After two days of rustic relaxation in Cabo Polonio, we headed for our next beach destination, Punta Del Diablo on Uruguay's far eastern Atlantic coast (only about 30 km from the border with Brazil). Punta Del Diablo (Devil's Beach!) was highly recommended by our guidebook as a laid back backpackers' town with nice beaches. How could we not check it out? It ended up being better than recommended, and we stayed for three nights.
The route there was a lot more back road than any we had taken to date in Uruguay, as the bus ran along the coast via secondary roads.
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| Our big fancy bus drops us off at this bus station. |
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| Just off the... um... highway? |
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| And then we get on this mini bus, which was not quite as nice... or air conditioned. |
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| The mini bus took us to another town, where we switched busses again. In all the little Uruguayan towns we went to, the bus station was on or near a nice green main square. A nice way to wait! |
And... rewarded! The beaches of Punta Del Diablo were really nice. Below I am on la Playa de la Viuda. Widow's beach. I suggested that Chad not go swim (at this beach, anyway) lest the undertow make a widow out of me!
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| Sandy McFrothy feet. |
This is our hostel, which was a bit out of town but only a ten minute walk from the beach, in the middle of a nice green space, with a pool, and run by great people with nice facilities. Highly recommended if you ever make it to Punta Del Diablo!
Out back there was an asado, where Chad cooked his dinner.
Unfortunately, in the middle of his grilling a huge storm hit. I had seen rain, thunder, and lightening that intense before, but never for as long. It lasted about two hours.
Luckily, the storm did not compromise the results of Chad's tasty looking dinner!
The next day dawned sunny and hot, and we took a bus up the coast to Parque Nacional Santa Teresa, which boasts a fort and more beaches.
The fort looked pretty cool, but unfortunately wasn't open for us to go into the day we were there.
Also in the park, a free mini zoo with a few animals and bunches of birds. We're not normally big fans of zoos, but this was nice and (mostly) open space for the animals and I have to admit it was kind of cool.
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| A baby baboon! I was glad his gigantic Dad was in this cage. |
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| Capybaras, the biggest rodent in the world and featured on one of Uruguay's coins. They refused to come out in the sun and pose for us. [Chad: my dream come true - the one thing I wanted from Uruguay was to see a capybara.] |
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| Wart hogs? [Chad: no, wild boar] |
And then more beach. We ended up walking for a couple hours along the coast in the blazing sun - I must be adapting to the hot weather because normally this would have made me sick but I was fine.
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| Punta Del Diablo is just past the far tip of the bay |
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| [Chad: ugh, all the factory food, white bread and asado do not make for a beach body...] |
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| We mostly had the beach to ourselves except for the seagulls. |
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| Tadpole convention in a pond along the shore. |
Punta Del Diablo is not quite as hippie as Cabo Polonio, but probably still falls squarely in the hippie category. It is more of a "real" town though, and it's seeing a bit of development.
And a final goodbye to our hostel. We were sad to leave; headed back to Colonia del Sacramento and then Buenos Aires.
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