Home»South America Day 17

We spent last evening (leaving Buenos Aires) playing cards and watching the thunderstorm outside with its forked lightning and heavy rain, and which abated once we were back at sea on our way to Montevideo, where we landed at 8 this morning.

The day was warm and cloudy with enough of a breeze to offset the humidity, and after breakfast we walked into the city.  It is so very different from Buenos Aires, but then Argentina is the second largest country in South America with a thriving economy, while Uruguay is the second smallest.  Montevideo seems to be showing signs of years of neglect, though some restoration work appears to be under way here and there.  Sadly, it seems to be a city where people no longer want to live, preferring instead beach-side suburbs along the nearby coast.

We wandered along a pedestrian street through the heart of the old city from one square to another (not nearly as green or as well maintained as in BA) complete with the requisite monument and managed to photograph some parakeets feeding on berries in the trees – so green they were almost invisible against the leaves.

One bright spot was a great cup of coffee – while Thea had a cappuccino, I ordered a café con crema, which I thought would be like the French café crème (black with a little foam) but which turned out to be a Spanish coffee (read whipped cream) without the booze.  Both our coffees were automatically accompanied by a small glass of orange juice, another of sparkling water, and a chocolate covered wafer with its own tiny cup of whipped cream all for just over $3 each.  Beat that Starbucks!

We had done enough walking by lunch time and headed back to the ship – just as well because that’s when the rain started, though now at 4.30 it’s over.

Went ashore just in the port to access the internet at a normal speed – which proved very fast indeed – and updated the blog as far as yesterday.

By the way the captain confirmed in his daily update that the winds we experienced earlier in the cruise were the worst he had ever encountered around South America.

This one I’ll post tomorrow and then with two days at sea there won’t be much to report until we’re in Paraty, where we should arrive late Monday afternoon after docking in Rio that morning.

Until then…

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