Gather no moss: adventures of P and P: Uruguay, a "vacation from your vacation"

I'm writing this from Cabo Polonia, a tiny beach town (<100 residents) without grid electricity or water, yet our hostel has WiFi for an hour each night! Can't seem to load the photos, will add them here tomorrow or day after. More on the beaches of eastern Uruguay later, we still have a few more nights as we make our way up the coast towards Brazil.

We've been in Uruguay almost a week now! Here's where we've been:

Colonia del Sacramento: small town (~2500 people) on the southwestern tip of Uruguay, across the bay from Buenos Aires. Founded by the Portuguese and traded back and forth with the Spanish multiple times. Old colonial fort and architecture, chief attractions are a lighthouse and 5 tiny museums (municipal, Spanish, Portuguese, naval, ...tile?) you can visit around the main square. Popular day trip from BA.

Estancia Galope: a horse ranch b&b! Owners Monica and Miguel pull out all the stops to provide a relaxing b&b experience on a backpacker-tolerable budget, offering "a vacation from your vacation". We had a fondue dinner (tradition of the region's Swiss founders), watched the milky way while taking cool-weather breaks from the sauna, and walked around the surrounding farms.

Montevideo: Uruguay's capital, surprisingly chill and low-key. We stayed by the main square in El Splendido, an old hotel with enormously high ceilings and a charmingly run-down style. We got the best room (the one they use for photos) overlooking the opera house.

We toured the opera house and two excellent museums. The Carnival Museum displays costumes from Uruguay's annual Carnival, the longest in the world at 80 days long.

We also saw a museum dedicated to the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team plane crash. Their plane went off course in bad weather and crashed high in the Andes, killing the crew and many passengers. Rescuers unsuccessfully searched the mountains for 10 days before calling off the search, presuming them dead. The survivors lived at the wreck for 2 months, braving avalanches, crafting cold weather clothing from the seat covers, scouting for a way out of the mountains, melting snow for water, and reluctantly resorting to cannibalism. Two survivors were able to hike out and after 10 days finally reached the outside world for help. On the 72nd day of their ordeal, the 15 remaining survivors were finally rescued.