Cabo Polonio - February 14th

Despite the good beach yesterday we are not disappointed to be leaving Punta Del Diablo as it has turned out to be more commercialised than we were led to believe.  And our hostel has not helped; the staff here just seem to be bored.  The only blessing is that we were the only ones there, so it was like having a private house instead of being in a shared bathroom hostel. 

Today we are going to Cabo Polonio.  This is about 50km back towards Montevideo, and was picked partially because of the name (Dorota having to write Polonia on all our hotel registration cards).   But it was mostly picked because everyone here raves about it, and Lonely Planet tells of a little village with no electricity on a cape overlooking a colony of sea lions.  It seems too good to be true but we will give it a go.  Our bus journey is a bit slow, taking over two hours to travel over 50km, mostly because the main road runs a few miles inland so each little seaside town we visit requires us to turn off, drive 3 or 4 km, drop off or pick up a few passengers, and then return.

That is except our stop.  Along with no electricity we are in a no car zone, so we get dropped off on the main road and we have to continue to our hotel by means of a truck travelling 7km over sand dunes.  It’s a great start and it gets better.  The little village is as we would have pictured it, maybe slightly bigger, but our hotel is at the end of the beach, probably 1km away from the next one.  Luckily the trucks pass by so we get dropped off saving us a scorching walk along the beach. It’s an amazing location for a hotel, looking over the sea, 20m from where massive waves are breaking.  I say a hotel, we are really staying in someone’s house, but they have a bar and the cooking is excellent.  Dorota immediately compares it to her favourite beach in Goa, Mandrem, and the comparison seems appropriate as we even have cows on the beach.

So the afternoon is again spent on the beach and in the cold water. The only thing that makes it less than perfect is the wind.  But other than that it is idyllic. In the evening we walk into the town and see the sights, including the lighthouse, but we didn’t go to see the sea lions, because the Lonely Planet says they aren’t there in February (the only month).  Although when we get back to our hotel for dinner our host tells us this is wrong, and they are there, so in future we must stop relying on Lonely Planet so much.  Dinner is amazing, and our romantic Valentine ’s Day finishes with us looking at the stars, only to find that clouds have come in and covered the magnificent sky we saw the previous night.