Beaches glorious beaches

From Uruguay's capital, Montevideo, up to the Brazilian border, stretch miles and miles of gorgeous beaches. We had heard about this before we set off on our trip and so we were really looking forward to spending some time here.

High season is January and February, by May it should be chilly and wintry but this year it's still very dry and hot - not good for farmers but it worked out well us, as it's now out of season, so we had beautiful beaches virtually to ourselves in the sun. Punta del Diablo

We spent 5 nights relaxing by sandy beaches and splashing in the sea - 4 nights in a place called Punta del Diablo, which apparently has a fair population of surfers and travellers in January and February, and another night with a lovely, slightly drippy hippyish couple (very friendly but the 'spiritual' music we had to listen to nearly made us poorly) in a village called Valizas. Luciana and baby Safiro outside their very relaxing B&B home.

From Valizas we crossed a small estuary in a rowing boat and spent a lovely day walking along several miles of sand dunes and beaches with nobody else in sight.  We reached a tiny fishing village, Cabo Polonio, which is a popular hippy hangout in the summer but now is mainly shut up for winter. Fishing boats in Cabo Polonio

To get back to the main road from here we took a bumpy ride on top of an offroad truck across more beaches and sand dunes. We somehow missed our bus connection at the main road (the only one of the day) but it all worked out well when a kind man and his son gave us a lift in their van to the nearest town.  

The peninsular is called 'Devil's Point', probably due to how treacherous the sea is around here for ships. There are many shipwrecks, and the last notable boat to sink went down in the 1970s.

The beaches of Uruguay were exactly what we had hoped for: beautiful, relaxing, sunny, unspoilt and with endless stretches of golden sand all to ourselves.