Punta Del Este, Uruguay -- Februay 1 to 5, 2013

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Punta Del Este, Uruguay

The Drake Passage lived up to it infamous reputation on our return trip, with gale force 9 winds and sea swells of 10 to 15 meters. After this passage, it was a relief to return to Ushuaia and fly Punta Del Este. Punta Del Este is located on the Altantic Ocean, with kilometer upon kilometer of sandy beaches, beautiful homes and gardens, lots of good restauants and it is relatively safe to walk around durning both the day and evening. We stayed at Hotel L'Auberge, a small five star hotel, with each room being different, lovely grounds, a good size swiming pool and helpful staff. The distinquishing feature of the hotel is its tower. Our stay at L'Aubege was totally a rest holiday, without Mare and I doing our usual exploring. The one major exception was Sunday when we decided to walk to the center of town, about 4 km. Well my usual good sense of direction also took a vacation for the day. We wandered past the center to the edge of town only stopping because we were at the sea; through several residental neighborhoods, also finding the casino, the marina and then the treck back to the hotel. Fortunately a strong wind was blowing and the tempature was about 26C. When we finally returned to the hotel and recounted our journey, the staff said we had walked about 15km. With a few resulting aches and pains we took it easy for the rest of the day.

In our walks it was impossible to not notice the number of beautiful homes that were up for sale. Punta Del Este is a favoured vacation spot for Argentinans and Brazilians. The economy of Uruguay is closely tied to that of Argentina, which is on its way to its second bankruptcy in 10 years. Those Argentinans who did not get their money out of Argentina in time are the principal sellers of listed homes for sale.

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Photos

IMG_0785
All the beach flags were Red on the Sunday we wallked into Punta Del Este

Hobbit House
A number of homes had these Hobbit type roofs