The place I’m at right now really has to be seen to be believed.

I have just walked for more than two hours, over rocks and sand dunes, along a stretch of white, sandy beach that is miles and miles long. And in all that time, I’ve seen only five other people. Punta del Diablo is like a demonic version of Cavendish beach in P.E.I, where Anne of Green Gables gives Matthew and Marilla the finger and cuts all her hair into a Mohawk.

I’ve never seen anywhere so secluded, and it has occurred to me more than once that if I died of thirst, or was murdered, no one would ever find my body in this post-apocalyptic world.

I still have no cash, possibly no way to get out of here, no food and barely any water left with me. I wanted to get out of manic Buenos Aires, and I literally couldn’t have chosen anywhere more opposite. If a dinosaur were to walk up to me right now, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

WOW!! What a place!

So, to re-cap last night:

After I left the rocks, I started to walk back to the hostel. I didn’t know where I was going to eat dinner, and I had a few hours to kill in the meantime. I was over-tired after not sleeping at all since the bus ride from Buenos Aires. As I headed down the dusty road, a woman started talking to me. And thus began one of the most random, and most hilarious nights ever.

Her name is Silke, and she’s from Munich. She has moved to Punta del Diablo with her two big dogs, Che and Finn (Finn is pregnant), and is living for now in a little cabana next to the El Diablo Tranquillo Hostel (which I’m quite glad that I’m not staying at, because it seems to be a non-stop party, although they do have the world’s cutest puppies on their lawn). Apparently, Silke had a wild romance with a young American guy in Buenos Aires a year ago, and they once visited Punta del Diablo together and fell in love with it. They are broken up now, and she is devastated, and has returned to Punta, hoping he’ll follow her here. She has his name tattooed on her foot, and she says that it’s in her will that when she dies, her foot is to be cut off and mailed to his new wife. What an absolute nutter … I love her!

We walked together all the way to her cabana, and she invited me in to see the place and meet her dogs. She asked if I would like a glass of water, or maybe a glass of wine… we opted for the wine. She opened a bottle, we pulled up a couple of lawn chairs, lit cigarettes, and chatted for the next four hours about life, love, journalism and traveling. It was a fantastic night, and I couldn’t believe that not even 24 hours earlier, I was escaping, miserable, from Buenos Aires, and suddenly, I was in Uruguay with a new friend.

After we finished our second bottle of wine, my exhaustion overcame me, not to mention the fact that I hadn’t eaten a thing since leaving BA, and at 9pm, I headed home and straight to bed.

This morning, I woke up hungover, parched, nauseous, and starving to death. Thankfully, desayuno is included at this wonderful hostel, because I couldn’t have made it a step down the road without eating something. I ate a bowl of cereal and drank a cup of coffee, spoke to no one (not my most social of moods!), and decided my only possibility was to start walking and keep going until the fresh air cured me. I set out with my camera and a book, but haven’t been able to take my eyes off the scenery. The Atlantic ocean crashing against the rocks, the white sand dunes, the miles and miles that no one else is looking at right now, other than me. This might be what Cancun looked like, before they ruined it.

It is astonishing.

Well, I’ll say one thing about this trip: it certainly hasn’t been boring!

Here I am, sitting on a big, Peggy’s Cove-style rock beside the Atlantic Ocean, in the little surfer/ghost-town called Punta del Diablo, on the east coast of Uruguay.

When I randomly chose Uruguay as my World Cup pick last summer, I thought it was somewhere in Africa.

But no, apparently it’s between the giant countries of Argentina and Brazil, and it seems to be the perfect place to clear my head for a couple of days. I’m here with no water, no food, zero cash, and if it weren’t for the VISA signs I saw in a few restaurant windows, I’d be living the life of an ascetic.

How the HELL did I get here? (and, perhaps more importantly, how the HELL am I going to get out?)

