why uruguay

The heat in concrete dominated Buenos Aires has us thinking about escaping to a place with more space between buildings and cooler - looking at the map, we thought why not check out Uruguay?

After a prompt and comfortable ferry ride across the Rio Plata, a restless night in the capital city of Montevideo at a hostel in bunk beds with a large snoring man below us, and a 3 hour bus ride - here we are in Punta del Este.

This "Little Cabo san Lucas" in Uruguay is a holiday paradise for Argentians and other South Americans with time and money to spare. It is high summer season and the gorgeous beaches are filled during the day with the plethora of bars and clubs jammed in the nights. I mean we assume the latter, as we are actually staying about 20 minutes out of town in Manatiales, a tiny outpost soon to be built up to a Little Cabo suburb, and we really don´t have the desire to bump and grind into the early morning with sweaty overtan vacationers. Our choice to stay at Manantiale proves perfect - our beach is scarcely populated and the silty soft sand is practically all ours.

Seriously, the beach here is incredible, stretching for miles with the warm Atlantic lapping at the shore. Beaches - that is the why in Uruguay (ok, I know that is a stretch