Caught the ferry from BA to La Colonia, Uruguay. Despite Uruguay being an unplanned destination we are conscious of time and only planned a whistle stop tour of its beaches along the coast up to the Brazillian border.
Uruguay is a bit of a question mark. It´s hard to place its identity. Was a bit of a mixed bag – from the quaintness of European influenced towns to the rugged natural beauty of more traditional way of life. It´s not set up for backpackers & independent traveling. Not much info on the internet (hard to find places to stay). Tourist info is at best crap & most instances non existent. Not much written in the usual travel books. Still happy to have visited.
La Colonia is a beautiful old town right on the beach front. Unsurprisingly its an old Portuguese colonial town complete with cobbled streets, great buildings with cool cafes, bars & restaurants. An interesting place with a great vibe. Unfortunately we only stayed one night. Could have stayed longer. The pizzas are really cheap (3 quid) and really nice! Not sure of what to expect in Uruguay – La Colonia set high expectations for the rest of the country.
The next stop was La Paloma – which my parents reliably informed us means ´´the pigeon´´ in Spanish. As we are in March, the off season officially started. It’s a dusty, relaxed beach side town. Not much to do apart from sit on the beach – was a bit of a ghost town. Coupled with the weather was a bit hit & miss, it proved to be rather dull. The main redeeming feature was the hostel we stayed at. Really cool beach side place with a funky bar & fortunately with an older crowd. We are a bit fed up of pretentious young twenty somethings, thinking they are the coolest people on earth having discovered Bob Marley, hammocks and independence for the first time… OK, I am getting old. I admit it!
To satisfy our thirst for a more adventurous & interesting place we quickly moved onto ´´la piece de la resistance´´ of Uruguay beaches – Punto Del Diablo. Once again informed by my parents of its meaning – the devils port. Due to our rushed departure from La Paloma, we didn´t have time to book any accommodation, deciding to walk around and find something when we arrived. (This also meant I can haggle face to face and get cheaper rates than booking in on the internet – once a northerner, always a northerner!). We arrived to a torrential downpour. It lasted all day. We walked around and got absolutely soaked. On the plus side we found a really nice, cheap hostel – but had to stay the first night in a large, charmless place full of the aforementioned young crowd. Felt like a spare tit in an orgy. Happy to leave that place.
Punto del Diablo as a town is awesome. The weather cheered up the next day and could spend some quality beach time. It’s a small fishing village, but a completely different feel the La Colonia. It doesn´t have cobbled streets or old buildings, just dust roads, a variety of beach huts & rented accommodation & cool bars & restauruants. Again as its off season it not too crowded and the beached were picture postcard perfect. We could have stayed longer. But Brazil was calling…
Interestingly, as we were packing to leave I looked out on the beach & ocean and saw first hand an twister (tornado) from start to finish. It only lasted a couple of minutes, wasn’t massive and too far our at sea to hit the town. Funny how these things happen. If I hadn’t stopped packing at that moment, sat on the bed, or had the window open I would have missed it. Took a video of it, so will attach it when get it on a disc.
Thursday, 12 March 2009
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