Lucie & Rhys´s Honeymoon Adventure: Week 6 - Punta del Diablo, Cabo Polonio, Colonia (Uruguay)

On our second day in Punta del Diablo we wandered through the sand dunes to the beach accompanied by two of the dogs from the hostel. The beach was a huge expanse of windswept white sand with no one else around for miles. Walking along the coast we passed through the centre of the village. It was a shame we were there in the shoulder months as the village was full of bars and restaurants in shacks lining the beach but everything was either shut or being painted and given a new lease of life ready for peak season in January/February - one of the locals told us about 80% of the town is rental and even the cash point only opens for the two summer months. Having picked up another three dogs to add to our pack we carried on along the coast for a couple of hours and then cut inland and back to the hostel. We stayed up that night playing pool with some Belgian guys, a group of Belgian girls and some German girls - it's weird, atleast 75% of the travellers we've met have been either Belgian or German, I don't know where all the Brits are.

The next day we caught a bus up to Nacional Parque Santa Theresa about 12km along the coast. We strolled through palm tree lined tracks watching the parakeets in the eucalyptus trees, checked out the botanical garden and the bird hide over a lake and walked back to the hostel along the beach. Dinner that night was the cheapest T-Bone steak ever followed by more pool with the Belgian guys. UK 3, Belgium 1. Rhys is training me to be a pool shark.

We were supposed to be leaving the following day but as the hostel was so nice we decided to stick around for an extra day to spend some time planning our route - South America is so big that we don't have enough time to just wing it especially when some buses only go once a week and things like the Inca Trail and Navimag have to be booked months in advance. We headed to the beach for a break in staring at a computer screen, dogs in tow, and walked for a couple of hours to the lighthouse and back.

The following day we caught a bus to Castillos, a second bus to Cabo Polonio ticket office, then a 4WD truck for 40 mins across the sand dunes to the village. Far more remote than Punta del Diablo the only electricity in Cabo Polonio comes from solar panels and there are no cars or running water. When the truck pulled up it was like arriving in a corner of Glastonbury with shacks selling tie-die trousers and handmade jewelery sold by guys with dreadlocks and bare feet. We checked in to a shack on the beachfront, dropped our bags and walked to see the colony of sea lions on the rocks by the light house. Rhys headed back to the hostel to catch up on sleep and I sat on the beach watching the world go by. As we'd spent an extra night in Punta del Diablo our cash reserves were running low so dinner was a carton of red wine, a family bar of chocolate and a banana.

Out of cash we headed back to civilisation the following day to Colonia, a beautiful UNESCO colonial town on the Rio de la Plata facing Buenos Aires. Our first full day we borrowed the bikes from the hostel and cycled the 5km along the beach to the 1907 bull ring, only used 8 times before it closed. It wasn't the prettiest cycle along a main road, and the saddle was so hard on my bike that i'm still in pain but nice to do something other than walk. That afternoon we wandered into the old town, other than all the mosquitoes it's really pretty with cobblestone streets, city gate and wooden draw bridge and lighthouse. For the first time since we've been away we went out to a smart restaurant for a candlelit dinner on the waterfront.

Yesterday Rhys stayed at the hostel to watch TV and I headed back into the old town to explore some more. After visiting the yacht club, a photography exhibition, art gallery and cultural centre I climbed the lighthouse for views of the town, it was all very peaceful and serene, lots of old people riding golf buggies around and people eating ice cream in the shade in the tree lined plazas. It was stupidly hot last night so we're both abit tired today from lack of sleep. We walked into the old town this morning to change some Brazilian cash Rhys had stashed in a secret place and forgotten about and to book our bus tickets to Fray Bentos where we're heading in a couple of hours to find out who ate all the pies.