Day 316
Punta del Diablo, Uruguya, South America POPULATION: 700!
We woke up to a beautiful breakfast at Rodrigo´s. Homemade apple cake and toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, freshly squeezed orange juice and herbal tea. The last time we had coffee was in Brazil and we drank so much of it we were having heart palpatations so we´ve been drinking tea.
Rodrigo was still asleep. It was 10.30am and our bus left at 11am. The previous night he said he´d take us to the bus department. We wondered if we should take a taxi; we were happy too and didn´t want to outgrow his hospitality.
He woke, bleary eyed, said he had to go to Punta, taking us was good motivation..we arrived at the bus station at 10.55am!
Rodrigo had booked our room up when we couldnt rebook it due to our bus trip to Diablo...but he told us if we didn´t get accomodation in Diablo..we could go back and stay in his tent in the back yard.
We paid him the money for the hotel room and tried to give him extra for the tour he took us on. He wouldn´t take it. No, no he said. He couldn´t. All he wanted was a great recommendation in the hostel bookers evaluation. Above 90% he said would give him more business. In our books, this very generous, kind and surfy guy...would get 100$%. It would have to be one of the best experiences of hospitality we´ve had from a total stranger during this year away. Apart from the guy in Athens who let us stay in Nanna´s room when the whole place was booked out due to the Liverpool, Milan soccer game!
The bus was so crowded people were standing in the isles. It didn´t look good for our trip to Diablo. My ears pricked up when i heard Australian voices behind me talking to a local Uguguayan guy from Rocha saying they were also going to wing it in Diablo! Uh oh.
At 2.30pm when we arrived at Punta del Diablo we were shocked by the amount of tourists. We thought there would be a lot. But! Not this many. It looked as if the poor place was exploding out of it´s seams.
On the roadside just out of town we got our first taster. There were about 100 backpackers lined up on the road waiting for a bus.
We were hoping our Plan B wasn´t going to be in ruins. Plan A - find a cabana (a small hut we heard they had on the outskirts of town) to stay in outside of town, Plan B catch a bus back to Montevideo!
Plan A was not looking likely and even before we arrived at the little sandy roaded bus station!
I felt an instant panic. We´d travelled this far to see the town, to relax in a remote part of Uruguay, on a gorgeous beach..and everyone else had the SAME IDEA!
We disembarked and scurried straight to the little tourista store which we could see from the bus window. The line was thick already. We waited for our turn, only to be told..the town was completely booked out.
We headed straight to the little shack of a bus station ticket office. And we very luckily got a ticket to Montevideo at 7.30pm that night. There were many busses heading out. At least they catered for buses out, even if they did not cater for accomodation within the town. I wondered how the 700 locals felt. They were inundated buy multiple thousands of tourists!
We were told it´s only like that from 20th December to 10th March so i guess they have adapted and take advantage of being able to make money from the tourists for that period. Compensation for being crowded out in their own town i guess. There were a lot of street vendors selling everything. Interestingly though, we could not find postcards, something we´ve been collecting...the one light souvenir we´ve bought for all the places we´ve been to.
We had five hours to see the town. But we were loaded up with our back and front backs and a side bag. How on earth do we see a town that has no lockers, facilities or even a proper bus station?
Well, you take your packs...head for a cafe (to go to the loola as well!) and sit there and eat the local food, drink wine, take in the life passing by and just sit back and relax!
That´s one thing we have learned..Uruguayans are very laid back relaxed people..very like Australians!
And that´s exactly what we did. We loaded up our packs...found a cafe...and dumped them by the side of the wall of the cafe...ordered the local paella and the very cheap santa maria vino tinto (or 55 pesos per half litre!!!) and observed the goings on in the world of Punta del Diablo. The previous panic subsided and our mood lightened. At least we found a place to eat!
Just being in the town is special. A lot of the people there spoke Spanish which suggested to us they were Uruguayan and Argentine tourists who have also discovered this picturesqe and special spot on earth.
From where we sat, overlooking the beach, we could see the sandy street full of backpackers rolling by, in the herds, Mate drinkers adorned with their pots and flasks (I´m going to post the day´s Mate Madness pics when i can upload my pics!) and bikini and board shorted clad bodies floating by..as well as all the colours of beach.
Greg took a stroll of the town, while i backpack sitted in Neptuno´s, to ask if there was a possibility of a room anywhere for a night..but came back with the same story. The inn´s were full.
We ended up thinking..we just couldn´t sit looking at the beach. We had to go down and feel the sand and surf on our bodies. So we loaded up our packs and headed to the beach. We found a good, quiet spot on the large mound of rocks which overlooked the whole Diablo Bay. It was pretty easy just to get our bather´s out of our packs....and change...there on the rocks! We´re getting good at adjusting to any situation these days..improvising and adapting.
And that´s where we layed...until 7.15pm when we had to catch the bus back to Montevideo.
At midnight we arrived in Montevideo..wondering where to stay. We headed, by taxi, back to the hotel where were only 2 days before..and they had a room!
What a day. We were glad we made the effort, even though it was a lot of bus travel!
We must have done about 1000km´s of travel in just the two days..and SEE a lot as well!
Now it´s time for a rest in Montevideo..just as well it´s Sunday today...a day when everything comes to a standstill..and so do we.
