“We are three friends from northern Sweden that have visited Uruguay and Felipe in March 2008. Together we have more than fifty years of experience of cichlid/ aquarium keeping, but when we came to Uruguay we felt like beginners again. Without the excellent help from Felipe and Alejandro we would have been totally lost among all the local fishes. With their help we could, after a while, learn to identify the most frequently caught species.

Except from collecting fishes we wanted to see as much as possible of Uruguays nature and wildlife, and with Felipes and Alejandros as guides we got the opportunity to see much more than we expected.

Felipe’s second language is Swedish so it was really easy to communicate. For us as Swedes it felt quite strange to sit in the late evening, close to the Argentinean border, looking out over Rio Uruguay, and speak our own language with a South American.

Everything was very well and professionally organized. The travel route, the accommodation, the time schedule, the official permits, the food (excellent!) and most of all the nice people we met during our time in Uruguay.

Almost all the fishes survived the long journey back to our hometown. It feels great to see and know the story behind all the pike cichlids, gymnos, catfishes and tetras that now are swimming in our aquariums. We hope to come back some day to visit other parts of “The Land of the Gymnos” - Uruguay.”