The Uruguayan Adventures of Ziggy n' Kelly

South America » Uruguay » East » Punta del Diablo
June 11th 2008

Published: June 11th 2008

Just so nobody complains, I am warning you right now that this is a LONG entry…pero sí que vale la pena leerlo.

Planning ahead, we bought our Buquebus tickets the day before our trip. The blessing in disguise of the day was the fact that the earlier boat was booked and we were forced to choose the 11:30 Buque Rápido. Kelly and I made it to the Buquebus Dock/Port/Terminal with barely enough time to check in and go through immigrations before boarding the boat to Colonia, Uruguay. Argentina gives every tourist a 90-day traveling visa, which is automatically renewed every time you leave the country. I had arrived back in Argentina after my Torres del Paine trip in Chile on February 19th and was traveling to Uruguay on May 22nd (yes, more than 90 days). I did have, however, the photocopy of the piece of paper that says I am in the process of getting my student visa. The original was somehow misplaced and I’m not exactly sure if I will be able to finish the student visa process. We will see in a few hours when I head to the immigrations office. They allowed me to leave Argentina warning me that ‘I will have to pay a fine when I return.’ At that point I was really just glad to have made it on the boat and decided to worry about the visa issue when it would arise a few days later. For now, it’s time to experience Uruguay.
After napping the whole way across the river, we arrived in Colonia and the signs prohibiting the entry of almost every type of food were everywhere. I frantically tried to eat as much of the food we had with us as possible; leftovers from La Cabrera the night before, pears, apples. After we had disposed of everything (either in our stomachs or in the trash), we walked right through customs without even being questioned…ready for the 2 ½ hour bus ride to Montevideo without fruit. It was overcast and cold, but not raining yet. The bus was pretty comfy and we arrived at the Tres Cruces bus terminal around 4:30…hoping to find a bus on its way to Punta del Diablo, my pre-determined destination. I had picked Punta del Diablo over other popular Uruguayan destinations due to random bits and pieces I picked up talking to people and researching online. However, I wasn’t able to find any bus schedules from Montevideo to Punta del Diablo on line and was therefore not too surprised to learn that buses left everyday at 5:00 and 8:40 AM. There were also evening buses that arrive in the general vicinity of Punta del Diablo around 3 AM and drop you off on the main route, 5 kilometers from the town. We opted to find a hostel for the night and avoid the possible pitch-dark adventure that could have been. The hostel we chose (more or less at random), was called Che Lagarto and housed mainly students who were staying in Montevideo for several months. Our taxi driver to the hostel was getting very worked up that I was a fellow Jew and couldn’t stop telling me how religious he was, and about how he had lived in Israel for a while. I asked him where he had lived in Israel with my very basic Hebrew and he didn’t understand…I didn’t know what to make of that.
A few of the students were in our dormitory. There was also a middle-aged man staying in our room. I watched him ask one of the students if ‘el baño era lleno’ with the thickest American accent imaginable. I asked him where he was from, and gave me the answer I hate the most…The United States. Allright guy, I’m asking you in my normal American accent obviously implying that I may want a more specific location. It’s ok, it happens all the time and always reminds me of a ‘You might be a redneck…..’ joke.
As it turned out, this guy was from Idaho Springs, Colorado which is just 45 minutes up the road from Boulder….crazy small world. He works half the hear managing real estate investments and the other half living near San Rafael in Argentina as a plum farmer (Mendoza area). I had recently traveled to San Rafael with my program, so we continued to talk. It ended up a very interesting encounter, but I can’t get over how he hadn’t picked up a better accent after living 4 years in Argentina.
We woke up, got everything packed up, paid, and went outside to find a cab. Unlike Buenos Aires, cabs are not super-abundant. We found one and were early enough to the bus station to get some medialunas and big ass coffees from McDonalds. It still wasn’t raining yet, but as we left Montevideo on the not-so-comfy bus, it started to come down. They always say Uruguay is a place to go in the Summer, and even then, rain could ruin the trip. Every time we stopped in a new town, one or two drenched passengers would slosh onto the bus and try to dry off even though it was probably colder inside the bus than outside. After a much-longer-than-planned bus ride, we stopped in a TINY town and the choffeur called out ‘Punta del Diablo’. Kelly and I stepped off the bus, got our bag, took a breath, and looked around. It was not raining at the moment, but my plan to find some nice quiet cabañas somewhere now seemed stupid and possibly impossible. Luckily, the next thing we heard was an American voice ‘are you looking for a hostel?’ He was like a godsent angel, but his name was Bryan and he owned the only operating hostel in Punta del Diablo. After a quick trip to the store (did not buy any food = mistake), Bryan took us in his truck to the hostel. Besides the shared dormitory he had a private room available with a fireplace and a balcony with a hammock (wet = useless). Even in the bad weather, this place was incredible.
