After four days in Montevideo we hit the road again, heading for the hippy fishing village of Cabo Polonio. The Uruguayan countryside reminded me a bit of a greener version of Australia. Low, rolling fields littered with sheep, cows, and countless eucalyptus trees. Eucalyptus was introduced to the country in 1896 by the writer and botanist Antonio Lussich.




You can't really drive all the way to Cabo Polonio. At a certain point, you have to park your car just off of the highway and book passage on one of these big four wheel drive trucks. They ferry people back and forth over the 5 miles of dunes that separate Cabo Polonio from the rest of civilization.




Cabo Polonio is a really funky little village - perched on this barren, windswept, moon-sliver of a point that juts out in to the Atlantic ocean. It was founded by some Spanish sailors who shipwrecked there in 1735. These days it's populated mostly by sea lions barking from the rocks offshore and a small tribe of dirty hippies who seem to have dropped out of the modern world altogether. Nobody actually owns property. They're all squatters who built their makeshift shacks with whatever materials they managed to drag over the dunes. The houses are basic beach shacks of wood or stucco, some no bigger than a bed and dresser. There is no electricity and no running water. People make do with generators and small windmills. Water comes from small wells and rain collectors. The locals survive selling basic necessities, or by setting up driftwood stands and hawking shells, beads, and other hippy crap to the tourists who make the trek out there.








We found accommodations at one of the few posadas in the village. It was located right on the rocks at the water's edge. It was basically just an overpriced youth hostel with your own pitch dark bathroom. We didn't even have a toilet seat. Nobody changed the sheets or cleaned our towels. There was electricity from 9-11 so you could re-charge your gadgets, which seemed to be kind of big deal for Cabo Polinio. That said, none of us really minded. It was wonderfully quiet and the perfect place to relax and do some reading.






My vacation reading assignment. I had been eager to read the recently released "Lost Books of the Odyssey", the first novel from Zachary Mason, a computer scientist specializing in artificial intelligence. However, I didn't really think I could do so without first going back and re-reading the original. After finishing the Odyssey, It took a bit of re-calibrating to get in to the Lost Books. They're abstract and dreamy and moody and hard to really put your finger on. Yet once you submerge yourself, and kind of get inside the author's head, it really gets under your skin.










After 3 nights in Cabo Polonio, we headed north again, towards Punta Del Diablo. Along the way we stopped in Rocha for some supplies. I think all of us really regret not buying this gigantic fluorescent tiger beach towel.




The house we rented in Punta Del Diablo. A great place hidden away in the dunes at the southern end of the beach.








The house came with a pair of burrowing owls that were fond of perching just outside the bedroom windows. Owls are fucking cool.




Ciao Uruguay.