any of us could figure one out, they were upon us. A light shone in my eyes, so I couldn’t see who was behind it.

And then I heard a full-bodied yet cautious feminine voice say “Arthur Ormand?” It was my pastor. You know, the hot one?

ME: Hello?

INGRID: Hey, it’s Ingrid.

ME: Hi.

INGRID: Hey. Me and my sister are going after a werewolf Friday night. Want to go?

ME: Werewolf?

INGRID: Yeah!

ME: Like, a literal werewolf.

INGRID: Yeah! You interested?

ME: Isn’t hunting a werewolf basically killing a person?

INGRID: No, dude! My sister’s a doctor! She invented a cure for werewolfism.

ME: I think it’s called lycanthropy.

INGRID: OK, smart guy.

ME: Your sister. Is that See Ya Shorty’s mom?

INGRID: [laughing] Yeah.

ME: You know, I don’t know if I’m…

INGRID: Ella’s going to be there.

ME: [pause] OK, I don’t see why…

INGRID: [saucy chortle]

ME: I don’t see why that would make a difference.

INGRID: Uh-huh. Meet us at my house at 9. You can blog about it.

ME: [pause] OK, I’ll be there.

Just returned from 10 days in South Africa. What an AWESOME trip. Spent a lot of time hunting, relaxing, and reflecting on the state of the world. I think I’ve solved all of the problems we have, now if only they’ll put me in charge!

     In all seriousness, I discovered the sportsman’s solution to the gas problem. It’s called the Toyota Hilux, and it gets over 30 mpg. The only problem— we can’t get it here!  That’s right. Because of politics, industry lobbyists, and absurd policies, Toyota isn’t allowed to import them here. They claim that they can’t pass emmissions! Now, follow this logic. There is a vehicle that will get twice the gas mileage of conventional trucks, so it will use half of the amount of fuel. It certainly doesn’t give off twice the emissions.

Looks good, has tons of space, and gets great gas mileage! 

Make sure to check my other posts on www.myspace.com/biggameace.