An hour and a half from our home in Pueblo Garzon, straight up the Atlantic Coast on the way to southern Brazil, is the slightly trashy, quite beautiful, very transitional fishing village of Punta del Diablo. We drove up yesterday on a two-lane highway stretched taut as a ribbon, under cerulean skies and uber green pastureland, dotted with well-fed and watered cattle. We felt as if we were heading into a vast hinterland even more remote than our own countryside which is, already, in the back of beyond.
Punta del Diablo has the same profile as all of the fishing villages that once dotted the Uruguayan coastline – gorgeous, deep sand beaches with rocky headlands, pounding surf great for riding, brightly colored wooden fishing boats and tiny fishermen’s shacks lining the water’s edge. In Diablo, another set of colors and images has been layered on top, composed of the flotsam brought on the backs of motorcycles and in the packs of young travelers who have reached the end of their road and have decided to chill. Fresh fish, $.50 empanadas, Quilmes, cheap digs and great waves keep the tempo going for the all-too-short season, and then they move on – up to Brazil, back to Europe, who knows.
But it’s fun, Devil’s Point, and for a Willing Foot traveler, the perfect destination!