To recap the journey:

My night bus to Montevideo wasn’t too bad. I arrived at the main terminal, Tres Cruces, at around 6am, and then caught the bus to Punta del Diablo at 7am. South American bus terminals are a little different from Canadian terminals; there are always several agencies selling different tickes to destinations, so you have to window-shop a little bit when you arrive at the terminal. Tres Cruces isn’t as huge as Retiro in Buenos Aires, but it’s got quite a few options. I finally chose Rutas del Sol, which seemed to be the best option for getting to the coast.

I tried to use the ATMs at the terminal, but none of them were working. It was before the official opening hour for the bank, so I figured that was the problem. I had spent all of my Argentinean money, and had no Uruguayan pesos, but I figured I’d be able to take some money out in Punta del Diablo. So I hopped aboard, ate the rest of the ham and cheese I bought yesterday, and slept for most of the ride.

Lonely Planet had said that Punta del Diablo was the opposite of Punta del Este, which apparently is a real touristy, superficial party town. It sounded like precisely what I needed: somewhere quiet, where I could write and relax, hopefully a hippie place just like Tulum, Mexico (which I fell in love with last month).

The bus arrived in town at 12 (it’s approximately 5 hours between Montevideo and Punta del Diablo), and I was dropped off basically in the middle of the Wild West. There was a supermarket and a pharmacy, a few wooden signs nailed to trees and posts, and no one around. No one. A young boy on a horse-drawn carriage clomped by. A dog was asleep in the ditch. I had no clue what I was in for!

I had hoped to stay in one of the many cabanas for rent, but there was no one around to offer one (I was missing all of the Croatian grandmas at the bus stations who are waiting to bring you straight to their homes!). My suitcase was simply too heavy to lug it around the streets (which, incidentally, are sand), so I went into the first hostel I came across. It was the HI (Hostelling International) hostel, a big, white building, and an old German man (drunk, I’m pretty sure), came out to greet me. He told me that it was the off-season in town, which was why everything was so quiet, and indeed, I would be the only person staying in the whole hostel!

I wasn’t entirely convinced that I wanted to stay there, as I was hoping to find somewhere slightly more lively, so I told him I would go to the ATM first, and then check in when I returned (but hopefully find a better place first). When I found the only ATM in town (nestled away on a side street in a glass enclosement!), I made the rather unsettling discovery that my debit card doesn’t work in that particular machine. Oops.

I returned to the hostel, now quite happy to stay there if they accepted cards, but Gerhardt (or whatever his name was), informed me that they don’t accept credit cards, and neither do any of the other places in town. He said my only option was to go to a town called Chuy, 40 minutes away, and try to use the bank machine there. After the long journey I’d already had, plus the fact that I didn’t even have one peso for a bus ticket, that didn’t seem like an option. I asked if I could leave my luggage there while I checked the other hostels in town, just in case.

And, like a miracle from the Travel Gods, I happened upon the magnificent Casa de las Boyas (meaning “house of the buoys”, because there are buoys of all shapes and sizes strung up around the deck). The lovely, Ecuadorian pixie named Marisol told me that not only do they accept credit cards, but she could also lend me some cash if I needed it.

Impersonal HI hostel be damned!!

I returned with my bags and checked into my wonderful dorm room, with a window at the end of my beds that looks straight out to the ocean.
I am a bit thrown for a loop by the money situation, especially since I’m not actually sure if the restaurants around town accept credit cards, and I face the very real possibility of going hungry, which is something that has never crossed my mind before. So I walked around town for a little while, and simply couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It is really like a ghost town here. There are old fishing boats on the beach, empty bars and restaurants, signs falling off their hinges, wild sand dunes and dogs dogs dogs everywhere! Apparently, this town gets totally packed out with surfers in the high season and the population swells to something like 100-times what it is in the normal season.

But right now, in the off-season, I’ve pretty much got it all to myself. And I couldn’t be happier (I also couldn’t be hungrier… must find something to eat).

