May 2008

The bus dropped us off on a dirt road in the middle of the village in front of the miniature ”bus station” and the tiny police station. The sun was gazing down so we sat down to soak up the atmosphere and figure out the place over a beer. We quickly noticed that we were going to like it here.

The bus station

Of a sheer coincidence we bumped into a man who happened to rent out a huge house on the beach to tourists. And as a sheer coincidence, the house happened to be built in Alvar Aalto style. The owner himself told us that he himself had requested the house to be Alvar Aalto style. Can you believe it? Here we are in a small village in Uruguay and we happen to find a house like this? Normally we couldn’t have afforded this huge house, but as it is low season and the weather is bad we got a great deal we couldn’t resist. Excellent! And the chap that owns the house is a cool and relaxed fellow that we had a couple of interesting conversations with. He’s living his perfect life here cruising with his Russian motorcycle and enjoying the beach and his cute little house by the water where he lives with his family. Not such a bad life, huh?

Our house

The kitchen

The living room

Outside the house with the owner

Punta del Diablo is a stunningly gorgeous and relaxing place. The village itself is suitably small with small wooden houses, small dirt streets and just a few very primitive shops. The beach is beautiful and is decorated with charming old fishing boats. During the summer this place is packed with tourists and all the guesthouses are fully booked. Many of the bars and restaurants aren’t even open this time of the year because the town’s roughly 700 inhabitants wouldn’t be enough to support them. I can just imagine the bustle of the place when it gets busy; the sun blazing, the beach filled with people, the surfers riding the waves and the pints filled with beer...

The beach

This spot would be excellent to visit in the spring time, but because of the autumn and the fairly rainy weather right now, we’ll be moving towards Cordoba in Argentina tomorrow. We sure would like to return some day. Maybe already later this year?