Wednesday, December 11, 2013

A trip to Uruguay - Day 3 cont.. - Punta Ballena y Casa Pueblo !!!

Punta Ballena is a small peninsula (punta) and a resort (balneario), as well as an important tourist attraction on the coast of Río de la Plata in the Maldonado Department of southeastern Uruguay. It was created by Uruguayan artist Paez-Vilaró in a kind of mediterranean surrealistic architecture, making the whole place to look like a giant sculpture. He is the father of one of the survivors of the infamous plane crash on the Andes. It comprises an approximately 12 kms (7.5 mi) long stripe of beaches and landforms. 


Punta Ballena is around 15kms from Punta del Este. You can rent a car to reach here or can opt any other options like bus. You just need to tell the driver that you are getting out at this destination.

Points of interest : The town's best-known point of interest is the Casa Pueblo citadel, sculptor Carlos Páez Vilaró's onetime residence. 



Casa Pueblo :

Casa Pueblo is around 2.5-3 kms inside Punta Ballena. If you are coming Punta Ballena by bus, please keep in mind that you may have to cover this 3kms by walk. You may get lift over there but that is not so usual as to find people over that road is not that usual.
But once you reach that place, scenery is worth watching. The view of wide coast of Rio del al Plata gives immense pleasure to your eyes and soul.

Casapueblo is the house of Uruguayan artist Carlos Páez Vilaró, located in Punta Ballena (Whale Point). It is a homage to the artist's son Carlitos Paez. Casapueblo is now a citadel-sculpture that includes a museum, an art gallery, and the Hotel Casapueblo.


A few years ago Páez Vilaró added a hotel called Hotel Casapueblo or Club Hotel Casapueblo to the house, following the style of the original construction. It now includes a restaurant named Las Terrazas (The Terraces). It also offers you the recreational activities like horseback rides on the beach or through the woods, golf and tennis practice, aqua sports such as Jet Ski, Water Ski, Banana or Traditional Boat Trips (depends on the season).

Travelling options :
As I discussed earlier, you can rent a car to reach Casa Pueblo or can come by bus. The only problem is bus drops you till Punta Ballena and then you have to walk 2kms to reach CasaPueblo and again these 2kms to come out to reach main road (Punta Ballena) where you can board another bus.

From Punta Ballena, you can get bus till Montevideo and from Montevideo to Colonia. I reached Colonia by 7:30pm and I had to catch my ferry by 10pm. I went to that mini subway (in front of bus stand in Colonia), had an amazing sandwich and beer to chill out and relax to end up my trip of Uruguay. Colonia port is hardly 500meters from there. I gulped the last sip of my beer, clicked last photo of Uruguay, packed my camera in bag and headed toward the port.


Back to Buenos Aires:
It’s a 1 hour journey from Colonia to Buenos Aires but you will reach at the same time you start from Colonia (remember the 1 hour time zone difference J). You can also find a duty free shop over the ferry where you can buy something of your interest if you get. All currencies are acceptable there but only in cash. There is no POS machine where you can swipe your card.

Pics : You can visit my facebook album to check for few of the pictures I clicked at this link.

Well, this was my experience of trip to Uruguay. Please share your comments and let me know if you need any more information. I would love to share if it’s under my scope.

No comments:

Post a Comment