Punta del Este, Uruguay

This stop was a pleasant surprise. When we thought of Uruguay, we thought barren land and hovels and backwardness. Not so in Punta del Este is a very modern, very clean, very pleasant and modern city.

We got a walking map when we got off the tender. The large smooth sidewalks were so easy to walk on. We went to this gazebo overlooking the massive harbor for our first stop.

There must be a utility company with UTE for it's name. Mitzi enjoyed getting some pictures of those!

Then we walked over to the fingers coming up out of the sand at the beach. There were swarms of people around but we managed to get these photos with just us in them, thanks to my photo editing skills of removing people!

We found a place that looked nice for lunch. They cooked over an open wood fire. These shrimp where the most tender and tasty we've ever had!

I got picanha, a specialty cut in Brasil and they also have it in Uruguay.

Mitzi found this cute shirt (blouse?) at a clothing store. Very "Mitzi"!

They have pretty high end stores here, like Valentino's, which I'm not familiar with but Mitzi knows from New York City.

Really pretty flowers. The dunes and plants on the dunes look exactly like what Pajaro Dunes has in California.

Mitzi was curious if the distance in latitude from the equator to Pajaro Dunes was close to the distance in latitude from the equator to Punta del Este. The answer is ... YES! This probably explains why the same plant life can grow in both places, and are so similiar. The climates see so similar.

Pajaro Dunes is 36 degrees latitude above the equator, about 2,500 miles.

Punta del Este is 35 degrees latitude below the equator, about 2,400 miles.

We walked several miles today and really enjoyed Punta del Este. Totally beat our expectations!

As our ship sailed away from Punta del Este toward Montevideo, we passed this island with a Maine looking light house. Binoculars were needed to see it more clearly.