South America's Charm Bracelet

It was only when Pablo, a downtown Punta bartender, explained candombe--Uruguayan-African fusion music--that I decided Punta del Este evokes Minnesota.

Why that unlikely connection? Because Pablo, like so many Uruguayans we met, embodies the unassuming hospitality of the Midwest I knew in my youth. The morning after our talk, he brought his CD player into the bar. As I ate one of the cookie-like alfajores that Pablo had offered, I listened on one earphone while he listened on the other.

He explained in English about the unusual, fire-tuned drums, and he translated the Spanish lyrics. Candombe was reminiscent of many styles of music: I swear I heard echoes of the Gipsy Kings, the Beatles and a touch of Frankie Yankovic.

So, Punta del Este is a little like a Caribbean island, a little like Italy, a lot like small-town U.S.A. And that still isn't the full picture.

"Where is that again?" our friends asked when we told them we were headed to Uruguay for Thanksgiving break. It's on the Atlantic coast of South America, we said, a relatively small, flat dollop between the behemoth of Brazil to the north and rugged Argentina to the west and south. In planning our trip we found that guidebook publishers don't have a lot on Uruguay. People find out about it by cruising the Internet, reading the gossip pages or, as we did, just poring over maps.

On Uruguay's southern tip lies a twisted peninsula that marks the point where the Atlantic meets the Rio de la Plata, which Spanish explorer Juan Diaz de Solis discovered in 1516 while looking for a passage to the Indies. The story goes that De Solis and his crew sailed up the river and encountered the Charrua Indians, who killed and, by some accounts, ate them.

Punta del Este, which was established in 1829, is the focal point of the peninsula. Its 8,000 year-round residents share their beaches with visitors from both Americas. (Celebrity sightings include actor Leonardo DiCaprio and models Eva Herzigova and Naomi Campbell.)

Unlike Rio de Janeiro, the continent's premier beach destination, where personal security is an omnipresent issue, the two major risks at breezy Punta are sunburn and death by dessert.

It's a 10-minute walk across Punta, past high-rise office buildings and condos and small hotels, from one stretch of the town's beaches to the other. Playa Brava (Fierce Beach), on the Atlantic side, catches the ocean's force, and its sand is coarse. An old shipwreck pokes out of the ominously gray water just offshore, where wetsuited surfers challenge waves that look as if they've traveled unimpeded all the way from Africa. Along Playa Mansa (Calm Beach), on the river side, the waves are mellower, the wind gentler, the sand finer. Sailboats rock impatiently in marina slips, waiting for captains who hail from ports in the Americas.