Vantage Point

Uruguay’s Punta del Este offers travelers South Beach-style sights and soundtracks

“If you want to get wild on the beach, the place to come is Punta del Este,” said actress Natalia Cigliuti in a 2001 Wild On E! episode showcasing Uruguay’s top destination.

That year, LeBron James played for the Fighting Irish, the first Harry Potter debuted in theaters and Shaggy topped the music charts (twice), while Punta del Este’s international draw was primarily from Buenos Aires and south Brazil. The crowds were wild and wealthy, but it was media outlets like E! that took the town global. A dozen years later, North American and European jetsetters join the Punta crowds for a party that’s sexier, ritzier and more exclusive than ever.

“It is a playground for rich and good-looking people,” says Tamie Sheffield, a world traveler who brokers tickets to select Playboy Mansion parties. “Punta was just for South Americans before, but now it’s worldwide. If you happen to be ‘in the know,’ the villa parties are absolutely insane.”

Punta del Este is a South Beach-style city that sits on a peninsula, but the designation typically refers to a stretch of coastline extending 20 miles northeast to Jose Ignacio. Along the way, La Barra is a Hamptons-meets-Ibiza town whose famed Bikini Beach overflows with perfectly bronzed Brazilian and Argentine women and self-important men trying desperately to meet them. DJs spin house music on the sand to provide a daytime soundtrack, and when the clock strikes midnight, meticulously groomed crowds flock to the local clubs. Punta’s fame clearly stems from its glitterati-packed nightlife and unfairly blessed bodies because the local beaches are solidly mediocre. Still, the scene goes bonkers from mid-December to early March, and to quote the Lonely Planet travel guide, “Tan it, wax it, buff it” before even considering a visit.

With an underwhelming beach, Punta sounds like a hotspot with a limited shelf life, but its enduring legacy is diverse and multi-generational. Brigitte Bardot, the Rat Pack and Che “Freakin‘” Guevara were all early fans, and more recent visitors include Bob Dylan, Madonna, Roberto De Niro, Simon Le Bon and Leonardo DiCaprio. Colombian singer Shakira rocks a ranch in Punta, and Naomi Campbell and Gisele Bundchen are rumored to have vacation homes. The travel press now calls it the “St. Tropez of South America,” though there are drawbacks to a crowd that admires Kim Kardashian more than Exene Cervenka.

Punta del Este, for some, sounds more hellish than shelling out $17 to see Schwarzenegger in The Last Stand. Rented sports cars, yacht-packed marinas and the $100-million Trump Tower construction all feel faker than that rug sitting atop ol‘ Donald’s dome. Still, CULTURE readers who disdain the “scene” may soon have another reason to visit. By the year’s end, Uruguay is likely to become the first country to legalize cannabis.

Uruguayan president Jose Mujica is the leading proponent for a new law that would allow citizens to purchase, possess and/or grow established legal amounts. The 77-year-old leader, who donates 90 percent of his salary to charity, believes that cannabis prohibition enriches organized crime, promotes violence and drains the state coffers, and the government launched a three-month public forum on April 4 to educate its citizens. Proactive ideas include a National Cannabis Institute that directs the income from sales into education and health.

The proposed law only applies to citizens, so Amsterdam-style “coffee shops” may not emerge, but it is a symbolic step for a continent weary of ineffective U.S. drug war tactics. In the meantime, cannabis is readily available in Punta del Este, and discreet smokers are typically left alone.