La Paloma

 It rained in the night. What a pain. I had left a beach chair out to enjoy a morning cup of tea and that had to come in. Rusty was enjoying sleeping outside and he had to come in. Then we had to move rapidly off the hard sand before it became waterlogged and park on the gravel to prevent any possibility of getting stuck. After all that it was a bit tricky trying to fall back asleep.

It was a funny old day as the rain clouds threatened for a while…

Then the sun slowly asserted itself and the wet remainders of the night dried up. 

Rusty got his walk and we left. 

We weren’t going far, just a half hour south to the beach town of La Paloma home of a motorhome parking space with HOT showers. It was time. 

I am fascinated by the architecture of Uruguayan bus stops. They could just build little cubes but they give e writhing an eccentric little twist. 

The roads are mostly well paved and smooth, traffic has been light and the countryside is flat and neatly ordered. Trash is nowhere to be seen. 

La Paloma (“the dove”) is a hippy beach town to put it stereotypically and we found it quite lovely. 

Uruguay is said to be the most advanced least corrupt country in South America. They’ve been building a welfare state since 1904 offering their citizens free health care and free education through university. In 2007 the country decided to develop renewable electricity and since 2015 it has relied on renewables almost 100%. 

This country of three and a half million people has a median income around $24,000 where the rest of South America is around $10,000 on average. Corruption is unknown and government institutions operate with a high level of public trust. 

Voting is mandatory and the president is both head of state and head of government and serves four year terms. Since 2025 the Presidente from the left and his election was accepted without controversy by his right wing opponent. Uruguay has one of the lowest corruption rates in the world and low, though not negligible crime rates. We’ve found people to be the usual thoughtful kind neighbors and I find this largely ignored country fascinating. Tax rates are low and Uruguay doesn’t tax foreign earnings. Hmm. 

We’ve found another country that collects urban trash in public dumpsters just like Chile. They are handy for van lifers as you can imagine. 

Uruguay is small and lacks wilderness mountains and wide vistas. Montevideo the capital is where Europeans ship their campers from Europe as it has a reputation for low bureaucracy and high reliability which is unlike neighboring Argentina. 

I can see why Europeans newly arrived in South America bypass Uruguay. They come here for color and folklore and all the wild open space they don’t have back home. And here they find functional normal suburban Uruguay. 

Our 19th country. The last one we have yet to visit is Bolivia hopefully later this year. Venezuela is not yet open to US passports and may not be in my lifetime. 

We stopped for lunch. 

The madness in Frenchbis La Folie in La Paloma. 

We had fish, tempura shrimp for Layne and corvina negra for me which Google translates as a black croaker.

No idea what it is but it was a very pleasant mild flakey white fish despite the name:

Crème brûlée 

And I’m not sure what I got for pudding. 

Thisciscurigusybdonitcwasbt cheap around 80 bucks but interestingly the government allows restaurants not to charge value added tax to foreigners. We showed no ID or anything but we got a 20% discount. Weird but nice. And Rusty was welcome. 

Then we drove across town to the parking spot for motorhomes (and roof top tents) offered free by the city.

It’s not hugely scenic but it has what we need. The price is right. Uruguay keeps on giving.