La where the hell?

Sunday 11th April 2010
We say goodbye to our good friends and travelling buddies Vix and Ben and jump on a hot coach bus to Montevideo from Colonia. The bus is semi-full filled with locals and we spend the time reading up on Montevideo in the Lonely Planet and playing NBA 2K10

Montevideo can be summed up pretty quickly. Montevideo is like a rice cracker, as Homer Simpson puts it “Hello hello hello taste? Where are you!?”
It’s a nice bland city, there’s nothing really wrong with it, old town is lovely, it’s located on the river/gulf, not too expensive and getting around is fairly easy. But it just lacks character, large high rise apartment buildings line a stinky litter-ridden gulf foreshore.  I have a 16gb memory card in my camera so i don’t mind snapping away at random things but we struggled to even find something worth photographing. That said we did spend 4 days there looking around for things to do, hoping we just had missed something absolutely amazing but it never happened.

Some dude on a horse in the main square

Jesse in the markets

Montevideo Port Market – mainly BBQ food

Prominent building in Montevideo

We stayed in Viajero Downtown Montevideo Hostel which is very French type of building by that i don’t mean stuck-up, snobby and full of snails with tiny curled moustaches. I mean french windows, doors and an open courtyard covered in grape vines. The courtyard was lovely, the staff were friendly but the rooms were tiny, stuffy and smelled of turpentine.

With Montevideo boring us and giving us headaches from the smell. We decide to leave up the coast to the party surfing town of La Paloma. La Paloma is a small coastal town located 4-5 hours bus ride from Montevideo on a peninsula of sorts with ocean both sides.

We board the Censa bus from the packed main bus terminal of Montevideo. The bus winds it way through lovely green rolling pastures that remind me of Devon, England. It is a grey day outside and after 4 hours or so we arrive and step out of the bus…shocked!

Standing in a small vacant bus station void of signs of life and nestled in a pine forrest we stare at each other. “What have we done” we say in unison. We venture out the doors and find a cab. The cab driver chucks our bags in the boot which is full of thick red dust. We hop in the back, one window is made out of shopping bag plastic the other doesn’t go down. We drive down the beach sand road to La Balconada, the hostel we’re calling home.

We collect our now red dusty bags from the boot and step through the sliding doors of La Balconada to be greeted by a surprised Nicholas who is sitting in for the owners whilst he is off doing things. I don’t think they were expecting us, but he is friendly speaks some English and sits on the couch playing “stairway to heaven” in full. He shows us to our room:

That picture says it all. They’re tiny! But clean.

We are advised to stroll along the beach into town. During our stroll up the sandy beach we still don’t see anyone. We walk down the main street, two cars go past, i joke “must be peak hour”.  No one is here, it’s like a ghost town. We find somewhere for lunch and then get food for dinner from the supermarket. My bank card breaks the entire supermarkets computer system, IBM none-the-less,  people queue as it ‘s rebooted.

Back at Balconada. This time more people are here. A young German couple are cooking up a 3 course meal which takes forever to cook and takes them 2.5 days to finish even with help from other people!

The hostel, La Balconada, is a small square layout with a courtyard in the middle. A cool surfer type house located just behind the dunes from the beach. It can hold 14 or so but even with 4 it is crowded.

Speaking of which, whilst we wait for the Germans to finish cooking, in waltzes a bloke through the rain into the lounge/reception area. “G’day mate had a reservation under Ryhs”! After doubling the towns current population what’s the chances of finding another aussie in some sleepy town in Uruguay let alone another aussie from Perth WA!

A little later we meet Santiago or Santi for short, the owner along with his brother and other owner Juan. They all friendly, outgoing and really make our stay enjoyable going out of there way to take us places etc.

The next morning we check the surf. Surf checking is done via a ute with Santi, his mates, Rhys and I piled into a ute or the back of it then to check both sides of La Paloma. The south side looks better with a small swell hitting the vacant beaches. We head back to pick up the boards.

I rent a board of a local shaper, 1980′s water logged thin dinged up 6’8 board. It’s cold outside but no wetsuits will fit me as most people here are a bit smaller than myself. So i manage to squeeze into a rashie.

With the ute packed we head off to La Laguna, Estuary, which is 30mins away via a maze of dirt roads and past fishing shacks to the rivermouth.
The surf is small, waist to chest high but perfect shape. Not a close out in sight. Just small rolling waves, if only for more swell. The waves break a-frame with a fast takeoff with almond shape barrels and luckily for me the water is warm. Powelly would love this, funny as it’s name is La Powelloma. The beaches are empty just waves rolling through unridden, small but still in Perth this would have a thousand people all over it.
To quote Endless Summer “You should of been here yesterday!” well according to the locals a few months ago. The swell is bigger, the waves break bigger and longer with the same shape and the town swells for 4000 people to 80000 as tourists come from Brazil, Argentina etc to party in summer on the beach. This place would be crazy with 80000 people, we meet the owner of one of the nightclubs who tells us of massive parties that fill the streets until 7am the next morning. His nightclub happens to be a huge outdoor ranch style thing with balconies and bars everywhere.

Anyway back to the waves:

Unfortunately for me the board is absolute rubbish! It’s as slippery as ice! No wax just old grips. I given and go in after 2.5 hours of trying my hardest to stay on the damn thing.

The next day, the other side of La Paloma has the offshore winds. Juan is going to take us out to the surf this time, he says be ready in 10 mins. Santi warns us 10mins is 1hour in Juan time. Sure enough, 3 hours later Juan arrives and we head off. I learn my lesson and take one of the spongey foam malibu’s out instead. We pull up and even smaller crumbling waves roll through onto the beach perfect for a mal!

We check further up the coast to the next town for La Pederra, Juan’s friend Leo joins us in the ultimate surf mobile a VW beetle:

Strange statue:

If only for some swell…you should of been here yesterday…ye ye

30mins later, back at the first stop we made, we get in the water:

The waves werent that good but it was good fun riding the mal, riding the nose, switchfoot and stealing all those damn shortboarders’ waves. It doesnt hum like Easy’s and it’s not that fast but hey it’s better than slipping off all the time.

Back at Balconada, Jesse has a funny story to tell. Apparently Santi’s brother walked in and asked “Are you the only one here?” Jess said “Yep”. Santi brother then asks “ok cool, if anyone comes in looking for a room could you just show them through, give them a room and the towels. Then he shows Jess where they all are and leaves. ahahaha. This wasnt the first time stuff like that happened. One stormy night, Santi leaves us to head home for a while. In pops some locals who rummage through the DVD’s then walk out. 30mins later they’re back grabbing some beer out the fridge.

On our last night there, Juan and his buddies cook us up a storm of a BBQ. A Belgium girl arrives, she’s bundled into the ute and we go out to the forrest to get wood for the BBQ. We laugh at how odd this must seem to her, arrives, jumps in a ute then gets taken down a dirt road to a pine forrest hmmmm.

All in all, La Paloma was quiet, the surf wasnt amazing but we had such a fun time and got a feel for how the locals lived and what they did. Next stop Buenos Aires…again.

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