The first place of significance we stopped was Colonia del Sacramento.
It was first a Portuguese fort that had been built (around 1680) for its prime location. It acted as a smugglers town to get things into Buenos Aires.
It changed hands many times between the Portuguese and Spanish before becoming Spanish for good in the late 1700s. It was a small place, but definitely had a cool vibe and was photogenic.
Next stop was the capital city of Montevideo.
It was less hectic than BA. We strolled around the streets for a bit, hit up the gaucho museum, and looked around the cathedral.
In Uruguay, beef is king. They eat the most beef per person per year just beating out the Argentines by a hair. We had ourselves a real nice asado one day for lunch which was very good.
We also learned how cheap steaks were at the carniceria (butcher shop), so we ate steak almost every night in Uruguay!
Roberta was able to find herself a knitting store as well that made her quite excited. Apparently nice yarn can do that to someone. Who would have known.
We continued along the coast for the next couple of days passing through Punta Del Este which is the most popular resort town in South America. It was technically "winter" though so there
weren't many people around. Not really our forté anyways.
We found ourselves in the small town of Valizas that night, ate our steaks, and went to bed.
In the morning we left the car, and hiked into Cabo Polonio.
It is a small hippie village right on the point. Visitors are not allowed to bring in vehicles, so you can only get there by hiking or by taking a shuttle in.
We had decided to hike the 8 kms in over the sand dunes and beaches. It was a cool experience. Great views and we spotted a few penguins in the water.
There aren't power lines supporting the small village, so many of the hostels and shacks have their own little windmill or solar panels for power. No water system in the town either with each place having a large tank for rain water. We wandered around for a bit and took in the sights which included a nice lighthouse and a sea lion colony.
That evening was one of the coolest sunsets I have ever seen. Just the right amount of clouds with the lighthouse and the sea lion colony close by. Magical.
That night we hung around the fire while people played various instruments. It was a great night.
We hiked back in the morning with 3 stray dogs that followed us.
Then we headed up the coast giving our American friends a ride. We found ourselves a beautiful camping spot on iOverlander just outside Punta Del Diablo. Just outside town overlooking the ocean.
That night a couple of familiar faces showed up. A couple from Luxembourg that we had met on Tierra Del Fuego pulled up to the same spot! We had a great night sharing stories around the fire.
We decided to stay another night and have dinner with Miguel and Cory that night. After being on the move so much we needed a rest day. Unfortunately, they ran into vehicle problems and needed to head back to Montevideo to get it fixed so we dined alone for the night.
The next day we checked out a fort near by. Established in 1762, It was restored back in the 1920s and was in good shape.
From there we headed inland towards Tacuarembo. We saw some cows, some rolling hills, more cows and some flat land. It was nice cattle country.
That night I built a beautiful homemade grill to BBQ our steaks.... Maybe it wasn't beautiful but it did the trick!
The next day we made it to Tacuarembo, in the heart of gaucho country. We visited another gaucho museum. That night, we unfortunately had to share one T-bone as an opportunistic stray dog got the other one.....
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