Today was a travel day. I took a bus to La Paloma from Montevideo. That's roughly 220 kilometers, maybe a bit more, but it took about five hours. The bus left later than scheduled, got stuck in holiday traffic especially around toll stations, and then also Uruguay's Ruta 9 is not really a laser-line highway. But that would also take away all of its charm.
Leaving Montevideo, once the bus has left Tres Cruces bus station, means driving along Avenida Italia for approximately one hour. This boulevard is really long, like really long and spreads out through all kinds of neighborhoods and suburbs. The further east you get, the wealthier the people seem to be, which reflects what the Rambla had already suggested two days ago. After our drive down suburbia lane very reminiscent of the Anglo-Saxon world through Ohio by the La Plata, a new city starts, most innovatively named Ciudad de la Costa. So finally, there is no more doubt, what shines in blue next to us is the Atlantic Ocean and no more the enormous La Plata river that is more than 200 kilometers WIDE.
Ciudad de la Costa is not worth mentioning really but then follow a couple of curiously named beach resorts, starting with Atlántida. What potentially sounds like a colossal conglomerate of huge hotels looking like space ships is actually quite a harmless little town, right next to the ocean with a pleasant feel as we drive slowly through its only paved road. As we exit this resort starts Las Vegas. No shit. But there are no casinos here, only a scenic creek leading to a sandy beach. From afar, one can see sand dunes actually and this Las Vegas seems to be a hidden gem. We continue our way through resort after resort, until we finally reach Ruta 9, a highway leading straight to the border with Brazil, straight as in after having passed thousands of cows for hours.
The landscape out here, just as when we had come in from Argentina through the Western Uruguayan plains, is wonderfully wide and inspiring. Mostly flat but wide, mostly empty but with farms every few kilometers, cows, cows, and cows. And: quite some car wrecks along the way, old FIATs, old Renaults that have been left to die beside the highway. Certainly bad for the environment, I find something poetic in this though. I can't say exactly why. Probably because it's such a nice contrast to car advertisements promising safety, comfort, and just general happiness from here to all eternity. But, OK, yes it's wrong to just dump your old car on some national road, I solemnly declare hereby. Still, photographers looking for the poetry of decay would find truly good motives here.
As we get closer to Punta del Este, apparently Uruguay's Monaco that I will have to skip this time it seems, the highway takes a turn inland and leads through something almost similar to mountains. Mountains!? Unexpectedly, as Uruguay is often described as one big flat Pampa, here go some kind of hills. One even has a huge cross on top of it. The village at the entry to this region is called Pan de Azúcar and all of a sudden you're like in a Western movie. Colonial architecture and a Spanish-looking church in its center mark the next small city, San Carlos. It seems to have a pleasant old town. From the highway, one can see the skyline of Punta del Este down by the sea in the background shining through behind the San Carlos church.
After five hours we have reached La Paloma and my colleague Julio, whom I have met twice in Cuba, is fetching me. He lives here, and he'll show me around these next days. Also, he took a photo and I have a feeling it's for his local newspaper. Finally, after years of hard work, "5 days in the world's best country" and the many people involved in its creation get the recognition they deserve, and proudly I sit into his old Toyota van from the 80s. Journalists always have the best cars.
Julio dropped me off at Hotel Bahía, which is my new residence for the next days. There, I also met very kind hotel owner Humberto, and we'll talk much more tomorrow. Both gentlemen I'm sure have quite some stories to tell about this place. The hotel is also open off-season, clean, with comfortable rooms.
I do get to catch the sunset before I tune out for today to the relaxing sound of waves just outside my hotel room window.