Eva Perón
Obelisco de Buenos Aires en la distancia.
Don’t know what this building is but it looked sweet.
This is chimichurri, the a staple of a good Argentinian BBQ. It’s made from a mixture of garlic, parsley, oregano, red pepper, olive oil and vinegar that’s left in the fridge to set up for a bit. Most meat here isn’t marinaded at all so this is served as a sauce on the side. It’s also usually served on Provoleta, delicious grilled provolone cheese. I’ll eat it on anything.
The trip back from Cabo Polonio was an adventure that left me wondering if Uruguay was trying to keep me there, allowing me to leave or teaching me an altogether different lesson.
Our flight to Buenos Aires was leaving from the Laguna del Sauce airport, just south of Punta del Este, at 11:59pm. Now, it’s a two hour drive from Cabo Polonio to the beach house in Manantiales and another hour drive from the house to the airport. The catch was that we had to return the rental car before the office closed at 11pm. Our departure from Cabo Polonio was delayed becuase of the Sunday night crowd that all needed to take the truck back over the sand dunes to the parking lot. After waiting in line for a few trucks we got back to the parking lot around 7:30 and set about getting mate water so we could hit the road. Time was already tight.
But the car wouldn’t start. Apparently, the cheap model we rented didn’t automatically turn its lights off and we left them burning all day and drained the battery. The decision was laid out: Martin would look for a jump for the car and, as my spanish was second best, I would look for warm water to fill the mate thermos. Well, we were in Uruguay, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that one question later I had found a woman for just that purpose. Waiting for water to boil, I feebly made small talk but mostly communicated that I didn’t want to leave. The real surprise was that by the time I got back to the car with a piping hot thermos, a $100 peso transaction had been made and the car was idling, charging its battery and ready to roll. Adversary aside and time increasingly tight but feasable, we hit on the road in high spirits, bad jokes abounding.
Given our current timeline, it was decided that we would only have 15 minutes at the beach house to pack and clean in order to get to the airport on time. Then, right after the sun set, the right rear tire went flat. My brain’s first attempt to explain the change in sound and vibration, that we’d hit a different patch of pavement, was quickly dashed when the shimmying didn’t stop but increased. We immediately recognized the gravity of the situation and, rather than lamenting our bad luck, we operated with extreme efficiency sharpened by the deflating tire of hope that we might still get to the airport on time. Martin and Evan did an excellent job jacking up the car and replacing the wheel despite the pnumatically-tightened nuts that required them to literally jump, with forcefull finesse, on the tire iron to loosten. All told, I don’t think we stopped for more than 10 minutes. Adversary number two had reared its head receeded just as quickly as the first.
Driving no more than 70kmh, as dictated by the spare tire, we made it back to the beach house, packed, did dishes and staightened up. Somehow we were back out the door in about 10 minutes. Rather than going through the center of Punta del Este at 10pm on a Friday night, we tried to take a shortcut to the airport but quickly found ourselves in what felt like the middle of nowhere. The dire situation left us slap-happy, lost with the clock ticking and a car that’s already running on its toddler-sized spare wheel, internally doubting we’d make it and outwardly laughing manically at each earnest repetition that “the next road we’ll come to is the main one”.
Somehow, somehow, we found the main road and with the clock reading 10:52pm decided to screw filling up the gas tank, opting to make it to the airport and deal with financial consequences. We actually made it, pulled up to the terminal at 10:56pm and rushed Martin and Jon in to the rental office while the rest of us unloaded. The late-night rental employee was closing up but we were actually able to return the car. He even decided to “charge” us $30 to fill up the gas tank and fix the tire himself, saving us the fees and making him a quick buck.
In the end, we got our tickets, went through security and were sipping celebritory bourbon from Evan’s backpback while we waited in disbelief for our flight, coming down from the adrenaline buzz that was our adventure leaving Uruguay.
Another shot of the houses in Cabo Polonio, Uruguay.
Cabo Polonio down the beach.
This is the obligatory cape-lighthouse on the tip of Cabo Polonio. The rocks around the point are much loved lounging locations for sea-lions and people like me.
The truck groaned out of the parking lot and over sand dunes covered in scrub grass and hardy bushes before leveling out onto a wide beach. To the south there was nothing man-made in sight, just the slowly tumbling ocean and a lightly curved plane of sand arcing into the distance. Grumbling, the truck carried us north towards the cape’s shack-peppered outcropping, passing a decomposing sea-lion, dreaded hitchhikers and wandering sunbathers along the way. Our arrival and first exploration of town was similar to one’s first experience at the Oregon Country Fair. It takes a while to settle into being a part of the scene instead of observing it in awe and wonder.
Though it took time to settle into the groove, Cabo Polonio was one of the places I knew, almost instantly, I didn’t want to leave. Populated only during the warm months, it’s a little vacation town on a cape in a national park in Uruguay. Most of the town doesn’t have electricty and the rustic appeal of the vacation houses sprouted around the cape is incredibly attractive to me. Many are just a single room while others have two small floors but they all seemded to be scarcely more than a sleeping area, a cooking area and a porch. With hammocks. So what if you have to heat water for a shower? I’ll let my hair get saltwater crunchy from swimming in the ocean instead. I can only imagine the calm one would feel after a few days of simple food, afternoons reading in a hammock, lounging on the beach and mingling with the travelers and hippies that give the town it its distinctive flair.
We only had time to stay for about six hours but the jokes about changing our midnight flights back to Buenos Aires started almost immediately. We made friends with some benignly loony hippies that were intent on having us stay the night. The prospect of going fishing for dinner and a partying on the beach at night wouldn’t have required persuasion under any other circumstance. We said goodbye and parted for the ride back, fuzzy brained and sun kissed from a day-trip that felt like a vacation. My giant reset button was sufficiently pushed.
