Saturday Februray 6, 2016 – The resort town of Punta del Este is the summer destination for many Uruguayan and Arigentinian families getting out of the city for the three summer months – December to February and considers itself “The most sophisticated residential tourism location of South America”. It has 10-20K full time residents and swells up to 300K during the high season. Thus many luxurious homes and hundreds of condominiums, which along the beaches cannot exceed 5 floors. The city lies just at the mouth of the River Plate (Rio de La Plata) where it feeds into the Atlantic Ocean and reaches it’s maximum width of 220 Km (76 Miles). Everything about the place seems to be resort, with many condos, fine sandy beaches, outdoor restaurants, 5 star hotels, luxury yachts etc. Some places were reminiscent of a really nice Miami Beach and other upscale resort towns around the world.
Disembarkation was by tender, using the ship’s lifeboats to go ashore from the anchored position some 35 minutes away. The next two ports – Ushuia, Argentina and Punta Arenas, Chile are also tender ports. Once ashore we gazed on the (River side) marina filled with luxurious yachts and boarded the coaches for the day’s excursion which took us around town and then to lunch at a winery. The first stop was at the 1860 Punta Rasa (Cabo San Antonio) Lighthouse, the light blue painted Parroquia Candelaria Church and to the Salinas Point beach where there was a memorial to the 60th Anniversary of the Battle of the Rio de la Plata 13 December 1939 with an anchor of one of the victorious British Ships – the Ajax – and protest sculptures of mermaids made from refuse washed up on the beach. The next stop was the Playa Brava beach (Atlantic Side) to see the famous “hand” statue (actually just the tips of the five fingers coming up from the sand) by the Chilean sculptor Mario Irrarazabal erected in 1981. The middle fingers stands 12 feet high and is made of a gray concrete material. After seeing other residential neighbourhoods and beaches, we stopped at the Ralli art (paintings & sculpture) museum, filled with some 30 Original Salvador Dali sculptures as well as many other well known Latin American Artists and a very impressive outdoor Sculpture garden. This museum also has branches in Marbella, Spain; Santiago, Chile; and two in Israel.
Punta del Este being situated on a promontory has many beaches and thus many ocean / river residences separated from the beach only by the Rambla road. A curious undulating / switchback bridge crosses an inlet, which when traveling in the coach at speed, leaves ones stomach in the air on the descent of the roller coaster type structure. Near the bridge we saw a group of people doing exercises on surfboards in the waters of the La Barra bay (Windsurfing education). This led to our next destination – The Itau (Bank) sponsored Foundation for the Arts headed by the famous sculptor Pablo Atchugarry. It is a 20 acre sculpture garden with various studios all around and a small inside museum. Most of the works were modern abstract sculptures. The highlight here was seeing and wandering around the studio of Mr. Atchugarry who lives part of the year in Italy and part in Punta del Este and works on large (some 20 feet high) sculptures in Carara Marble, imported from Italy. There were some 20 pieces in his studio at different stages of completion, most seemed to resemble blades of grass seen as if one were an ant. The entire floor and walls were covered in marble dust.
This led us to the Narbona vineyard just out of town, were tables were set up around a three sided courtyard with the fourth open to view the vines. We enjoyed the full bodied wines, a sumptuous cheese plate followed by the traditional meat (lamb, Chorizo sausage and Beef) served in a brazier with hot coals keeping the meat warm. While this was very enjoyable and a gorgeous warm day, it paled in comparison with the event the day before in Montevideo. What didn’t help was the exceptionally poor guide, who explained little and expected all to know what was to occur, despite never being there. Nevertheless, we bought some wine and Dulce de Leche (toffee made from cow’s milk and similar to Cajeta – goats milk – in Mexico). The word Cajeta in this southern part of the world is not to be used in polite society as it refers to ladies private parts!!!!! After lunch, we headed Back over the undulated bridge, past the beaches to the port (3/4 hour) and after a drink at an outdoor cafe overlooking the marina, took the tender back to the ship and a nice energetic swim in the 6th floor pool.
Nelson and Diana took a different tour and saw some of the same places, but were able to walk around the town and ended up at a nice place for a sumptuous tea. Interesting comparing notes at day’s end. That evening they went to the movies and I to the theatre to see Eve Sherratt – an operatic and West End singer with a spectacular voice.
Roger & Anne Travels 