After more than a week of being perpetually on the move, Joel and I were hanging out for a place that we liked enough to stop and catch our breath for a few days. After our first night in Punta del Diablo (Point of the Devil), we realised we had found just that: rustic, relaxed and pretty in a rugged & wild sort of a way, we instantly fell for this Raglan-meets-Uruguay hippy town. What’s more, stumbling on an affordable, beautifully furnished 2-storey cabin available for rent sealed the deal for us. With a cute kitchen, bathroom, 2 decks and a small living room, how could we say no?

Our Uruguayan ‘cabin’

So we slowed down, we unpacked, and we made ourselves right at home.

Days spent at ‘Punta’ – as the locals called it – were long and slow. We would wake to the sun streaming through our windows. Set back from the beach, our deck looked out over pine trees and a giant fireplace. Sipping coffee outside in the morning light quickly became one of my favourite habits, along with helping Joel cook omelettes for breakfast in out gorgeous little rustic kitchen.

Waking up in this room was magic.

With hunger driving us towards home around lunchtime, afternoons were spent enjoying our little cabin, with me focusing on consultancy work and Joel cooking up a storm in the kitchen and sourcing pinecones for our evening fires. Meals have been delicious – a local butcher and mini supermarket has meant we’ve been able to re-create the food we’ve been missing from home: pasta with chorizo sausage, cabbage & fresh cheese; Uruguayan beef mince with potato & onion. All washed down by local merlot & followed by the requisite dulce de leche dessert – a unique kind of caramel that the locals seem to have every day, and on everything sweet.

Meals were eaten on our cute little deck, watching cowboys on horseback ride past.

I was a little worried about all the effect all that delicious caramel was about to have on my bum, so yesterday we hired bikes and cycled to neighbouring Santa Teresa National Park. While cycling down a dirt lane, we came across a cowboy festival, complete with gaucho costumes and national flags.

Down a dirt lane, we stumbled across a cowboy festival

Once we reached the national park, we made our way to a 250-year old fort that had been occupied at separate times by both the Spanish and the Portuguese. Perched atop a hill, views of the Atlantic coast and of Uruguay’s inland plains were spectacular, as were our appetites after all that cycling.

Joel & his hog, with the fort we explored behind

Early tomorrow we’ll head to Colonia before catching the ferry to Argentina towards the end of the week. We’ll miss Punta del Diablo. It’s been a lovely, relaxing few days that have allowed us to take a breath and relax into our new lifestyle.

Adios, Punta!

Happy Easter to everybody in NZ – dig into those hot cross buns for us (we couldn’t find any in Uruguay!)