16-19 November 2006
On November 16th, we picked up our Budget rental car and drove towards
Punta del Este, which "is an upscale vacation spot on the southern tip of
Uruguay, about 140 km east from
Montevideo" - think Ft. Lauderdale or Atlantic City and you're on the right track. The city is made up of enormous apartment buildings all overlooking the ocean. We had heard so much about this town as the vacation spot for the rich and famous. It did not really appeal to us, so we found a supermarket and bought some food. Then we kept on driving East towards Brasil. Our destination for the evening was Punto Diablo. We rented a cabaña for $12 (our own little house with a kitchen and 6 beds), and walked the beach as the sun set.
On our second day, we drove to the Fortaleza de Santa Teresa - a fort built in the late 1700s by the Portuguese and later taken over by the Spanish. We had heard about a secluded town where one hires a driver and a jeep to take us out to
Cabo Polonio. So we found a guy with a jeep who we paid about $10 for a round-trip to Cabo Polonio. After a bumpy ride through sand dunes, we arrived at this sweet little town with a famous lighthouse and a gazillion sea lions.
According to Wikipedia, Cabo Polonio "has the uniqueness of having no roads leading to it but is only about 7 km from the main highway. It is accessible by walking that distance through the dunes or by the services of 4x4 vehicles that provide a ride. There is no electricity or running water for the few hundred houses of this town. They make do by collecting rain water or from nearby water wells and using wind power and a few generators to power some of the posadas and groceries stores. There is a light house that gets power from the national grid." We walked within 50-100 feet of thousands of sunning sea lions. Then climed up the lighthouse, which was fantastic - so high and windy that I was a bit nervous (I am notoriously awful with heights...) We remained perched in the lighthouse for sunset and watched (and heard and smelled) the sea lions. That night we stayed at a hotel about 5 feet from the waves!
On our third day, we walked around dunes of
Cabo Polonio. To our suprise, there were about 25 dead sea lions on the beach. Additionally, we found bones of sea lions everywhere. The dunes reminded us of Cape Cod, but they were much more extensive here. At 2PM, our jeep driver picked us up and after a bumpy trip, we arrived at our rental car and drove to La Pedrera (so small it doesn´t have a wikipedia link!), another wonderful coastal town. Since we visited in South America's Spring (think: late May), there were very few visitors to these towns, making our stay very quiet and relaxing. We found a hotel with a pool(!), walked the beach and swam in the pool. Although the Atlantic´s water doesn´t seem to be that cold, the waves were quite rough and we were worried about swimming at these beaches. In fact, our plan had been to fish a bit, but the on-shore winds were too gusty to fish as well. Therefore, a hotel with a pool was terrific!
On our fourth day, we visited a caiman farm on route back to Montevideo. We were introduced to 8 month-old caimans (above), several other ages, as well as adults (above). We were careful not to offer them our camera or limbs. We made it back to Montevideo in time to catch a soccer game.
