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It's mid may and we are finally posting these notes on Cabo Polonio in Uruguay where we visited in December! We're excited to do so - Cabo Polonio has been one of our many highlights. I think what makes it so special for us is that it was such a surprise. We hope you'll enjoy finding out about it too...just don't tell TOO many people about it 😉 You know that feeling when you discover a beautiful secret? That’s how Sarah and I felt when arriving in Cabo Polonio. Our trip to Uruguay started as we flew to Montevideo from Sao Paulo. We didn’t know very much about Uruguay, but we knew we wanted to go there. We both adopted them as our World Cup team – Sarah even made out with some loot after picking the team in the Four Green Fields World Cup Pool. So Diego Forlan aside, we were in for an adventure in a very foreign country.
From Montevideo we jumped on a bus to Punta Del Este – it’s about a 2 ½ hour ride. We had read in the guide book that Punta Del Este was a nice popular beach resort. We
Sarah relaxes in hammock
That was the order of the day here! stayed for one night in Punta Del Este, and in our opinion there was nothing very special about the place. It was chock full of tourists from Uruguay, Argentina and other places. There was a vibe that was more on the high brow, yacht owner side and not so much on the fun, let’s all have a laugh side. So we had some drinks, walked the peninsula and left the next day.
We had heard about Cabo Polonio from a Swiss guy that we met in Foz do Iguaza. He loved it and really sold us the idea of going there. So travelling a further 2 hours from Punta dell Este, the bus will drop you off at the side of the road beside Cabo Polonio National Park. From there you take a modified truck across the rolling sand dunes for 20 minutes until you arrive at the beautiful beach and village. Welcome to Cabo Polonio; full time population of 80. You are now on the southeast point of Uruguay. Here you have two gorgeous beaches to choose from, you can walk to the lighthouse, watch the Sea Lions as they clamber for space on the rocks, stroll up
and over the sand dunes, or chill out at one of the little beach restaurants or bars. There is no electricity here. The guest houses, bars and restaurants use candles at night and they have their own generators. At night time, you can see every single star in the sky. In fact, it seems that you are actually in the sky. The moon reflects in the water, and as you sit on rock on the point you can see all the inns and homes with candles flickering in the windows and on the decks. From here you can stroll up the ‘main street’, a sandy trail that takes you along the little strip of restaurants and bars. You can pop in and out of the different lounge clubs. Depending on whether you prefer electro beats or live music, you can find somewhere to stay until the early hours of morning. But before sunrise make sure you take a stroll along the beach…the algae light up the waves with an electric blue color at night – it’s quite amazing. You can also paddle in the pools of water and as you walk the algae ripple across the puddles to create a
Hang on!
The truck brought us over the sand dunes for about 25 minutes or so. really cool visual of electro blue ripples!
Sarah and I met some cool and interesting people here. Alfredo owns the Cabo Polonio hostel. He’s been in CP for over twenty years since moving from Argentina. Gabby also works at the hostel – he spends six months in CP and six months in Buenos Aires. Perhaps the most interesting guy we met was also Argentinean. ‘Luis’ had also been coming to CP for over 20 years. In fact he’d travelled quite a bit over the past 30 or so years. Across Europe, and various South American countries. Apparently that’s what you do when you live in exile from your own country.
It was almost fitting of the place that we could not use our new digital camera in Cabo Polonio. The battery was drained and we still had to replace our lost charger. So we took snaps with a disposable, and created our own genuine Kodak moments. Enjoy!
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