# Rocha by bike

The busiest touring route in the country, toward Brazil.

Original: https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/places/department-rocha

- [By long-distance bus](https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/plan/by-bus): The overland option that works, once you have made one phone call: whether the bike comes too depends on the company.
- [Coming from Brazil](https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/plan/from-brazil): The easy border, one street ridden across at Chuy, then the Route 9 corridor down through Rocha and the coast road south.
- [Rentals & guided tours](https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/community/operators): Five outfits, most based in Montevideo; between them, a half-day in the city, an e-bike rental or a multi-day run to the coast.
- [Who's cycled Uruguay](https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/community/who-cycled-uruguay): A hundred-odd first-hand rides across Uruguay, fifteen-plus nationalities, every entry linked to its source and screenshotted.
- [The Atlantic coast](https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/community/atlantic-coast): No route is ridden or written up more than Chuy to Montevideo: modest winds, some forty kilometres of dirt that riders remember.
- [Montevideo to Cabo Polonio: the Atlantic coast in stages](https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/routes/montevideo-cabo-polonio): 325 kilometres from Montevideo to Cabo Polonio in five flat, forgiving stages, ending at a car-free village in the dunes.
- [Uruguay's coastal lighthouses](https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/routes/coastal-lighthouses): Four of five lighthouses let you climb to the lamp room; spread over more than 250 kilometres, a coast to ride in stages.
- [Crossing the continent](https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/community/crossing-the-continent): One leg of a longer journey — how round-the-world riders saw Uruguay on their way through.
- [Montevideo](https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/community/montevideo): Close to a quarter of Uruguayans ride at least once a week, and the capital counts some seventy-seven kilometres of bike lane.
- [The interior](https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/community/the-interior): One project covered six thousand kilometres over three hundred and seventeen days and reached nineteen departments.
- [The west](https://pedaleando-uruguay.bike/community/the-west): For most riders from Argentina, Uruguay begins on a boat: ferries to Colonia and Carmelo, then Ruta 1 with its wide shoulder.

## About this section

Uruguay's Atlantic corridor — Montevideo to the Brazilian border through Rocha — is the busiest cycle-touring route in the country, and for riders coming south it starts at Chuy. Crossing is as simple as it gets: you ride straight through on the highway, where the migration post sits just outside town — Avenida Brasil is the line where the twin towns meet. From Montevideo it is about 326 kilometres by the direct road, and buses run from Tres Cruces to both Rocha and Chuy.

Two roads carry the route. Ruta 9 is the spine — some 220 kilometres between Punta del Este and the border — with the beach towns on spur roads toward the sea, not on the highway itself: La Paloma, La Pedrera, Punta del Diablo. Ruta 10 is the coastal alternative, hugging the shore with stretches still unpaved. This is remote riding by Uruguayan standards: shops can sit up to fifty kilometres apart on the Rocha stretch, cash counts for more than cards, and most of the coast runs on a summer season — from April to November much of the lodging closes. The year-round exception is the army-run campground at Santa Teresa, one of Uruguay's best-known, next to the 18th-century fortress.

Cabo Polonio plays by its own rules: a national park since 2009, no cars, no power grid or running water, and bikes are banned from the dune crossing — you leave yours at the Ruta 10 entrance, where there is covered parking, and continue on foot or in the 4×4 trucks. Summer stays mild here: along the southeast Atlantic coast — Rocha and Maldonado alike — the warmest month averages around 22 degrees. Each piece gets its own page: the full coast ride, the crossing from Brazil, and the community directory.