In the land of sun, sand, and legends.

• Author: Bonilla, Oscar
• Position: Punta del Diablo, Uruguay

Yours is a unique frontier, Your Highness . . . Beyond that headland immense dunes rise on which sea gulls glide in languorous gyrations, in unutterable solitude. Facing the majestic wall of sand dunes, in what looks like a bay that to the south is enclosed by a rocky point, there are two gloomy-looking barren isles. The wind has carved a multitude of towers out of the grey rock and it blows through them, like through the battlements of an abandoned castle.

Maluco: La novela de los descubridores (Maluco: The Novel of the Discoverers) Napoleon Baccino Ponce de Leon

Thus a colonial navigator described what today is the coastline of the Uruguayan Department of Rocha, situated east of the country's capital city of Montevideo and stretching to the Brazilian border.

It is without a doubt a region rich in geographical contrasts. For centuries, mariners who sailed this part of the River Plate's delta have regarded the majestic sand dunes sloping down toward a desolate coast, the rocky isles, and razor-sharp ledges as extremely dangerous for navigation. It is no wonder that these shores are known as a ship graveyard: They have witnessed no fewer than two hundred well-documented shipwrecks, their treasures entombed in deepest mystery. All of this nourishes the local peoples' fantasies and shapes a mythology all of its own.

In this distinctive geography can be found everything from a forest of ombu trees, unique in the world, to wetlands that provide natural habitat for large numbers of birds, mammals, and a large variety of amphibians.

This is a harsh and rough land, inhabited by gauchos rooted in the sea and by fishermen rooted in the land, ever fighting to defend their identity. Frequented and traversed by the Indian in his never-ending migrations, it was discovered and later colonized by Spaniards and Lusitaneans, then coveted by explorers and privateers, and finally inhabited by settlers, shipwrecked mariners, and immigrants of diverse origins.

The dusty road branches off the main highway and leads to the sea, winding its way through dunes and native woodlands, up to Cerro de los Pescadores (Fishermen's Hill), then down a slope spattered with brownish huts whose monotonous colors are occasionally broken by a few gleaming whitewashed walls. The huge rocks of the point pierce the blue-green waters of the Atlantic, dividing the shoreline into two rustic beaches with a spattering of spectacularly multicolored fishing boats. The landscape that opens...