Punta del Este

This was my last weekend in Montevideo. I spent it going to the beach and going out with friends. Early next Saturday morning I'm off to Peru. But to tell you all the truth I'm really looking forward to getting back to Rome on April 5--not that I'm counting or anything. I took a look at some pics of Cusco the other day and that got me psyched up a little. I'm kind of nervous about teaching English but I'm sure it will be fine. I'm mostly hoping that in my new host family home I have a shower with some sort of enclosure so that I don't have to sweep all the water on the floor into a drain every time I shower, like I do here in Montevideo.

Anyway, last weekend I went to Punta del Este, more out of obligation than anything else. I was tired of traveling but I knew I couldn't leave Uruguay without going. I went with two friends on a day trip and we walked around the peninsula and enjoyed the sun. I'm just posting the pics now because I've been swamped with freelance work coming in from NY.

Pics:

On the Rambla of Punta del Este. MVD has a "Rambla" too. It means the street that runs along the coast. That's my classmate Brad, one of two friends I went there with:


In Punta there is a famous sculpture of a hand sticking out of the sand. This is me with the thumb:


Brad was the only one brave enough to climb up - they were quite slippery:


All of the fingers minus the thumb (is it true that a thumb isn't technically a "finger" anyway?)



The cover of the menu at the restaurant where we ate lunch. At about $30 a head (and I got a salad) it was by far the most expensive single item I've purchased in Uruguay, other than what I pay for my Internet time.


A typical street on the peninsula of Punta del Este. While it may look standard to Americans, it is quite a stark contrast to pretty much everywhere else I've seen in Uruguay.


There is a small island off the coast of Punta where sea lions (called "lobos marinos" - literally "sea wolfs" in Spanish) live and breed. They swim up to the shores of Punta quite often. We saw these guys hanging out by the yacht club docks: