The beaches - Uruguay

We set out to visit the beach at famous Punta del Este. This is not far from Montevideo, and the drive was not meant to be long or difficult. We usually leave at about 9.30am, and this was no different.

Another thing that we do is look in advance for a couple of suitable hotels, in both Booking and Google. This is not to book anything, but just to have a goal for the drive and if the hotel is nice we'll stay there. This time there were so many different areas and hotels to choose from online, that we agreed to just go and find something. Karin was keen to spend a few days in a nice resort as we haven't seen many beaches on-route.

Punta Ballena was a possibility, but you blink and you've passed it. It was also too close to Montevideo. In Punta del Este itself we passed in rapid succession Playa Mansa, Playa Parada 16, and Playa Brava. Next followed La Barra, a popular beach town with cafés, shops and a lot of people. We had some lunch and carried on. Long before we realised, we had left the beaches behind, and Harold said "let's go to Rocha, it is the next stop anyway". Said and done, we left the beaches without seeing any hotel or resort.

Arriving in Rocha we found out that it is a town where people live, but there is no facilities for tourists. There may be some place to rest your head, but we didn't find it. It was now 4pm, and we had nowhere to stay or go (or so it felt). Harold had a look at Google and saw an Estancia, La Tahona, not too far from Rocha, and we agreed to go there. An estancia is a farm, with cattle and horses and gauchos, and some of them offer a lot of activities and experiences.

The drive was half-an-hour, and the road went increasingly narrow as we got closer. We arrived at this place, by an old mill, and spent a night in total darkness with no noise of any kind. The accommodation was special, and no services were offered. There was no activities other than chatting to the guy who runs it, and his dog. Fascinating!

Next day we turned back on ourselves and went to La Paloma, a nice town with a good beach. Here we experienced the situation with tonnes of mussels on the beach, brought by the tide. We even saw a few dead sea-lions, stranded by the tide. The life guards told us those are natural events from the Atlantic and not something people worry about for swimming or surfing. As we still had some beach feeling, we carried on to Punto del Diablo. All up we spent 5 nights at the beach, and then we were ready to carry on.