for you, walking the rambla towards the peninsula as the sun starts to drop

La Mansa,
cuando se va el sol

A story told in your ear while you walk: it moves with your steps, and if you stop, it waits.

Half an hour along the rambla with Vashi, a lifeguard on this beach for forty seasons. He doesn't count blocks, he counts markers: he walks all seven every evening, counting down to one, and swears it isn't for the sunset. At marker one, with the sun touching the water, he tells you what it is for.

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1.5 km · half an hour · starts at marker 7

no app · no group · your own pace · works without internet · ticket $U 199 ≈ US$ 5

How it works

  1. Uno.

    Put your headphones on.

    It all happens in the browser, nothing to install. It streams online, and if you want to walk without signal you download it to your phone before setting out.

  2. Dos.

    Set out 35 minutes before sunset.

    It is the only appointment this walk has: the last stop is written for the moment the sun touches the water. The exact hour shifts month by month, and it is in when to go to Punta del Este.

  3. Tres.

    Start at marker 7 and walk towards the peninsula.

    Vashi talks you from marker to marker, the water always on your right. Stop to look and he waits.

The way

Seven markers along the Williman rambla, counting down: from the parador that stays open all twelve months to where the rambla ends and the peninsula begins. Flat the whole way, right by the water, 1.5 km.

  • Marker 7. The tin sign with a number seven on it, in the grass. This is where Vashi starts counting down.
  • The pines and the school. The pines were pushed into bare sand by hand; behind the towers live the people who stay all twelve months.
  • The parador at five. Open all year, named after the lifeguard post that was his.
  • The Enjoy. The glass tower on the sand that split his forty seasons into two halves.
  • La Pastora pier. A hundred and fifty metres of timber, assembled underwater in fifty-one.
  • Marker 1. The end, with the sun on the water, the count closed and the peninsula right there.

How it sounds

There is no crash here, that is the whole of it. This water doesn't hit the shore, it licks it, and that is why the road is called a rambla and not an avenue. The loudest thing here is the cars, then the wind, then the children. The water comes last on that list. For forty years I worked with my ears as much as my eyes, and this one there is nothing to hear. In forty seasons I never heard a single shout from here. Not one. What you can't hear, you don't fear.

- Vashi

What to know

  • Starts at marker 7 on the Williman rambla and ends at marker 1, facing the water.
  • 1.5 km along the calm side, flat the whole way, half an hour at an easy pace.
  • Set out 35 minutes before sunset: the ending is written for that hour.
  • Open headphones are better: the sounds of the rambla are part of the walk.
  • The ticket is a link to the player: one ticket, one phone.
  • The walk streams online; if you want to walk without signal, download it before you leave and the voice, the map and the way stay on your phone.
  • The end is two hundred metres from where the peninsula begins: La Mano, Gorlero and the port are right there, and you never walk back the way you came.

A guided tour with a guide and a group starts at US$ 50. Here the guide is in your headphones, and the walk is yours: your pace, your hour.

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