Punta del Este With a Toddler, November 2007

This Thanksgiving, to ward off the inevitable holiday blues one experiences when living overseas, my Buenos Aires-based family and visiting in-laws decided to visit world renowned Punta del Este, Uruguay. I’ve always been intrigued by Punta del Este’s jet-setty, “lives of the rich and famous” reputation (I mean, this is Uruguay, not Monaco), so I was excited to see first hand whether it lived up to its hype.

Getting there: Given the cost and unpredictability of regional flights, and the fact that it is handy to have a car in Punta del Este for touring around with a toddler, we decided to take the ferry to Uruguay and bring our car. The Buquebus ferry to Montevideo from Buenos Aires costs US $125/person and takes 3 hours (it cost an additional $225 to bring our truck on the ferry). Once the ferry docked, we were out of the port, through immigration, and driving through Montevideo within five minutes. We stopped across the street from the port exit to cash some dollars into Uruguyan pesos (roughly 20 to 1 USD) at a “Casa de Cambio”, and we were off.

The drive to Punta del Este from Montevideo is roughly 135 km and takes about two hours. Although I had found a number of maps from a tourism website to use as a guide, we basically just hugged the cost once we left the port, always following the signs to Punta del Este. To get to the La Barra section of Punta del Este (the new “place to be” as per my Argentine girlfriends with families), you just head East past Punta del Este along the coast for another 10 minutes, cross a roller coaster bridge (to the delight of my 3-year old son -“Wheee!”) and you have arrived.

Lodging: These days when we go on vacation, to make it a vacation, we abide by a few hard-earned rules in choosing a hotel: 1) Availability of suites, or two adjoining rooms; 2) Child-friendly amenities, like outdoor and indoor pools, playrooms or playgrounds, babysitting services, large yards and/or easy beach access, and; 3) Kitchenettes and a hotel restaurant. With these criteria in mind, our travel agent helped us find Las Dunas, a five star (more on that later) full-service resort located in La Barra. Rooms are US $210 per night without tax for a two-room suite, not cheap by developing country standards.

The lobby of the Las Dunas Hotel is promising; beautifully decorated, spotless and manned by wonderfully friendly people. It was only after we left the lobby during the walk to our rooms past the hotel lodging buildings that the visions of a Travel Lodge came to mind. When we made it inside our two-room suite, the deception was complete. The rooms were quite clean, but extremely simple in terms of decor, with thin carpet, industrial couches, uncomfortable iron dining furniture, pastel art in cheap frames and plastic chairs on the balcony. No wireless connection, no DVD player, no plush bathrobes (sob!). Slightly disappointed but not daunted, the jokes started flowing amongst my travel companions of “Vacation” movies and the Griswald family and how the “five stars” allocated the Las Dunas Hotel must be on the Uruguyan star system. “I guess I won’t be needing my dinner jacket!” my father-in-law quipped.

On the upside, the location of, and the views from the Las Dunas Hotel, are spectacular. The hotel is located on the water side of the highway, an easy walk to the beach. All rooms have protected balconies and views of the ocean. Most of Punta del Este’s fancy hotels and luxury homes are located across the street from the beach, requiring a walk across a busy street to get there—a mother’s nightmare when you have a headstrong, squirmy, reluctant-to-hold-mommy’s-hand toddler. To provide a U.S. equivalent, the La Barra area reminds me most of Rye Beach, New Hampshire; more of a sleepy beach town with a few hotels and one and two-story rental properties than the highly developed, concrete jungle, strangely devoid of palm trees--and I’m assuming loud in season--Punta del Este city, so it was more our speed with a young child. The La Barra commercial strip is only a few blocks long, but there are plenty of restaurants, a few grocery stores, fruit and vegetable stands, sandwich shops (“Chivito” is the local word for a sandwich), and a number of fancy boutiques and art galleries lining the main road in and out of La Barra. Most were not yet open however, given that high season does not begin until January.

