Captain and Heloísa made one of their dreams come true after 30 years. They finally visited Cabo Polonio, a mystic village with less than 100 inhabitants located at the Uruguayan coast.

To get there, we rode a 4WD around the surrounding dunes. The view from the top of the vehicle already announced we were going to a special place.

Cabo Polonio has approximately 50 to 90 inhabitants, but during summer it hosts up to 2.000 people a day! The houses are simple and almost all of them have no electricity. Some are equipped with small generators and solar panels.

Until the 1990s, the main activities in the city we fishing and manatee hunting. According to locals, such practice was forbidden only after Brigitte Bardot wrote a letter to the president of Uruguay.

The city developed around a lighthouse built in 1881 to guide ships on a difficult part of the sea. There are more than 100 shipwrecks registered in the region.

In the afternoon, we climbed the 132 steps up to the top of the lighthouse, accompanied by Dany – a former lighthouse keeper and chef – and Leonardo – the current keeper. It was fascinating to listen to them tell us the stories about “Faro del Cabo”.

Songwriter Jorge Drexler was inspired by the lighthouse to write the song “12 segundos de obscuridad” (12 seconds of darkness) – 12 seconds is the time the lantern takes to go on a complete turn.

“Un faro quieto nada seria
guía, mientras no deja de girar
no es la luz lo que importa en verdad
son los 12 segundos de oscuridad”

“A quiet lighthouse would be useless / It guides while it keeps spinning / In fact, it is not the light that matters / But the 12 seconds of darkness”

At night, Leonardo invited us to turn on the light on the lighthouse. It was very touching to see the sun set and also the lighthouse on the inside, a magical moment that only Cabo Polonio could offer us.

We thank the Dirección de Turismo de Rocha, coordinator Oscal Iroldi and Bettina Moreira; Marcos Machado and Claudia, from Mariemar Inn, Daniel Machado, from the restaurant Lo de Dany; and Leonardo da Costa, lighthouse keeper at Faro de Cabo Polonio of the National Fleet.