Lomas de Narváez

Luckily I remembered to set the alarm an hour early due to my hone still being an hour out. We wake at 6 and literally have a quick wash and brush our teeth before heading for the terminal to catch our first bus of the day to Monteveido. The town is so quiet , but still as beautiful as i rememered it yesterday and when we arrive at the station I'm surprised at how many peole ar waiting to catch the bus. The bus to Montevedio takes just under 3 hours and is in perfect timing for us to be able to catch our onward coach to Cabo Polonia. We board the second bus which takes just under 4 hours and were heading to a place we have heard mixed reviews about. Its always difficult to know what to do as when you read reviews of places ,peolple may not like the things you do and without knowing them personally its hard to judge. We ahve read that the place has no water and no electric, but we decide that is only one day so wont be so bad. The bus drops us at the end of a dirt track and there is a really well established tourist reception and having learnt the hard way we book our tickets for our return journey tomorrow . We then buy tickets for our 4x4 ride to 'camp' . Two jeeps are waiting to take us all , but they are pretty packed to the brim, so we will have to wait till the next one in an hour. Someone must have radioed over as within minutes another jeep pulls in and the remaining passengers climb aboard. The journey is hilarious everyone is being thrown all over the place as we head through the sand dunes forest and shore line until we arrive at the plaza. Cabo Plonia is a little hippy village with literally shacks scattered all over the place . We book into the hostel and as its later in the afternoon head out to explore this tranquil little spot. We pass a convenience store which is little more than a wooden shed with bare essentials and fresh fruit and veg and a set of old fashioned scales to weigh evertything with. We forget how easy life is with electric and the guy adds our shopping bill with a pencil and paper. It feels like I have been transported to another century and the sense of this gives me a feeling of total freeedom. I love this place already. We walk along the coast as there is the promise that we might see sea lions and seals. the coast is beautiful with waves crashing against the rocks below us, the isolation and the immense feeling of freedom are overwhelming . The walk takes us along to the lighthouse and we purchase tickets to enter that have $40 written on them but we are charged $50 we laugh thinking that the 2 guys have ripped us off but the case is the admission fee has gone up but they are still using the old tickets. The view from the lighthouse gives us panoramic views of the whole island as well as the little island just of shore that houses the seals and sea lions. The sealions come ashore when they have been ousted by the chief seal on the island, or have fought and lost the battle. As we arrived on the jee there was a dead seal on the beach, and that was the ultimate loss. Although sad to see, its all nature.
A short walk back to the hostel takes us less than ten minutes and we reare some pasta for tonights tea and tomorrows lunch. Yet again we sit chatting with some really incredible people from all over the world, but i am very aware of my lack of Spanish. The sunset is pretty non existent so we all sit around the table chatting as the night draws in . The need for candlelight is soon upon us , however it is not so bad here as they now have wind turbines(which is broken and solar panels but beacuse of the lack of sun today the slar energy soon runs out and we are back to the bare basics. This is so atmospheric and i do believ i could honestly live this way. The night life here doesnt start till after 10 and we take a walk out to a "local" bar that has thepromise of folk music. Walking in the dark in this place is no joke and within minutes im on my knees in the sand. Withe nothing happening at the bar we head back to the hostel and a camp fire with guitar. Everybody in South America loves the beatles and Uruguay is no acception.
Slowly people head to bed , but one of the guys tells us that at 3am the whole of the milky way will be visible and its things like this i dont want to miss. the night turns colder but the fire keeps us warm and just sitting here gazing at millions of stars is breathtaking, its hard to oint out constellations as there are so many but one of the guys has an app on his phone which shows where they all are. (i must download this when i get internet) Just when i hink things couldnt get any better a girl comes from the beach and tells the reamining 3 of us that we must come to see . As we walk to the beach 100 yards away the sight that beholds us is one i will never forget. As the waves are crashing in they are filled with an illuminous blue what i believe are organisms ( i will do my research when i get wifi) as each wave crashes the smie on my face gets bigger and bigger to a point i have smiled so much my cheeks hurt . The crazy thing about this is my sister sent me a picture of this since ive been travelling and when i researched it they said they could only be seen in Costa Rica but here i am witnessing it. We go back to the fire to have a warm and Mark retires for bed but it is only another hour till the full milky way and igo down to the beach to continue watching this phenomenen. The 360 % view is just filled with twinkling stars and a glowing sea and although i was unable to get decent photos that would still not have done it justice it is something I will remember till the day i die.Read more