The children needed a break from the house so we decided to hire a car for the weekend and go for a drive to see the surrounding countryside.  Living with the locals, we were advised a good place to visit which wasn't in the tour guides or on the map.  It appears with further investigation and discussions about what to see in Uruguay that not very many travel writers seem to visit this country.  There is so much more to see than the guide books give credit to, which is a shame, as the country has so much more to offer.

Another couple who were on a workaway and staying at the house with us had decided to visit Cabo Polonia which it turned out was on our route so we were happy to take them too.  They are great with the children so they kept them occupied while the four of them were crammed into the little space in the back.

The car was pretty much fit for purpose (two large cracks in the windscreen bled across the front passenger seat area), but the size meant that every bump was felt as we drove along the dirt tracks. 

We stopped at Valizas after making a quick supermarket shop at La Paloma, to drop the couple off and we had a lunch of fresh baguette, ham and olives.  Valizas was a beautiful, small village, made up of single story huts and a quaint, mud and stone church. Sand dunes mounted up above the small houses, dividing the town from the beach.  It was all I had imagined a small South American village to be. 

After we had said our goodbyes, we headed north up the coast to our destination.  The weather still wasn't quite hot enough to swim outside so we had searched high and low for a hotel with an indoor swimming pool, and had found a family friendly estancia turned hotel just North of the area we were visiting.  

Our cabina had two rooms and a bathroom, a television, a real toilet and a hot shower (although after the kids and I had one, Lorne's was lukewarm)! 

We swam for about 2 hours before having a nice meal, and felt very refreshed.

The hotel had a dog called Olivia, who greeted us on arrival and then again in the morning, which brought up Axel's feelings about missing Blanket again. 

After a second shower and breakfast, we were on the road South again to our first sight. 

Fortaleza de Santa Teresa is a great stone, fort, built in 1762 and changed hands between the Portugese and Spanish garrisons that fought over territory.  It gives you an idea of how fierce and well-equipped the Europeans were compared to the indigenous people of the land, and their defensive architecture as well as their weaponry, outmatched anything the South Americans could bring to the table. The fort was well positioned atop what looks like the only hill for miles on every side, with massive, domineering walls as its defence.  Many of the indigenous people, nowadays revered as fearless fighters, were slaughtered to near extinction. 

Our next stop, not so somber, was a small petting zoo in the national park.  We drove through a forest of towering trees, many hundreds of years old, and happened upon the petting zoo which housed many different varieties of birds, from chickens to peacocks and even a few pheasants, to remind us of home.  Children bought seeds and happily wandered the area feeding the animals.  Edith shrieked with delight when she saw a Toucan and we all watched with wonder at the giant Guinea pig looking mammals that played in the lake with each other. 

Lunchtime was soon upon us, so we said farewell to the animals, after Edith had a chance to feed some Shetland ponies (one of which tried to eat her cardigan, that gave her a bit of a fright!). We continued our drive South and stopped at Punta Del Diablo, another larger, but just as pretty, seaside town.  Punta Del Diablo is well known in the surfing world, and after watching the waves crashing along the beach, you could tell why this would be a fine spot to surf when the waves were right. As we were out of season, we were unsure if we would find somewhere open, but we happened upon a small cafe/restaurant and had some simple yet delicious fresh fish for our lunch. Little wooden tables and an open kitchen so we could watch the two female chefs hard at it, gave us a beautiful slice of life in Diablo. 

Our last stop was Cabo Palonio to collect the couple we had dropped of the night before. Slight guilt set in about our night away, as we had had access to plenty of water, and we knew they were camping, so would probably be feeling less energised than we were.  However, after hearing about their night it sounded like they had had an amazing experience anyway.  They had met a friend of our host family, who had graciously allowed them to sleep in their house and they had sat up late in the night drinking Matte and telling stories about their adventures (their host for the night having travelled across South America in an old Citroen!). I had a twinge of jealousy that these are the adventures and stories you can only listen to and understand and interact with when you know the language they are being told in. 

We all returned home in time for dinner and to describe our night away, feeling refreshed and ready for the week ahead once again.