Uruguay's Coast

After an excellent breakfast buffet at our hotel in Montevideo, we rented a car on Sunday morning at the airport and drove across the country pretty much. We stopped for lunch in ritzy Punta del Este, apparently a town recently discovery by movie stars. It was much larger than we expected with high rises lining the beach - maybe it was discovered awhile back. The beach though just stretches on and on. We had lunch at an outdoor cafe area of a restaurant that I think was called Guappe, where Jake had another chivito sandwhich and I had a tomato and mozzarella salad (see photo of me at restaurant). The restaurant served very good licuados and lemonade as well. The inside of the restaurant looked quite fashionable. Note the photo of the man on the beach drinking mate with his thermos clutched in his arm. Young and old alike in Argentina and Uruguay cling to their mate cups at all times of day. Mate is a tea-like beverage made out of a relative of holly. You keep the mate leaves in a gourd and add hot water to it as needed.

The waiter gave us directions for how to get back on the highway headed east. After driving a long time I thought I might have misunderstood, but then we ran right into the road we were looking for just as had been described. Route 9 took us into the heart of Uruguay a little inland. There are huge areas of green rangelands, lots of planted eucalyptus forests, gentle hills, taller hills with wind turbines topping them and a lot of sheep and cattle. The highlight for me was seeing 2 rheas, relatives of the ostrich. Gradually we angled back towards the coast and more palm trees started appearing as well as huge lagoons. The palm trees form a palm savannah with all the green grass between them.

We are staying at the Hotel Parque Oceanico, one of the nicer accomodations we've had on this trip. We can see the ocean from our balcony and it is just a short walk away. The beach runs for miles (see photo at sunset). Across a suspended bridge over a small river lies the town of Coronilla. At the other end of the beach is the Santa Teresa Nature Reserve. The hotel has an indoor pool with hot water and outdoor pool large enough for short laps. We will shortly find out how the dinners are!