On the downside, the hotel’s service doesn’t exactly match its “five-star” status. When we asked hotel maids for extra toilet paper, we were provided with exactly one roll. Giving guests extra towels is also verboten; “We only replace the ones you have used.” And as far as the restaurant is concerned, other than the runny eggs and the tar-like, almost undrinkable brew passed off as coffee, breakfast at the Las Dunas restaurant is by far the best meal of the day offered by the hotel. After our arrival lunch of frigid and barely passable sandwiches from the hotel restaurant, I started to take away fruit, ham & cheese at the breakfast buffet in a baggy to store in our kitchenette fridges for lunch in our room. I figured I was due as much since, at 8-months pregnant, I was eating breakfast in my room before the buffet opened, but the hotel staff’s dirty looks made me realize this is just not done (forgive us Americans for wanting something decent from a five star hotel!) One evening, my in-laws ordered in room service and babysat so my husband and I could escape for a night out on the town. They later described the chicken dish and Milanesa dinner they ordered to the hotel staff as both “cold and disgusting!” To their credit, the hotel management immediately removed their dinner meals from our bill.

Luckily, there are dining alternatives in La Barra, even during the pre-season. Two local pizza places are located down the street from the Las Dunas hotel, one going East, the other to the West. We chose the one going West towards Punta del Este, and it was excellent –pizza made in the shape of a rectangle, good crust, no skimping on cheese, spicy sauce, generous meat and veggies. For a nice dinner out without the kids, the unfortunately-named Café Baby Gouda Deli was a super find. Decorated in a style straight out of Katmandu with Indian print curtains and a separate sitting area for tea, this restaurant offers fantastic imported cheese plates, super salads, non-traditional pasta dishes, French onion soup (as good as any I’ve had in Paris), and great desserts. The cost for a meal is about what you would pay on the East or West coast in the U.S.; higher than what we are used to living in Buenos Aires, but hey, such is life in the non-price controlled world outside of Argentina.

What to do: The beach was empty, windy, and on the cold side for us (it was overcast and 70s for two of the four days we were there—just like New Hampshire!), and was not yet set up for the season (no beach chairs available, no umbrellas, no beach bar/services). Swimming at the Las Dunas Hotel beach is also not for the faint of heart. The water was warmer than New Hampshire in August, but the surf is extremely rough, riptides are visible, and there is a steep drop off in the sand at the water line. Not my idea of “toddler friendly.”

Nevertheless, we managed to spend a few hours each morning at the beach, happily playing games in sand with our toddler, all bundled up. The hotel gym is another unexpected oasis. Located above the lobby, the equipment is modern and new, and the treadmill machines and bikes overlook the ocean. Stock up on your spa treatments beforehand in Buenos Aires where the price is right – the cost I was quoted for a pedicure was US $36.

One day we took a drive to explore the area surrounding La Barra, and found the children’s park El Jaguel, located about a 15-minute drive Northwest of La Barra. The park’s entrance is guarded by a dozen large—some downright disturbing—paper mache statues of animals and other figures. My personal, cynical favorite (for its level of disturbing ness) is the statue of a smirking, dark-skinned boy, posed on one knee, raising a Fred Flintstone-looking bat object in his right hand, ready to strike all the children that dare to enter the El Jaguel park! A safety inspector’s nightmare, the park is filled with merry go rounds that run continuously (merry go round master just grabs your kid and plops him on an animal while it takes a turn) and many rusty, shard-protruding, metal playground essentials like swings and see saws that easily produce cardiac arrest in nervous mothers like me. On the other hand, my husband was thrilled to not have to abide by silly safety rules so he could take our toddler in his lap around the racetrack in a go-cart. Helmets? Surely you jest. This is Latin America! The best part is that the go-carts don’t have functioning breaks, so when your time is up, go-cart man jumps on the back of your cart to stop the cart by dragging his feet on the ground while it is in motion. Winner!

On our last day of vacation, the weather cooperated with us. Not a cloud in the sky, 80 degrees, pleasantly dry. We toured the historic town of Maldonado (looks like a small town in El Salvador—don’t bother) and throughout Punta del Este by car, enjoying the drive past the port and very pretty marina, finding a relatively empty and wide, protected beach with easy waves and no dangerous drop-off, with parking conveniently located just up the sand dune. We ate a pleasant, outdoor lunch at a beach deck restaurant right above the beach, and decided that Punta del Este and its surroundings may not be the Cote d’Azur or Lago di Cuomo I had imagined, but it was definitely worth the trip.