Point: Uruguay

Uruguay To-Do List Item 6: Go to Punta del Este, see somebody famous

This is Punta del Este, the nicest beach city in Uruguay:

Every summer it competes with destinations like Cancun and Ibiza for the international jet set´s patronage, summer here occuring between about November and February.  According to the Footprint Guide to South America, "anybody who´s anybody from Buenos Aires summers in Punta."  According to Lonely Planet, "as this book was going to press in early 2008 celebrity sightings included Ralph Lauren, football star Zinedine Zidane, and Metallica frontman James Hetfield " Shakira has a place near here. 

I got into Punta del Este today and spent the day walking around getting sunburned and looking for famous people.  There were none to be found.  Not that I probably would have recognized them even if they´d been here (what the hell does James Hetfield look like?), but I´m pretty sure all I saw were a bunch of aging Argentinean tourists catching the low-season prices. 

With the summer season having ended just about a month and a half ago, the city right now feels kind of like a dorm room the morning after an all night rager, or the way I´ve always imagined New Orleans must feel the week after Mardi Gras: torn up and exhausted.  Everybody´s just getting over the hangover enough to start picking up the pieces.  The beaches here are mostly deserted, and all the highrise apartments and 4-5 star hotels are starting their renovations for next year.  There´s construction going on everywhere.  All the restaurants and food stalls and souveneir shops are shuttered.  There are delapidated little stages and wind-torn promotional flags in front of all the hotels.  It feels like a big party happened here, but now it´s over. 

But here´s the nicest beach in landlocked Paraguay:

I´m not really a beach dude, but neither country has mountains so beaches are what we´ll have to go off of. 

Point Uruguay.