Uruguay - en el campo
Uruguay - en el campo
I hadn't found much about Uruguay beforehand, and hadn't actually done much searching. The few things I did find didn't send me into raptures. I would have done Montevideo in 3 days if I hadn't had to pick up the van.
If the beaches near the old town were OK, they became much bigger and busier as I drove along the promenade towards the airport. Further out in the countryside, along the RN8, it quickly became rural. Small towns and farms along the road to TerraNova. Then, loaded down with a gas cylinder, I started exploring and tried to avoid the Peajes to get to Punta de la Este.
With Google Maps it is quite easy to avoid the toll stations. If you want to see the toll stations, just search for Peaje in Maps. This is how I got to my first country roads i.e. they are not all tarred and some are just dirt roads where you have to look for the lane with the least bumps. The average speed quickly drops to 30 km/h and below
Up to Punta de la Este I had everything from dust roads to dual carriageways, all without tolls. Punta de la Este is a typical tourist & beach town. Surprisingly, you can easily park a camper van here in the low season and also stay overnight in the side streets. As I'd had enough of cities, I traveled north along the coast towards the Brazilian border.
The beaches are breathtaking. Wide, with no transition, they stretch all the way to Laguna de Rocha. Not that there are no more beaches from there, but it looks less touristy.
Near Punta de la Este, there are modern residential complexes, hotels, golf courses, restaurants, supermarkets and fincas to the left of the road and the sea and beach to the right. Uruguayans seem to prefer traveling by car directly to the beach. Whether by pick-up, bus or Chinese e-car. I found this circular bridge at Laguna Garzon.
The coastal road is tarred and runs straight north through pine forests, pastures and a few villages.
In Aqua Dulces, after 2 km on a narrow gravel track, I found myself in a pine forest for the first time, directly behind a beautiful beach. No cars, no noise, pure nature.
La Sirena, as the beach is called, is about 5 km long and around 500 meters wide. At the beginning I only shared the beach with cows, birds and a few mosquitoes, otherwise I only saw a few footprints in the sand. If you are looking for pure nature and relaxation, this is the place to go.
A few days later I continued northwards, stopped at the Laguna Negra. Next stop, the Fortaleza de Santa Teresa, where drone flying is prohibited 😞. It is a different kind of fortress compared to the European facilities. At this point I was just 35 kilometers south of the Brazilian border.
In La Coronilla was the first petrol station for a while. The village has a few small shops and two Panificadoras. These were my first shops where you could only get anywhere with Spanish. My few words were enough.
It must be very busy here in summer. It looks like the Uruguayan version of a country side vacation resort. Large beach, a few restaurants and holiday homes. A pitch about 20 meters from the cliff, right on the Atlantic, was the reward. Is there a nicer place to stand free? The pitch would have been even better if it hadn't started to pour again.
My destination the next day was the Quebrada de los Cuervos Park. The day turned out to be more varied than I had expected in the morning. The journey along the RN14 to Lascano was my first longer stretch of dust road. 75 km in roughly 2 hours
The Parque Quebrada de los Cuervos is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and I couldn't go to the camp site either. I should probably have done some research beforehand. The next campsite was only suitable for tents. I got stuck on a great pitch about 1.5 km from the road 🥴🤢. A nice Uruguayan with a Hilux pulled me out. After 5 hours drive that day, I found myself at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere, at the top of a hill. Brilliant view, no traffic ....what more do I want?
The weather forecast was modest and so I continued towards Argentina. While the last 2 hours on gravel tracks to the Quebrada Nature Park had been challenging, the first 90 minutes that day continued at 30 km/h until I reached the RN 7 after 40 km. The tracks in the park are not maintained and are quite washed out. They are ride-able, but only if you concentrate 100%. But you can't let your mind wander on, neither the RN 7. There are either large, deep holes in the tarmac surface or entire sections missing. The perfect mindfulness training, live in the moment!
From Cerro Chato on wards, I hoped for a moment that things would get better when I turned off onto the RN 19. Far from it, 40 km of corrugated iron track. The RN 6 to Sarandi del Yi was largely a copy of the RN 7. 4.5 hours later I was exhausted in the Parque Elias Regules in Sarandi del Yi. As a German, it was unusual for me to drive into a city park with my camper van and just stand on the grass. You didn't have to pay anything either.
The next morning I was woken up by construction work in the park. I drove the Dog.O.Mobil to the side and had a chat with the Alkalden. He made a real effort to explain to me, in Spanish, that the town festival was taking place at the weekend, but that we were welcome to stay here until then.
He was very helpful and called the commander of the Museo Batalla del Rio del Plata and so we were given a personal tour in Spanish by the commander. Some of the Graf Spee's sailors had been barracked in the fort after the ship was sunk in the Rio de la Plata during the Second World War. I have never seen an exhibition with so many Nazi devotional objects. I didn't take any pictures because I didn't want to get into trouble with the German authorities if they appeared on my blog.
The highlight of the day was perfect roads with no potholes along the RN 14 almost to Trinidad. I started to get happy about very basic things! The weather was wonderful and for lunch we took a break at the picnic area at Arroyo Porongos. The short break turned into a longer and we stayed overnight.
While the roads to and in the Parque Quebrada de los Cuervos were dirt tracks, the roads to the west are tarmac and you no longer drive around at just 30 km/h. A stopover at the Monumento Natural Grutas Del Palacio was my last sightseeing in Uruguay. While life in Uruguay is otherwise as expensive as in Switzerland, entry to the Grutas was also free. Not only the entrance fee, but also the guided tour.
The Grutas Del Palacio are a small cave formation created by water erosion. They consist mainly of a up to seventy-centimeter-thick roof supported by a series of columns of reddish sandstone about two meters high.
From there we traveled to the last campsite in Nuevo Berlin. Beautifully situated on the Rio Uruguayo, you can end the day here.
The only problem was that we were trying to activate the StarLink Roam we had bought in Uruguay. After 2 hours we gave up. Either we didn't understand the StarLink activation process, had a problem with the fact that we did not have a CDI or with the German credit card. In any case, we couldn't activate either mine nor Vera and Stefan could. That's really annoying. I still consider the StarLink documentation an annoyance.
The next day, I crossed my first South American border in Fray Bentos with the Dog.O.Mobil. After passing through Migraciones, the Dog.O.Mobil was inspected by customs, I had to hand in my UR TIP and 15 minutes later I had an Argentina TIP, valid for 8 months. The whole procedure went smoothly and only my friends had to empty the fridge 🙄.
More impressive was the area after the bridge where the lorries went through the process in Argentina. Quite chaotic for a foreigner.
All in all, I traveled about 1,600 km in Uruguay. I learnt that the European GAS OIL 10S is not available everywhere, but mostly only the GAS OIL 50 S . There was a lot of discussion about the Telepeaje beforehand, but I only had to go through one once and was able to buy and top up a Telepeaje vignette at the station next to it.
The Stage

More Pictures
Videos
Latest Posts
-
Rain on R7 from Tortel to Chaitén
-
Laguna San Rafael
-
West Patagonia, AR
-
Patagonia, Chile
-
El Bolson to Monte Aymond
-
Parque Marino Isla Pingüino
-
Bariloche and the 7 Lake District
Post Info
Date | Early November 2024 |
Status | Done / Visited |
Last updated | 01 December 2024 |
Page read | 264 |