Under the cover of night, I fled. Not a trace of me was left in the house; I even took my last granola bar from the cupboard where it had been sitting for weeks. Fearful of running into anyone I knew, I took the side streets, moving stealthily in the shadows of trees. Not even my 3000 kilos of luggage could slow me down. No weight was too heavy tonight: I was Retiro-bound, and if I missed the train, I had my good shoes on and I’d walk across the border. Either way, I was leaving Buenos Aires.

I started this journey with the best of intentions, and everything had seemed to fall into place perfectly. I had four months to spare before a friend’s wedding back in Ottawa. My final contract with my job of three years had just ended, and I was keen for something new. I’ve never done volunteer work, I’ve never been to South America, and I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish. After spending a glorious few days in Paris last year, I decided the “Paris of South America” must be just as great. So, on a whim, I bought a ticket to Buenos Aires. And a day later, I was accepted as a long-term volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, which, although I was fairly unfamiliar with NGOs, I knew was a great organization.

It was a brand new adventure, a new continent, possibly even a new career path. I bounced with excitement at the mere thought of getting to this city of tango and steak and sexy Argentines.

So how did it all go so wrong?

Well, for starters:
1. I don’t really like dancing
2. I hate steak
3. I’m too in love with another man to be bothered finding someone new.

Buenos Aires is chaotic, loud, dirty, I couldn’t find a café I particularly wanted to sit in, it’s hot buth with no beach. The men are gorgeous, but I can’t speak their language and frankly, Canadian women simply cannot compete with Argentine beauties.

But everyone I’ve ever met gets misty-eyed at the mention of this city.

“You must check out the Recoleta markets on a Sunday afternoon!”
“You must must must take in a tango show!”
“Wait until you see La Boca!”
“The nightlife there is the best!”

To be fair: Buenos Aires is the wildest and most dynamic city I’ve ever been in. There’s music playing at all times of day and night, and the rumous are true that the tango spontaneously combusts on street corners when you least expect it. The markets are great, particularly the San Telmo street fair which could keep you entertained every Sunday afternoon for the rest of your life. On the days when I walked around town, visiting the Casa Rosada, the Recoleta cemetery, La Boca, and San Telmo, the city tipped its head and raised an eyebrow at me, the seductive porteno, wondering if I was woman enough to accept its offer.

And I tried my best to love it. But my new mantra, which I learned from “The Happiness Project” and decided to adopt in time for my thirtieth birthday, kept whispering in my ear:
“Just because someone else likes something, doesn’t mean I necessarily have to”.
So, like a woman with two left feet, I respectfully declined.

Now, as I sit on one of the legendary Argentinean semi-camas, driving through the country that hnot only created the tango but also the public bus, my breathing gets easier the further away I get from that heaving city.

It wasn’t just Buenos Aires that chased me away, it was also the job. But even there, I can’t quite explain what happened. Habitat is one of the worthiest organizations out there, and I had a ball helping to build houses in the small village in Santa Fe, plastering and painting and shovelling and working alongside the wonderful and deserving family who would move in when it was finished. I even met a cute boy there, a self-taught photographer who also taught himself English by watching tv and movies. The people I worked with were lovely, generous, kind-hearted, and interesting. And they didn’t mind that I don’t speak Spanish, they were happy to speak English, or Spanglish. I lived with two other volunteers, a bubbly Kiwi and a vivacious girl from The Netherlands. And I worked with a Swiss-Italian who could potentially become one of my great friends.

In short, I was working with fabulous people, for a fabulous cause, in one of the most fabulous cities on Earth.

But my desire to escape was visceral. I was chain-smoking, drinking alone in my room, spending way too much time on Facebook, and acting like a total weirdo with my roommates who must have thought me the most boring, anti-social person they’d ever met. But I simply couldn’t stop myself.

Daddy was overjoyed that it wasn’t working and told me to come straight home. Mom called me a coward and told me to give it a chance.

I knew that neither was going to happen.

So I caught the midnight bus out of town, and at 6am tomorrow morning, I will enter Uruguay.

I never planned to backpack around South America.

But with four months ahead of me, it seems that a whole new chapter – and here’s hoping it’s longer than the last one! - is about begin.