Rocha was my original goal.
My bus gets to Rocha and within a few minutes I am wondering why I bothered to make the trip?
Sometimes you get to a point where you get stuck and the best thing to do is go to a restaurant, have a drink, and evaluate. So, I go into a place called the “Americano Grill”. At the grill, my waitress finds a customer who speaks English and he tells me how to get to La Paloma. I have to return to the main square and catch a bus there because it is twenty miles to La Paloma, too far too walk even on a good day.
La Paloma, when I arrive, is another sleepy laid back surfing village, reminding me of Piriapolis without the Argentine Hotel and lion statues.
Locals here are getting prepared for their tourist season. School kids, at recess in the schoolyard, look studious in their white lab coats, with black bows, and school bells call them back to classes as I walk by on my way to the beach.The kids remind me of my school days, on the playground and standing in front of classes with chalk on my fingers.
A dog in the middle of the road, nonchalant, too smart to take a nap there, but not in a hurry to move, captures the mood of this little burg.
La Paloma, in baseball terminology, turns a strike out into a double off the center field wall.
After an afternoon of walking and picture taking, I catch the last bus from La Paloma back to Rocha, then catch the last bus out of Rocha back to Punta De Este. I get home in the dark, walking four blocks from the bus station to the hotel.
Countries are a lot like people – they often keep their best features hidden till you get to know them better.
This isn’t the first time on the road that an original plan has had to be scuttled and a new plan improvised.
I expect that damn dog is still in the middle of the street.
Marijuana is legal in Uruguay.
You don’t see much of it on the streets. A few surfers under palm trees indulge themselves, the pungent smell immediately detectable. You see tourists enjoying the herb in public, flaunting authorities. However, the real national addiction here is Mate, a natural tea.
Juan Carlos owns the Hotel Playa Brava in Punta Del Este. This afternoon he is talking with a hotel guest and I snap a quick picture of him and his Mate. You can’t visit this country without seeing citizens walking while holding a strange shaped little pot filled with green tea, a long curved silver spoon through which they sip the tea, and a thermos of hot water with which they fill their pot throughout the day.
Juan explains that the tea has a calming effect if you drink it all day and it is used in this entire region. Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay all have their distinctive brand and one country wouldn’t be caught drinking the tea of another country.
Juan Carlos enjoys his Mate.
Marijuana gets all the attention. But here, Mate is the drug of choice.
There is a Beverly Hills of Punta Del Este, Uruguay.
They call it a barrio, like other barrios, but, the houses are immense, the yards larger, the privacy maintained, and no clunkers are allowed on the streets.
The Beverly Hills barrio of Punta Del Este is located on Los Arrayanes calle and is in rolling and wooded land. The estates have wrought iron, brick, security gates, and three car garages. My taxi driver says there is money in Uruguay and much of it comes from Argentina and Brazil, two richer neighbors who like the peacefulness of Uruguay and the tolerance of its people.
The Ralli museum is one of five in the world built by Harry and Martine Recanati who love Latin American art and want to have a place to show it to people. There is no charge to enter their museum and you are free to enjoy the building, art, and exterior courtyards to your heart’s content.
There are works here by Salvatore Dali and Andrew Calder. There are also works by lesser known artists from Brazil, Venezuela, Paraguay, Uruguay, Mexico and Argentina.
Dali, in retrospect, is more grounded than I thought and his skills, in many mediums, are first rate.
Calder is a little too airy.
D’Souza doesn’t need an entire room.
Female artists have lots to say and are given too small a place to say it.
I wonder whether the folks that live in this Beverly Hills barrio walk to the gallery or have a chauffeur bring them?
Some of them, I would wager, have originals by these artists hanging in their grand rooms and come to openings here just for the free wine, cheese and crackers.
Punta Del Este is still a ghost town this time of year, in November.
This town by the ocean comes alive in December, January, February and March. Prices go up, locals rent out their homes for triple prices, hotels make enough in a few months to make it the rest of the year when weather is less sunny and people don’t want to go to the beach. I have been told April is a good time to visit too. You can see the town getting ready now for high season. A McDonald’s is opening and workmen are repairing broken tiles in sidewalks in front of shops.
Today,surfers,who wear black wet suits, patiently paddle out towards the bigger waves breaking further off shore.
Off Emir beach, there are as many as thirty surfers in the ocean. I follow their bobbing heads, black wet suits, arms and legs paddling towards shore as a good wave catches them from behind,prompting them to stand up on their surfboards and hold out their arms for balance, riding all the way to the beach if they are lucky.
There are sun lovers on Emir beach who spend most of the day face up/ face down on towels, lounge chairs, or just plain sand. They wear sunscreen and bake. They drink and eat, listen to music, visit with friends and family. But, always, they concentrate on getting darker.
Wall sitters, where I sit today, hang out and watch who is wiping out in the waves, watch bikinis, joke around, and move as slowly as possible.
The beach today is full of vacationing families who have come to enjoy the Christmas holiday season together with many more to show up here in the next few months.
People are drawn to the beach like iron particles being attracted by a huge magnet.
I am, I freely admit, one of these particles.
It would take a bigger magnet to remove me from my wall seat this morning because I don’t, at this precise moment, have any place I would rather be.
There must be as many real estate sales offices in Punta Del Este as there are places for sale and rent.
No one stays put these days and for all the places here that has someone living in them, you still have plenty of places that are empty. This is a real estate broker’s paradise. Customers come down, fall in love, buy a place, move here, then lose their love and bail out. You get to sell a place over and over and over and you have nothing of yours at stake.
The area is seductive. It is clean, has shopping, has the beach, is easy to get around, is safe. The fact that it is expensive and is a resort community that expands in the good months and shrinks to a skeleton staff in the winter is easy to forget..
If you buy a place here are you going to live in it full time?
How much use will you get out of it?
Who will watch it when you are not here?
Is renting it practical?
Are property values going to rise or fall in the next few years so you don’t lose your reason for investment?
What is the government going to do that will impact the value of your investment, the income you might make from it, or whether you can sell it or not?
Is it really any different here than in Fort Lauderdale or Padre Island or San Diego, California?
If you are in business how are you going to survive lean months.
Wherever I go, real estate is for sale and people are either buying, selling or trading..
As far as I know, Gerardo is the most honest man on the planet and can, for a price,he will find you the castle of your dreams.
My dad was a realtor so I know there are honest ones on the planet.
The need to own a home is not going away anytime soon.
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