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.
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