31/12/2019 – Punta Negra, Uruguay

We woke up and had a slow morning. It was raining so we made the most of it and chilled out in our cosy cabin! We had coffee and brunch, and Josh seemed to speak to everyone he knows on Facetime! I read my book. We had some lunch and then in the afternoon caught the bus to Punta Del Este, a city about 45 minutes away. We went to see the sculpture of a giant hand coming out of the sand, which apparently is iconic of the city! We took a couple of photos there and then walked down the coast to some recommended bars. The city has been dubbed as ‘the Monaco of the South’, and everyone was very glamorous dressed in white, wearing heels, and a full face of makeup, ready to party into the new year. The city is a finger shaped piece of land and so splits the ocean into two sides. It calls one side of the ocean ‘Brava’ (fierce) and is populated with surfers, and the other ‘mansa’ (tame) full of families. It is quite amazing to see how different the two sides of the ocean can look! We were pretty early for South American standards so all the bars were still setting up. Eventually we managed to find somewhere with food and wine overlooking the harbour full of superyachts. We ate and drank and then planned to slowly make our way back to the bus terminal to go back. This is the place to be for NYE and we have heard it is where all the celebrities (I’m not sure which celebrities!?) go to party. When we had looked at staying here over NYE a bed in a dormitory cost over £80 for one night! As we wlaked back to the bus terminal we could see people just gradually starting to fill up the town, building up for a party. We planned on getting the last bus (at 20:20) back to Punta Negra as it was the only affordable way to get home. Well we waited…and waited…and waited… and the bus never came! Some other people were also waiting for the same bus. The bus conductors just shrugged their shoulders and said the bus wasn’t coming. I think we waited for about 2 hours, every time we saw a bus pulling in we got excited and then disappointed. This is classic South America! We decided to go for a drink and find some wifi to call our air bnb host for ideas and to check Uber. We ended up in a bar and drinking mojitos, it definitely could have been worse! Pauline had kindly sent me some cocktail money as a Christmas gift, so we made the most of that! Josh got told by the waitress that he looked like Sam Smith, which is actually not the first time he has been told that! (He got chatted up when I went to the toilet, bloomin’ cheek!) After a bit of wandering what to do, and considering staying in the city to party, now that we were stranded, we decided we would bite the bullet and get a taxi home. There were no available Ubers, no affordable hostel beds, and no buses until 0600 in the morning, and although we considered it we figured we weren’t going to stay awake that late! We went to the taxi booth and ordered a taxi. The guy there was very confused as to why we were staying in Punta Negra, exclaiming but there is nothing at all there! After about a 45 minute wait we got in our cab and got driven the half an hour back to our cabin. We got in at about 23:15. We walked down to the beach to see in the new year and could see fireworks going off all the way along the coastline. It’s one of the first times Josh hasn’t been out in Brighton for NYE since he was about 16! We got in, showered and watched some Friends in bed before falling asleep.