Hola! Welcome to our first blog! If you’ve read our ‘About us’ page, you will be have seen that at the end of 2024 we shipped our beloved, self-converted Citroën Relay campervan from the Antwerp to Montevideo, Uruguay, in order to spend 2025 travelling around South America. Due to weather and other shipping delays, the van arrived around a week later than planned, leaving us with time to explore a little more of Uruguay as we had already booked flights to arrive a few days in advance of the original arrival date. We decided to head to Santa Teresa National Park, a protected area of approximately 3,000 hectares of forest and stunning beaches on the Atlantic coast of Uruguay. A brief Google search had informed us that there is a large population of capybaras living within the national park (which we were desperate to see at some point during our trip!). We were therefore sold!
Almost as soon as we arrived at the national park, we could see signs of capybaras (mainly capybara poop!). We started off by heading to the bird observation hide near Laguna Peña, and there they were!! When we arrived we could see four capybaras – two lounging under the shade of a tree, one swimming in the lagoon, and one sunbathing next to some very large, and slightly odd looking, birds called southern screamers. It was super exciting seeing these giant rodents in the wild for the first time. To cap it all off, a capybara then appeared from the forest and stood only a few meters away from us. We watched it for several minutes, and he/she didn’t seem to be at all bothered by our presence!
Laguna Peña itself was really beautiful, with a blanket of flowering water hyacinth covering at least a third of the lagoon’s surface. It was such a peaceful spot in the shade (it was a hot summer day of over 30°C) that we spent a good half an hour in the hide watching the capybaras and looking for other wildlife. As well as the capybaras and southern screamers, we also saw a pair of Brazilian teal, a beautiful chestnut-backed wattled jacana, and a giant wood-rail which appeared to walk on water! Flying over the lagoon were also some noisy crested caracaras, whilst turkey vultures soared high in the sky.
After leaving the hide we explored the park’s forested areas, and spotted several guira cuckoos and a green-barred woodpecker. The forested areas are also home to what seemed like thousands of Monk’s parakeets. These charismatic and boisterous birds have created countless large nests in eucalyptus and palm trees throughout the park, and as a highly gregarious species they busily spend every waking hour of the day chatting and squawking away at each other – we just wonder what they have got to say!
We primarily explored the park on foot, which, in case you were wondering, was not ideal! The main route through the park is along a tarmac road with very little shade, and we had severeley underestimated how big the national park is! Luckily for us, a very kind firefighter, who could obviously see us struggling in the heat (our pasty English selves had not yet acclimatised to summer in the southern hemisphere), pulled over to offer us a lift. We gratefully accepted and enjoyed practising a little Spanish on the journey. At this point we had already noticed that Uruguayans speak very, very quickly, and with quite a strong accent, but he spoke clearly for us and so that we could understand each other (mostly!).
He dropped us off at Playa de la Moza, from which we had the intention of walking along Playa a Cerro Verde Beach to reach Punta Coronilla, where we hoped to be able to see the adjacent Coronilla Islands. We had read that you can often see sea lions resting on the rocks, as well as green turtles swimming in the sea! If you are lucky, you also can apparently see bottle-nose dolphins and southern right whales (July-November) off the coast1. Playa a Cerro Verde is a gorgeous stretch of quiet beach, and we came across a very curious juvenile snowy-crowned tern, a flock of brown-headed gulls, and several neotropic cormorants basking near the rocks. However, Playa a Cerro Verde is around 4 km long, there is (obviously!) no shade, and we were feeling the effects of the strong Uruguayan sun. We had already spent several hours on our feet (including walking to the national park from Punta del Diablo), and we knew we still had a really long walk back to our accommodation. So, with sadness, we made the decision to turn around half-way along the beach.
Aside from the wildlife, the national park is very popular for holiday-makers. We happened to be there during one of the busiest weeks of the year, and the firefighter who gave us a lift said that there were around 10,000 people camping in designated areas within the park! There was a great atmosphere with everyone enjoying nature, drinking maté and sunbathing on the beaches. As a result, much of the accessible areas of the park didn’t feel particularly wild, although the Monk’s parakeets do seem to thrive in these areas. Fortunately, much of the national park is inaccessible to visitors/holiday-makers and so is left to nature.
How to get there
As our van hadn’t arrived in South America yet, we were relying on public transport and took a coach from Carrasco Internation Airport to the town nearest to the national park, Punta del Diablo. We booked our coach tickets online with the bus company ‘COT’ (a couple of other companies offer the same route, including ‘Rutas del sol’ and ‘Copsa’). The coach left the airport from the orange and white bus stop to the west of the airport terminal (to the right as you come out of the airport). The coach journey was super comfortable and took around 4hr 30mins.
Punta del Diablo is quite spread out, and if you decide to stay at one of the campsites (like we did) you end up actually being quite far from the town and sea-front itself. However, it has a certain charm with a laid-back surfer vibe. There are a few different options for getting from Punta del Diablo to Santa Teresa National Park:
- Drive – probably the easiest option. The park is designed for cars with multiple places to park throughout. With a car, you would be able to explore a larger area of the park and prioritise walking along the paths/beaches that you want to see.
- Coaches – many of the coaches travelling to and from Brazil and Montevideo stop in both Punta del Diablo and at the entrance to Santa Teresa. They don’t go that regularly though, so it’s worth looking up the timetables online or asking at the bus station for departure and return times.
- Bike – some places hire bikes out for the day or offer bike tours around the national park. Bike hire places are difficult to find online, so it is better to ask locally or at your accommodation for recommendations.
- Walk – this is what we did and we wouldn’t recommend it, especially mid-summer. The walk to the park entrance alone is at least 3km each way depending on where you stay in Punta del Diablo, plus all the walking around the park itself. As a rough guide, we walked around 15 km and that included the firefighter giving us a lift!
As mentioned above, it is also possible to camp inside the national park.
When to go
Much of the wildlife is present in the park all year round, apart from the southern right whales which only visit July-November. The months with the best weather are November – April with lots of sun and temperatures of around 20-26°C. We would recommend visiting outside of peak Uruguayan and Argentinian holiday season (January), when the park is usually much quieter.
What else to do in the area
- Within the national park
- Fortaleza de Santa Teresa – an impressive fort within the national park, built in 17621.
- Wildlife reserve and aviary – where you can see a variety of birds, mammals and reptiles.
- Greenhouse and gardens with exotic tropical plant species.
- Laguna Negra – a 17,550 hectare lake around 5km from Santa Teresa National Park, and a good place for bird watching.