La Costa – Beauty and the (little) Beast(s)

Two thousand kilometres of coast, mostly lined by long beautiful sand beaches has been the theme of the time that we have had on the road since leaving Montevideo. The beaches of the Atlantic shore are immense and dramatic, often backed by expanses of dunes. The ones along the undeveloped coast of Uruguay are particularly stunning…

 Bruce here…

The scene of the crime – a sundowner beer on the beach parked up right beside the beach. Beautiful, we thought!

During the two weeks we have spent traveling north up the coast and then inland west to Iguaçu, we have watched the landscapes change (through dramatic lagoons and marshes to hills and rainforests), noticed an interesting culture shift on entering Brazil and become used to fighting the constant, often, loosing battle with a wide range of biting insects. The day after a pleasant evening drinking a beer on the beach, just in front of our camp, and making the rookie mistake of not putting repellant on our clothes as well as our bare skin, we both had backs and upper arms that looked like a serious outbreak of measles! We really don’t like sandflies (if that is what the culprit was – it’s our best guess)…

On the positive side, the earlier van breakdown led to a lovely few days staying with Sylvia and family (previously documented) and the people all the way along have been really friendly. They are relaxed and still seem to have time here. Here in Brazil, we can’t speak a word of Portugese (learning Spanish from scratch was quite enough to be getting on with), but the people we encounter in shops, campsites etc patiently take all the time it needs to communicate, using signs, gestures and some Spanish, with smiles, laughter and friendship. On one lovely occasion, a friendly local shopkeeper in Pontal dol Sol who had tried to chat to us earlier, came dashing over a few minutes later proudly introducing us to a “transductor” to translate for us. It turned out that he was from South Korea and, yes, he had a few words of Spanish, and one or two of English, as well as, presumably, Korean and Portugese, but we suspect he was wheeled out because he speaks a foreign language at all!

Capybara

Also, we’ve: seen many, many cyclists in Brazil, but usually riding the wrong way down the hard shoulder of motorways; been dive bombed by a firefly (attracted to the phone screen?) and a hummingbird; seen our first capybaras and rheas, and some terrapins crossing the road (we were going to fast to stop and ask why?!), a tarantula and several big lizards; heard some amazing frog and insect noises; found ourselves locked into a small campsite in a national park in the morning (not a challenge for my grandfather’s socket set); climbed amazing sand dunes; had a mini- off-season Glastonbury festival experience visiting Cabo Polonio; sat through several incredible rain storms; found the wine in Brazil is very drinkable;…

See some of it in pictures here (click on an image to open up a gallery view to scroll through):

The hand at Punta del Este, Uruguay – the obligatory overlanders stopping point, as there’s another one on the Chilean side of the continent – watch this space!

Our first little ferry crossing, across Laguna Garzon, route 10, in Uruguay …

…pity they’re building a bridge really,

But it’s not developed yet.

Pleased to be finally on the road!

Setting up our newly acquired cooking equipment

To get to Cabo Polonia, you are taken by truck out across the protected dunes

The town in the distance now, down the beach

Relaxing in front of our little hostel on the beach

Views of Cabo Polonia

These Southern Lapwings have been everywhere as we travelled north. We saw several pairs working hard to protect vulnerable chicks on the ground.

A seal colony on Cabo Polonio

Storm coming in

The clouds gather…

…into an ominous formation.

Parked in front of the delightful Hostel Diablo del Tranquilo in Punto Diablo, at the northern end of the Uruguayan coast

Punto Diablo

The northern Uruguayan coast

A visit to the Santa Teresa national park

Our first capybara colony

One of a number of forts near the Uruguay – Brazil border, dating back to the Spanish – Portungese conflicts over this land

Our first wild camping spot, by the Laguna Negra

Van-life breakfast

All the way up the coast, we saw huge numbers of dragonfly

Ferry number two, from Rio Grande, Brazil…

.. where we jumped the queue of lorries to fill a small van sized space left at the back

Detour into the Lagoa de Peixe park by the road in the very south of Brazil

Cormorant

Wood stork

And a small, wooden bridge!

Van-life cooking

Spectacular dunes near Florianopolis, on the Ihla de Santa Catarina or “Floripa”

Sand boarding

More views of beautiful Floripa

This pumpkin filled with shrimp stew did two evening meals for us (we took a doggy bag)…

… and also fed the campsite cats!

Did we mention the little beasties??

A visit to a turtle conservation project

Front spot on this ferry from Guaratuba

On the coast at Pontal do Sul, near Paranagua

Black headed vultures on the beach

The lovely old town of Morretes

On route into the jungle for the night

Next morning, we were woken by this little bird which seemed obsessed by its reflection in our wing mirror

Even telling a mate about it it!!

An encounter with a tarantula on the old Gracioso road – but how to move it out of the way so we could drive on?

The landscape as we turn west towards Iguazu and head inland

Enjoying the shapes of the Monkey Puzzle trees in Southern Brazil

A stop on route to see the sandstone formations at Vila Velha, near Curitiba

This one is called the Camel

They didn’t name this one!

Our first wild orchids