Things to do
5-
Casapueblo
Carlos Páez Vilaró spent decades adding rooms and terraces to a whitewashed cliff house at Punta Ballena, building it by hand without straight lines or right angles. Part hotel, part museum, it keeps his studio and paintings open to visitors. The sunset ceremony, a recorded text read as the sun drops into the river, fills the terraces.
-
Isla de Lobos
One of the largest South American sea lion colonies breeds on a low rock some kilometres out from the peninsula, along with fur seals and a tall lighthouse. Landing is restricted to research, so trips circle the island by boat and the smell and noise carry across the water. Swells make the crossing rough, and sailings depend on the weather.
-
Isla Gorriti
Launches leave the port every thirty minutes in summer for a wooded island ten minutes offshore, where two sheltered beaches face the bay and a ruined Spanish battery sits under the pines. Playa Honda takes the crowds and Playa Puerto is calmer; both have basic parrillas behind the sand. Last boats back to the port leave in the early evening.
-
La Mano
Five concrete fingers break out of the sand at Playa Brava, made by the Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal for a summer competition in 1982 and kept ever since. The piece reads as a swimmer going under, a warning about the surf on this side of the peninsula. Photographs need patience in January, when a queue forms at the thumb.
-
Playa Brava
Open Atlantic water hits the eastern shore with real surf, a strong shore break and currents that catch swimmers out, which is why lifeguards fly flags along it through the season. Surfers and bodyboarders use the southern end; the sand runs north for kilometres towards La Barra. La Mano stands at its western corner.