Map: www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
Greetings from Punta del Este. I am in what is, by a mile or two
over Montevideo, the southernmost spot in Uruguay, and in Uruguay's best
known resort town. Befitting its status as a tourist trap, PDE is not,
to put it mildly, cheap.
I rode 74 miles here today from La
Paloma, the longest ride so far of this particular trip. The first 17
miles were absolutely appalling, heading due north, mostly uphill, into a
wind that was forecast to be "between 10 and 20 MPH". It was closer to
20... This happy excursion took almost two hours. This stage ended
when I hit Route 9, the main highway to the east, at the town of Rocha,
which is the capital of the Departamento of the same name. Rocha sits
to the north of Highway 9, so I did not enter it, but I did enter an
ESSO station where I stocked up on yellow gatorade.
From here
on, the ride was very pleasant. I was now riding southwest towards PDE,
and that horrible wind was mostly at my back, or, at the worst, blowing
perpendicular to me. Some 15 miles east of Rocha, I crossed the Arroyo
Garzon, and entered the Departamento of Maldonado. This arroyo is one
of two that cut Route 10, the coast highway, south of La Paloma. If
they were bridged, I would not have had to fight my way up to Rocha
against the wind. I continued along through ranchland mostly populated
by sheep and wind turbines another 10 miles or so and eventually came to
a paved, but un-named and un-numbered road that lead south back to
Route 10 at the little town of Jose Ignacio, now east of the unbridged
waterways. Here, to my happiness, was an ANCAP station; I had drunken
my three gatorades and bottle of frozen water en route, and was thirsty,
so I loaded up on more gatorade and continued. From here to Punta del
Este (PDE) was another 25 miles. The first 10 or so were relatively
undeveloped, but then the high rises and luxury polo (yes, polo) clubs
began. Five miles or so from my destination, I crossed an iconic bridge
which looks like the side of a lasagna noodle; the roadway goes UP then
down then UP again, then back down. Do this too fast in a car, and you
will leave the pavement. The other side of this bridge was nothing but
high rises, and I eventually rode into PDE proper and found a hotel
near the bus station.
After showering, I decided to take the
bike back out and do a loop through PDE proper to take pictures. I have
been here before, but I now have a far superior camera to what I used
to have, and wanted to get better pics. PDE is, literally, a "point" of
land that sticks about a mile due south out of the Uruguayan mainland.
The northern half, ie closest to the mainland, is full or condos,
casinos and luxury hotels. The southern half is "residential" in the
sense that it is full of houses, but no one actually lives in these
houses. They are rented out to, usually, rich Argentines for up to
US$30,000 a month during the summer season. Argentina these days is
close to becoming another Venezuela, so I have a feeling that there are
going to be fewer Argentines with money to spend this summer, but we
will see. One thing that is very interesting is seeing the exchange
house price on Argentine Pesos vis the Uruguayan Peso--The "Buy" rate is
U$1.40 for one, and the sell rate is U$2.40 for one. NEVER in my life,
and I pay very close attention to these things vis the Mexican Peso at
home, have I seen a "spread" this wide. This is 40%. A normal spread
on the US Dollar is about 3% here, which I consider a rip off. It is a
sign that the Argie Peso is about to collapse. When it does, be assured
that the US will be blamed...(These numbers, of course, have absolutely
no connection whatsoever with whatever "official" price for the
Argentine Peso Buenos Aires is touting these days.)
PDE is
interesting. The people who come here tend to have very high disposable
incomes, and are similar to the kind of "party people" who hang out in
places like Miami Beach. Not exactly my thing, but to each his own. It
gets dark right now about a quarter to 9PM, and when I walked back from
my dinner at 8:00, the beaches were still packed. In fact, when I left
for dinner at 7:00, someone was asking for towels at the front desk
because they were just now leaving for the beach. These people will
stay out there until sundown, at which point they will come back, clean
up, and go have dinner about 10:00. Then, all the "cool" places to hang
out will open up around midnight, and remain open until 6 or 7AM
tomorrow morning. Then everyone will go home, sleep all day, and be
back on the beach in the late afternoon.
For the last three
days, I have had favorable wind (except this morning). It looks like
that is about to end. Tomorrow, I will probably only push on to
Piriapolis, another 30 miles or so west from here, and yet closer to
Montevideo.
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