CABO POLONIO

Heading back along the coast towards Montevideo you come to the national park and shabby fishing village of Cabo Polonio. To get to the village you have to take a 4x4 bus from the main road over a few miles of sand dunes and beach. If you're lucky (or unlucky depending on your view) you can ride on the roof. We were unlucky and sat inside. When we arrived we couldn't make head nor tail of the place. Rickety shacks stood randomly on any flat spot in the undulating dunes. It seemed anything can be seen as a building material here. A lot of it looked like it came from the sea, and with the help of a small storm would probably return there. We managed to find a room right on the sand in the attic of a small hostel, accessible by an old wooden ladder on to a crooked little balcony. To us it was heaven.

As soon as we arrived we ran into the sea, then straight back out of it. We are not in northern Brazil now and fuck it was cold. We walked the village enjoying the eclectic buildings. Being out of season a lot of the town was still hibernating for the winter, however the few places that had woken up were slowly wiping the sleep from their eyes ready for summer.

We followed the beach round a rocky point guarded by a light house. We stopped in amazement. The rocks were moving and roaring at each other. It was a colony of sea lions and there were hundreds of them. Lounging, swimming and lolloping about without a care in the world. Every now and then a massive wave would crash against the rocks and take a few lions with it. It reminded me of watching people get taken out by the waves at the Icebergs pool in Bondi with my brother.

We climbed the nearby lighthouse to look down over the colony and the rest of the coast.

That evening we sat on our balcony, cracked open a cold one and looked up. The only light pollution was coming from the moon as two horses shot across the beach and three stars shot across the sky.

The following day after sunrise, breakfast, a cold dip and a coffee we climbed onto the roof of the 4x4 bus (YESSS!) and hurtled off over the sand dunes back to the highway.