Many visitors to Uruguay get no further from the capital, Montevideo, than the nearby resorts of Punta del Este and José Ignacio. Yet continue up the Atlantic coast towards the Brazilian border, and you’ll find some of this small South American country’s wilder and more bohemian charms, said Hugh Thomson in the FT.
On the southeast coast lies the “low-key” fishing village of Punta del Diablo, or Devil’s Point, “the sort of place where you can drink a cold beer and eat shrimp empanadas on the quayside after walking along empty beaches”. It also has an “outstandingly good” restaurant, Panes y Peces – “Bread and Fish” – where you can eat for a fraction of the price of equivalent gourmet restaurants in the south of the country. And the dunes next to it are so wild and “spectacular” that you needn’t venture far to feel as if you’re in a desert.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Still more secluded is Cabo Polonio, down the coast, a small community at the tip of a peninsula that’s home to a colony of sea lions. Cars are banned – you have to park and take a shared four-wheel-drive through the dunes to get there (look out for lapwings and nesting owls along the way). The settlement itself is “ramshackle”, with driftwood cabanas and so many “eccentric eco-structures” that it looks in parts “like a rest-home for Mad Max extras”. But it has “tremendous charm”, and an “attractive” hotel, La Perla, with an excellent seafood restaurant and a cellar stocked with good local wines.
Specialist tour operators include Plan South America (plansouthamerica.com) and Journey Latin America (journeylatinamerica.co.uk).
-
A postapocalyptic trip to Sin City, a peek inside Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour, and an explicit hockey romance in December TVthe week recommends This month’s new television releases include ‘Fallout,’ ‘Taylor Swift: The End Of An Era’ and ‘Heated Rivalry’
-
‘These accounts clearly are designed as a capitalist alternative’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Trump tightens restrictions for work visasSpeed Read The length of work permits for asylum seekers and refugees has been shortened from five years to 18 months
-
Wake Up Dead Man: ‘arch and witty’ Knives Out sequelThe Week Recommends Daniel Craig returns for the ‘excellent’ third instalment of the murder mystery film series
-
Zootropolis 2: a ‘perky and amusing’ movieThe Week Recommends The talking animals return in a family-friendly sequel
-
Storyteller: a ‘fitting tribute’ to Robert Louis StevensonThe Week Recommends Leo Damrosch’s ‘valuable’ biography of the man behind Treasure Island
-
The rapid-fire brilliance of Tom StoppardIn the Spotlight The 88-year-old was a playwright of dazzling wit and complex ideas
-
‘Mexico: A 500-Year History’ by Paul Gillingham and ‘When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy’ by David Margolickfeature A chronicle of Mexico’s shifts in power and how Sid Caesar shaped the early days of television
-
Homes by renowned architectsFeature Featuring a Leonard Willeke Tudor Revival in Detroit and modern John Storyk design in Woodstock
-
Film reviews: ‘Hamnet,’ ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ and ‘Eternity’Feature Grief inspires Shakespeare’s greatest play, a flamboyant sleuth heads to church and a long-married couple faces a postmortem quandary
-
We Did OK, Kid: Anthony Hopkins’ candid memoir is a ‘page-turner’The Week Recommends The 87-year-old recounts his journey from ‘hopeless’ student to Oscar-winning actor