Bryan opened El Diablo Tranquilo in December 2007 and they had a chock-full hostel for nearly the entire summer. Now that it was Winter, the crowds in Punta del Diablo diminished from 20,000 to a couple hundred. During the peak season, the room Kelly and I were renting for $36/night goes for $150/night (At a hostel, mind you). It was raining the rest of the day, and we hung out around the Hostel until dinner. Along with the hostel, Bryan also opened a Restaurant and Bar which is separate from the Hostel but under the same name. The chef was cookin up a special tonight of Matambre a la Leche…I knew what Matambre and Leche were…but had never had them mixed together.
A failed attempt to build a fire in our room sent us downstairs to meet everyone in the hostel and went as a group down to the restaurant to eat. There was a Kiwi couple, an Australian couple, a German girl and a Chinese girl (I think) (not whether or not she was Chinese, but rather whether I had listed everyone who was there). After a bit, Bryan and his girlfriend, Heidi came to sit/eat with us at the restaurant. The food was great, well-priced, and we were the only people eating there. An intense game of quarters followed the meal, played with Uruguayan 10 peso coins…definitely the coolest coins ever made. They just have the right weight, size, look and feel…I saved all of mine.
The next day was still overcast, but raining much less. Kelly and I went for a walk into the main part of town…every house looks incredibly different and although Kelly fell in love with a stray dog (There are a ton), I did not succumb to its cuteness. We walked by a very strong smelling pescaderia, saw a guy riding a bicycle towing a horse (no joke), and went to THE supermarket to get some lunch supplies. I am not even sure if I should get into what we decided to cook up for lunch, but it was quite the disaster. The short story is that it really DOES matter if you start out with hot water rather than the suggested cold water when making packaged cream of mushroom soup…and adding flour to a gelatinous blob does nothing except add in floury balls of flour (The flour was Kelly’s idea).
After ‘lunch’, Kelly and I got a real fire going and played a game of scrabble. I’m pretty sure I lost…even with my newly invented words. We went back to the restaurant for dinner and were surprised to see two other tables of patrons…one of which was a group from our hostel. We had a very nice dinner and a much more low-key night than the one before.
Waking up to blue skies and an actual shining sun, I was so excited to get outside and see what Punta del Diablo is really like. I walked down to the water and along the shore, out to the lighthouse and to the store to get some food for breakfast. Watching the waves splash up against the rocks around the lighthouse was incredible and there wasn’t another soul out on the beach! Looking more closely at the individual houses around town, I saw one that looked exactly like a coffin. It was the strangest thing and when I asked Bryan and Heidi about it they told me that it had been built recently and was definitely made to look like a coffin…que raro!
Our tentative schedule had us leaving Punta del Diablo around noon in order to make it back to Colonia that night. However, we realized that it really made more sense to spend more time in Punta del Diablo since we were finally granted with a nice day there. We rode the bus to the nearby national park with a few others from the hostel. Our plan was to catch the 6 PM bus back to Montevideo, so we were on somewhat of a tight schedule. The National Park Santa Teresa boasts an old fortress that was too far away for us to get to, but we explored other parts of the park and made our way to the beach. Heidi had told us earlier that you could walk along the beach from the park back to Punta del Diablo and that it takes about two hours. She was exactly right and it was an incredible walk along incredibly serene beaches. Uruguay really does have a beautiful coastline and it is a million times better when there isn’t another person in sight (except b.). Walking past the jiggling sea foam, it was an epic, but tiring walk back to Punta del Diablo. We got back at about four and were starving. Heidi was writing the specials on the sign in front of the restaurant as we passed it on our way to the hostel. I cooked up some lunch, which turned out much better than the day before, and we were good to go. Just as we walked outside, the rest of the group from the national park was just returning. Time to get back to our favorite city, Montevideo.
We didn’t spend much time in Montevideo, but it seemed like it was trying really hard to be a city but there wasn’t really enough of a reason for one. I’m not quite sure how to explain it, but maybe a lack of people in too big of an area helps…also very quiet at night…Our hostel on this night, Red Hostel, was much less odd, which also meant we didn’t have any weird encounters with Coloradan plum farmers.
After a quick nights sleep Kelleh n’ Ziggeh were on their way back to Colonia to spend a few hours there before the 4 o’clock Buquebus. I don’t need to make this any longer than it is, but the Colonia Buquebus station fosters a MUCH weirder feeling than the station in Buenos Aires. For lunch, we had Pollo (chicken) and a licuado (smoothie). I was actually really surprised at how nice of a town Colonia was to walk around in…but probably would have been disappointed in doing a day trip just to Colonia like many tourists do. After minor complications with my expired tourist visa, they let me get on the boat back to Argentina…so happy!

The Uruguayan Adventures of Ziggy n' Kelly

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