Spendthrift Shoestring

Southern Cone Hopscotch

Friday mid-day I returned from a truly satisfying Southern Cone hopscotch, which took in Buenos Aires, Asunción, Montevideo, and Chihuahua, a beach settlement near Punta del Este. It was one of the most exciting trips I've taken in a while, full of moments of reconnection with favorite cities, exploration of new places, and the discovery of good new friends and acquaintances. I've got a lot to write about here and elsewhere on the jaunt.

Here, some highlights:

• Riding Asunción's public buses with anthropologist Christine Folch and learning a lot about Paraguay's sheerly fascinating cultures, economy, and history very quickly.

• Wandering through Punta del Este during the day and discovering that the South American Hamptons has far more charm and cute corners than the sterile corner of Long Island to which it is compared. (Apologies to any readers who enjoy the Hamptons, sort of.)

• Discovering new corners of Montevideo, including Cordón, Pocitos, and the Feria Tristán de Narvaja street market. 

More to follow.

BT: Cheap Uruguayan Beach Towns

I was very psyched to see Remy Scalza's piece on cheap Uruguayan beach towns on the Budget Travel site yesterday. Scalza looks at three beach towns—Cabo Polonio, Piriápolis, and Punta del Diablo. His piece is full of mentions of cheap hotel rooms (the $35/night sort of cheap) and captures the spirit of these places very well. From the opening bit, a story about a bar in Cabo Polonio, I was seduced. If you're anything like me, suddenly the place in the world you most want to be is Cabo Polonio. In fact, you want to be wandering through a thicket of flowering vines to a back patio of a bar in Cabo Polonio, only to find your exciting Uruguayan friends—all of whom have three passports—waiting for you. (Perhaps they are discussing new trends in architecture, regional politics, and the latest Kitsuné Maison compilation under the moonlight, over a table of empty bottles of Zillertal.)

It's not as if something like this doesn't happen every night. 

I have had these towns on the brain for a while. I'm hoping that Uruguay will begin to get its due in the US travel media.