Luck and improvisation – The walkers best equipment (Cabo Polonio – Punta Del Este)
Posted on | December 28, 2009 | No Comments
In Cabo Polonio, at the 3rd day, Juliana joined me, to walk together until… god knows 
And so we did. It was 50 km until La Paloma… We started with comfortable 15, walked slow, enjoyed the beach, the nature, the sea.
Way to La Pedreira
On the way to La Pedreira
Made a lot of little breaks and reached a tiny village, which was very well hidden, maybe 500 m apart from the beach. It was not even on google-maps. We asked people, if there is a Hostel or a Camp …
“There is a hostel, but it’s closed.”
“Is there any other village close to this one?”
“No, only La Pedreira, 30 km from here”.
“I guess we gonna camp…”
“No, you can’t camp here. It’s forbidden. You will be in trouble if you get caught”
The first not very friendly guys I meet.
We were unwilling to walk 30 km at night… We were hungry… and it started to get cold. The nights are very fresh at the beach-side. But no place to stay… So… what can we do? Spontainiously we decided to go to the hostel and to look, if it was really closed. And yes, it was. We put our backpacks in front of the hostel and I knocked all the doors to check, if there might be someone. Maybe someone who could just give us a peece of bread. Nobody. Suddenly Ju came happy bouncing to me: “Chose a room! ”
“What?!” …
Unbelievable… The window to the reception room was open.
“Jesse, I can’t get in here, I’m having a bad feeling with that”, I heard myself saying, while climbing through the window into the room. The hostel looked like there has nobody been there for at least a year. We picked a key for a room. And… there was a kitchen. But well, what use does a kitchen have without food, I said to myself. One second later my eyes went over the table behind me: Tins… Tins with food. Oh my god, tins with food. Just a few. Half of them not eatable anymore, because too old. I collected the food together, which was still eatable while Ju cleaned up the kitchen. To cook in pure darkness would be a little bit tricky. Strange… the light doesn’t work, but the stove does… Let’s look for candles… It took us one minute and we found a bunch of candles. Amazing… As if someone was here before and arranged everything we needed. Awesome dinner!
The lonesome hostel - kitchen
The dinner
The room
What could we do as a fair tradeoff? There was nobody we could pay. Well… we cleaned up the whole hostel 
And the beach at the next day:
Cleaning the beach
We kept walking on the beach and the 30 km passed surprisingly quick! Suddenly we found ourselves in La Pedreira, even before sunset.
Me and Maria in La Pedreira
We found a cheap hostel and made a short walk to La Paloma the next day and rested a bit.
Looking on google-maps in the internet, we wondered, how to make 70 km without anything in between, from La Paloma to Punta Del Este. We didn`t know the answer but were curious to find it out.
The first hours: Sand, sand, sand. Nothing new. I walked next to the see, staring at the waves, passing a rock, which suddenly started moving. The rock… was a pinguin. Yes, a real pinguin, staring and barking at me while waving with the wings, trying to chase me away. This Pinguin – let`s call him Fred – had the same problem like Bob, the see-turtle. He couldn´t get into the water. The waves were too strong. I took my sweater and caught him. surprised by his very light weight, I threw him into the waves. Fred swam away. And we kept on walking.
We tried to reach the little place “Josè Ignacio”, but it was too far. The sun was setting and there was nothing. It got stormy. In the middle of no-where, between beach and grass, we found a kind of “house” under construction standing around in the land-scape. And the window was open.
On the way to Punta Del Este
Inside
We cooked tea and soup, listening to the raging storm outside, cheering on Fred, the pinguin.
The next day we supposed to reach Jose Ignacio (located behind a big river, which we had to cross) very early. So we walked slow and relaxed. Jose Ignacio didn`t come. It´s an awful feeling, to walk three days through sand, not knowing where you actually are. Our last food-reserves were eaten. Hunger. Big hunger.
There was a big ugly house standing, maybe 100 m away from the beach. Also under construction. Surrounded by fence. I threw my backpack on the sand and climbed the fence to see, if there is someone. An old man appeared, looking at me with a patient look and walking towards me slowly: “Can I help you?”.
I explained our situation.
“Jose Ignacio is still pretty far. And you have to hurry up. At 8 pm there are no boats going anymore and you are stuck here until tomorrow.”
“And there is no other possibility yo get food?
