Conrad Punta Del Este Resort And Casino

... driven just over 100 kms to get to the town of Maldando, which again has a large campsite in the area. The tourist office was closed when we arrived, but we managed to get directions to the campsite. Once again it is a huge place, although this time about 2 kms from the beach and about 5 to town.

2nd - Another very quiet and relaxed day.

Pictures are for the house in next entry.

... circumnavigates the peninsula. Towards the halfway point of our run, the rambla followed sand dunes that stretched for another 10 miles or so up the coast. We decided to run back along the beach and from this side it seemed that the dunes were taking over the city in a man versus nature kind of way.

After one night, we decided to catch a bus farther up the coast to a small seaside town, La Pedrera.

Ten minutes outside of Piriapolis, the little van turned off the road where the hand-painted sign directed us toward the "caves of the Indians." At the end of the dirt track, we left the van and started the climb up the side of Sugar Loaf Mountain. (You can see the ...

... the town is full of restaurants and bars with sky high prices, which we obviously avoided due to our budget, however we found the supermarket, Disco, in punta Del Este, has the most amazing selection of foods, better than anything we have seen in South America so far, lots of foreign foods, great deli counter, we ended up getting food from there and cooking back at the hostel. Xmas day was a bit weird as all the shops were open ...

... Punta hotel. We were made to feel like nothing more than an irritation. Maybe things would have been different if we´d had Louis Vuitton emblazened on our packs instead of Karrimor 65 litre!! Nonetheless we headed out (we were begrudgingly informed they might be able to get our room ready by midday) to the beach full of hope that the day would improve. It did not. Punta was officially shut and in recognition of this the fabulous weather about which you´ve read repeatedly had ...

... forgot her name) and so does Matis`s family. I tell Jane I wish there were beer vendors here like in Brazil. She asks if I want a beer and I`m like does Soda Pop Pinski want to be after Mr. Sandman in Tyson`s Punch Out, hell yes. She apparently does as well and we walk to a little store to get a liter of Stella Artois. I tell her we should probably get another one but she thinks one will be enough, hah, yeah right. The highschool girls tag along and ...

... to find one of those in Uruguay. We went to the Uruguayan Yacht Club and at ethings like gnocchi, pasta, fish, and steak. Extremely delicious, but not your typical thanksgiving fare. After dinner we spent more time in the casino. It was actually a rather depressing setting because it wasn't in season yet so the hotel was by no means at full capacity. Many of the guards gathered around the few tables that were being operated just to have something remotely ...

... office, to see the options for getting to Punta del Diablo and Cabo Polonio. The plan became to visit Punta del Este, and then head to Punta del Diablo for the night. So we went for a stroll in Punta del Este, which turned out to take much longer then expected. The harbour was full of yachts, but serves also as a fishing harbour. The fishermen were back, unloading the fish, cutting off the filets and throwing overboard the rest, to ...

... glared, wagged his finger, grabbed the butter cube from Carlos, and quite emphatically placed the butter plate on his own table next to his french fries (which he had previously sent back because one of the fries wasn't to his liking - no joke). Then he glared some more and mumbled to his wife. The butter, of course, remained untouched for the rest of the meal. I was about to ask him how he had liked his butter as he walked by the table, but Carlos convinced me ...

... 4 in the morning. They locals did not lie. The bars were empty at midnight and hopping at 3am. Evidently, this is off-season. In January and February, nobody is allowed to go to bed before sunrise. We were glad for the reprieve. Uruguay has been a very interesting country. Colonia and Punta del Este have been scenic and very cultured. (We later learned that Colonia is a Unesco world heritage sight.) Montevideo, the capital, however, is not particularly ...