Along the Rambla, Atlántida

There a very few buildings here between the beach front road (Rambla) and the water, which, as we saw yesterday, is hard to call a river but the locals do anyway. From the left, there’s the Atlántida Yacht Club (you will see no pictures of yachts, for a reason), a couple of small buildings which may or may not be occupied, the fish place, another house, then Indigo restaurant, a thoroughly inconsistent and generally mediocre “resto-bar” that is nonetheless popular. On hot days, its shaded back deck overlooking the water is quite lovely. Further to the right in the overhead view is Pîedra Lisa (flat rock). I’ll get back to that.

First, zoom out more.

The Yacht Club and Indigo are circled on the left. Far to the right is a building nestled in the dunes. I don’t know what it was, since it’s been abandoned since we arrived in 2009. You can take a tour of it here.

From there on east, until the Rambla ends, no other beach-side structures exist that I’m aware of.

Let’s go back to Piedra Lisa.

When we first arrived, for several summers it was a bane: a disco/nightclub, whose drunken and deafened clients awakened us in the wee summer hours as they staggered past our house, shouting and singing loudly. They also left a trail of plastic cups, and tipped over trash containers or set them on fire. On early morning beach walks, it was not unusual to find some of them passed out in the dunes.

Well, the lease ran out and the noise factory moved across the Ruta Interbalnearia to the Atlántida Country Club (the “Country;” don’t get your hopes up), where it has since tormented a new collection of neighborhoods. Piedra Lisa became a cooperative restaurant-pizzeria for a while, and I understood it was leased from the local government. We ate there once: ordered the “Breakfast Pizza” out of curiosity. It was quite good, with fried eggs and bacon, but also ironic because bacon and eggs is not something Uruguayans eat for breakfast.

Recently I noticed it’s become a target of graffiti. But first, this from Google Maps.

Notice anything unusual? As in, “Open 24 hours?”

Well, it literally is, now.

That’s the outside area where we had our Breakfast Pizza.

The walls facing the beach have become a street art gallery over the years.

But the brazen graffiti visible from the road suggests that it’s over for this building. A shame. Perhaps.

“Ocean”

This is the ocean. I know, the locals consider a river, despite the fact that the other “side” of it is over 4,000 km away, in Antarctica.

So there’s 4,000+ km of open water that direction, and 6,500 km of open water to Africa.

And those are the only waves?

A bit of Atlántida history

Our normal dog walk cancelled, I took Mocha on the beach all the way into town. There I was reminded of this strange fenced-off footbridge, part of its deck missing.

From the road you can see it through the trees, ending across the road from the iconic (no longer hotel) El Planeta, built in 1939 in six months, offering central heating and hot water throughout. De luxe for 1939 Uruguay!

At the far end of the footbridge there’s a pile of branches, and it’s again fenced off.

You can see how close it is to the road (and you can see that, in 2015 per Google Street View, you could freely access the bridge, which never occurred to me). So why would someone choose the footbridge instead of just using the road?

Which gave me an idea.

What if the road was added later? The red line represents the footbridge. From above, the amphitheater looks a lot like a dam. And there’s apparently (I have never noticed it) a huge drain, and signs of drainage onto the beach (arrows).

[Update: I did go back and explore the tunnel]

Later—more time later than I’d like to admit—I found a diagram of a proposed harbor that was never built.

And there I spotted a break in the Rambla (beachfront road). Notice how there is no Rambla above the arrow.

And here—ta da!—is an aerial photo from 1950 confirming it. Mystery solved!

Designed?

Construction continues on both sides of us, and both strange. Workers have just finished the molds for huge concrete beams atop the 42m² addition. I finally got curious and asked about the plans.

The large opening in the foreground will have a sliding glass door (facing a bush and a wall). The two distant walls are to be glass. Since this is looking roughly northwest in the southern hemisphere, and the backyard is open, this structure might be concisely described as a solar oven. I expect there may be an overhanging roof.

But at least I get it. I also get that the neighbors on the other side are making some sort of grand entrance.

Walls that might be planters, two large columns (or something), and indented area (to the right). All very curious. But I’m not going to ask just yet. Too much fun trying to imagine where this ambitious project might go next.