“Well, there is… you can hurry up to reach the road”, he pointed to the countryside, “but then you have to cross a lot of bushes and fields without ways. If you reach the road in time, you can catch the white truck. Stop the truck and ask for food. It`s transporting alimentation to the villages, for sure the driver will sell you some”.
So we had 2 missions at that day…
Mission 1: Stop the white truck.
Mission 2: Reach the river before 8 pm.
I almost ran through the fields to reach the road. The man said, the truck would come after 15 minutes, and the road was 2 km away. After a hurdles through rocks and bushes, we had to climb a barbed-wire fence before reaching the road. And finally we were there… exhausted. We were some minutes too late, but well, here in south-america no-one is ever punctual. Everything and everyone is always too late, so I hoped, that this truck was not the exception. We waited… and waited… And no truck came… Mission failed.
What else could we do, than continuing the way. Like zombies we wandered on the road, which seemed never-ending. Feeling weaker with every step.
On the way to Jose Ignacio
I heard a motor-noise somewhere in front of us, but still far away. I kind of hoped, it could be the truck,… but that was impossible. It was already one hour later. I couldn`t imagine, someone would be that late…
The noise came closer… “IT´S THE TRUCK !!!” Indeed, it was the white truck, which was really late… thank god.
I was standing on the middle of the road with the walking-stick, staring on the truck coming towards me. And I felt like Gandalf in the mine, when he tried to stop the Balrog, shouting “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!”.
The truck stopped. And we got our food. Mission 1 succeed.
It was 19:30 and 5 km left to the river, according to the truck-driver. We walked as fast as we could. The sun was setting. It was 20.30 and there was still no river. There was a fisher coming with his bike. Ju stopped him.
“Is the river close?”
“Yes, maybe 1 km.”
“Are there still boats going?”
“No! They stop at 6 pm”
“At 6 ???”
“At 6.”
“Well… Is there anywhere a place where we can Camp?”
“… Sure, you can camp at my place.”
Wilson invited us to stay on his field. We had dinner, breakfast and some nice conversations.
At Wilson`s place
The next day we crossed the river and walked more 10 km until the village Jose Ignacio. What an awful place!
There is nothing there, just some old people sitting around, everything is closed, it`s not even beautiful. And the cheapest hostel costs 100 US-Dollars a night. Cofe 6 Dollars. We bought 2 bananas and got out of there. We went back to the beach and walked until another little village, which was not even on the map.
Day 4, on the way from La Paloma to Punta Del Este, was over. We walked as much as we could and Punta Del Este didn`t come closer. I was already wondering if we passed it. No, impossible. It`s a big city at the beach. We were walking on the sand, thinking, where to sleep. There were 2 dots at the horizon coming closer and after a minute I saw a young guy and a young woman, going for a walk at the beach. I stopped them and (as usual) asked where we could sleep.
I couldn`t believe it. Again we got an invitation. Sergio, from Argentina, invitet us to his place. We drank a beer, rested, hung out and chat together. We enjoyed Sergios company a lot. He invited us to stay for another day and we decided to forget about Punta Del Este… for at least 24 hours. Yes we stayed. Thanks for the nice time, Serg.
With Sergio
The new day started. Well rested we walked a few kilometers and finally: Punta Del Este at the horizon…
We arrived in the afternoon. Do you believe that Punta Del Este (In Uruguay) is more expensive than Paris? No? But it is! Well, at least in downtown. Downtown is made out of big, ugly buildings which I would describe as “wannabe-fancy”. Thank god, we could contact Bruno. A CS-member, who hosted us in Punta Del Este for… 2 days? I can`t remember exactly… But the experience was awesome. Bruno and 2 other flat-mates welcomed us very friendly. The house was apart from downtown, full of arts, dogs, surrounded by nature and with a vegetable garden in the backyard, where Bruno taught us some things about gardening. We planted seeds.
Juliana - Punta Del Este
In the backyard
Very valuable time. Especially the moment when Bruno took us out to show us something I have only seen in Google before. Casapueblo. One of the definitely most amazing houses in the world.
At Casapueblo
At Casapueblo
Casapueblo (picture: Google)
This incredible art has been made by Carlos Paez, who I also met personally in Casapueblo, which today is divided in hotel, restaurant and the personal home of Carlos. Carlos is one of the 16 survivors of the Air-crash with the Uruguayan Airforce Flight 571 in the Andes mountains between Mendoza and Santiago in Chile – the part, which is by the way also on my way.
Anyway… the next day came, and it was time to continue the walk… Montevideo was waiting.
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