Punta del Este is full of controversy

Well, Punta del Este was certainly far from boring: A ghost town with luxury beaches, interesting people, parties, guns, martini and relationship drama.

Punta del Este is a quite place for a village with less than 10 000 inhabitants in the winter. The beaches are cool, but the endless row of luxury hotels, mansion-like villas and gourmet restaurants, knocks you off your feet. Especially since they are only in use in the summer when this upscale resort has about 500 000 visitors; some of them famous and many of them extremely rich; and these people don't mind paying for the whole year even if they'd only stay a few weeks. It feels surreal walking on the empty streets past the incredible holiday homes abandoned for the season with their automatic lawn sprinklers going on full speed all year around.


The locals I met were sorry I didn't see the place in the summer, but I'm not. In January (top summer month here) this place would be like any other summer resort full of sunburned tourists fighting for inches on the beach with their fake tits and steroid muscles shining, and not interesting for more than one day in any way. In the winter this place has character. Weird luxury ghost town character, but still. Punta del Este in the summer is something you wouldn't mind having a one-night stand with, whatever it name is, while as Punta del Este in the winter fascinates you so you'd like to get to know it and perhaps find something meaningful.

First I stayed with Ralf, a cool middle-aged German lawyer with daily exchanging girlfriends, zero in cooking skills or interest, and an antique safe with a gun in his kitchen. I felt at home playing house maid, cooking and cleaning like I normally do. I also discovered kilometres and kilometres of beaches, and got my ass pretty sore, riding his old bike around Maldonado and Punta del Este.

My next hosts Damian and Dayana describe themselves as bichos del mar, sea animals, on their CS profile. Our surfing plans died out with a pounding hangover my hosts suffered from after their first night out in ages, which very conveniently happened to be my first night in Maldonado. It was a barbecue birthday party of a 27-year old, extremely fit fencer (competes in sword fighting) with two girlfriends and extremely interesting combination of people to share a house with: his parents, his son, his EX-wife and her current boyfriend! I've never seen so many nearly sober dudes singing on a microphone together with girls just watching from the side. I ignored their attempts to get me to join, but did feel a bit tempted after a few martinis.
Our night out went on in the local nightclub until about 4am when the falling drinks and the early work day the following morning got Damian and Dayana to leave dancing for the night. Nobody went to work the next morning, and Elina was, quite surprisingly, the only one not feeling sick at the breakfast table at lunch time.

It's funny how I don't really care where I go and what I see as long as the people are right; I search couches based on CS profiles, not on their location. The smallest place with least attractions available can be most fun and the largest city with everything you could ask for the most boring one, totally depending on who you share them with. Yeah, I'm not only a CS addict, but a people addict.



Mate
Have I already told you about the thing that makes Uruguayans go around? Their first thing in the morning, last in the evening, companion at work, on the streets, in the stores, in parties, everywhere? Mate is their best mate. It tastes disgusting, but apparently only with the first try (no, not having another sip), after that it's a full addiction. Finns drink the most coffee in the world but at least they don't always carry their own cup and a thermos with them.


Comments, anyone, please... It feels like I'm talking to myself when noboby says anything back. Statcounter tells me there's about 60 of you over there on the other side reading this, but you're an awfully quiet group.