Town of Gypsies, Day 7

Our Own Personal Sand Truck (all the WWII vehicles were full)

There´s a place called Cabo Polonio, which is along the western coast, that reminds us of Keomoku, Hawai'i, if it had a gypsy, Uruguayan soul. You can only get to the this town via these World War 2 sand vehicles, we were told, and the town itself, when we saw it, looked like it sprang up out of the sand, all these shacks cobbled together with tin and wood and whatever else may have been lying around. I managed to talk this young woman into renting us her shack ( a one-room, one-terlet affair) for the night. We had no assumptions about comfort; we wanted an authentically Uruguayan adventure, rustic and primitive was part and parcel of this experience.

The town was full of wanderers and hippies and groovers of the all things alternative and anti-establishment. But there were surprising and delightful things as well, such as the town´s library, which carried heavy hitters like Roland Barthes, a French philosopher, and a clutch of esoteric writers and poets. And there was a huge lighthouse at the far edge of town -- this, in a place that has no electricity, no running water.

At night, we met Martin, a magazine editor from Buenos Aires, there on vacation. He took us under his wing and we went to a fish house. Pretty awesome dinner. But it was the impromptu music making that cast a spell. The chef and his sous chef/host were musicians and late in the evening, they broke out their bongo drums and started drumming. Some of their friends joined in with their tambourines and sticks, making music with the top of the tables, the floors. It was like watching a unchoreographed, but somehow, incredibly complex dance, with the head drummer determining the tempo, the mood, and his ragtag, but fantastically fluent band, following his lead, as though they were part of this moving river. They had such joy, these music makers. We were spellbound, Deputy Dawg and I. Sooo cool. We did not want to leave; we felt part of the fish house and the people in it, and part of a magical night that could create such a pure music.

We needed to get up at 7 am to catch the sand carrier out of town, so we left the drummers and the gypsies and stumbled home in the rain and over sand dunes and tufts of sea grass to our stone shack, with the clear beam from the lighthouse lighting our way.

-- Mad Dawg copyright 2007

Nuts and Bolts of the Ride
2 Hour bus ride to Castillos (bikes were no problem, cost was about $20, including bike fee)
20km ride to Cabo Polonio
Roads 4
Scenery 3
Facilities 2
Bathrooms 1
Traffic 4
Difficulty 1

Nuts and Bolts of Cabo Polonio
Food 3
Shops 3
Cute 4+
People 4
Cost 3
Rent a shack from someone who lives there $50 (3)
Memorable: The entire place, including the blinking red light restaurant, the shack, the shops, the people, Martin from Buenos Aires, and the ride out there on a WW2 truck over the sand

--Deputy Dawg