Wanderung 23

To the End of the World!

November - December 2010

Tuesday, December 7th, Montevideo, Uruguay

We started off the morning taking pictures of our slow, gradual approach to Montevideo in a narrow channel marked in the Rio Plata. Out in the river's mouth we saw some commercial ships at anchor, some freighters moving about, and even a "Tall Ship" with most of its square sails set on the yardarms. I would have liked to know what Tall Ship it was, but we were not close enough to discern the name on the stern.

From the river, Montivideo itself presented a rather unremarkable waterfront and city skyline. Although there was a low, cone-shaped hill just outside of the city, the shoreline of the city itself looked remarkably flat. One curious landmark was a set of 5 apartment buildings constructed in some kind of reddish brick or sandstone that stood evenly spaced along the ocean side of the city. From a distance those buildings looked rather like some kind of red teeth sticking up from the shoreline.

The older section of Montivideo is built on a peninsula between the Rio Plata's exit to the sea and a more sheltered bay where the container ship terminal and the cruise ship terminal are both located. That arrangement of city sandwiched between the ocean and a bay reminded me a bit of Cadiz, Spain, and I hoped that we would have an equally pleasant time walking around the older section of Montivideo as we had walking around historic Cadiz during Wanderung 17.

Using the map of Montivideo that we had been given by Holland America, I planned to first walk from the bay shore across the tip of the peninsula to the ocean shore, and then follow a shoreline boulevard lined with green space. We disembarked the Veendam around 9:00 a.m. and wandered across the tip of the peninsula just as I had planned. Despite the fact that the local time was 10:00 a.m., almost all the local stores and shops were closed except for a few food stores and I was puzzled by that as both the Veendam and the MSC Lyrica were tied up at the cruise ship dock and disgorging thousands of potential customers.

Following the ocean side boulevard, we had great views out over the Rio Plata where it enters the South Atlantic Ocean. We saw a few ships anchored just offshore, apparently awaiting cargo. As Chris had informed us in his port lecture, however, the Rio Plata carries a heavy load of silt down from the higher elevations and is therefore a muddy brown color. Although the day was warm and quite a few local folks were out visiting the small, stony beaches on that side of the peninsula, no one except a brave dog or two was actually going in the water. Many of the buildings we saw as we wandered around aimlessly were in some disrepair. That combined with the ubiquitous litter on the streets and alleys gave the non-tourist areas of Montivideo a somewhat down-at-the-heels look.

At the end of the green strip along the shorefront boulevard or "Rambla", we took a picture of an interesting statue in the Plaza Espana and then cut due North on Ciudadela to the Plaza Indepencia. Since we were both still feeling pretty fresh, we turned East and explored the clutter of shops and businesses located on both sides of the Avda 18 de Julio, from which I gather that the 18th of July is Uruguay's Independence Day. Certainly the Avda 18 de Julio was the major shopping district of the central part of the city. Along that busy avenue all the buildings were in perfect repair although quite a number of the shops in the tiny side malls were vacant. The shops on the main street were doing a roaring business, however, and the complete lack of litter on Avda 18 de Julio gave us the impression of a vibrant central district that contrasted with our impression of the older, more run-down residential areas.

We walked a kilometer or maybe a mile eastward on the Avda 18 de Julio past some pretty fountains and Monika's keen eyes espied the sign for an Internet station. The manager didn't speak English, but we found out that an hour of Internet access cost only 20 Uruguayan pesos, or about exactly $1 at the going 20 to 1 exchange rate. That sounded great but he wouldn't take US dollars, so we took a time out to visit the bank just down the street to withdraw some funds in the form of pesos to pay for our Internet time.

But you should always beware of getting what you ask for! Returning to the Internet spot, we sat down at a computer and had one of the most frustrating sessions that we have ever had on line. We are both old computer types, and the delays we encountered on our PC terminal were just like what we had 20 years ago when we used a 300 baud dial-up modem over a phone line to do remote work on computers. We encountered delays on processing each click of the mouse of 5-10 seconds and Monika could type entire lines of text and then sit and wait for 10-15 seconds for the letters to actually appear on the screen. Very frustrating! It was like a blast from the past, but in this case it was the Bad Old Days rather than the Halcyon Days of Yore! Still, we persevered to at least get an email out to our children that we were alive and kicking.

By the time we finished that chore, however, the day had turned quite warm, and we both have trouble walking long distances when the temperatures rise over 70 degrees Fahrenheit. We backtracked along the Avda 18 de Julio to the Plaza Independencia and then continued South-Southwest along a pedestrian zone that led to the Plaza Constitucion, a very nice, shady plaza with a pretty fountain in the center and quite a few sidewalk vendors of various arts and crafts. Snapping a picture of the exterior of the Cathedral Matriz, we started zig-zagging our way North and West back down to the ship. Along the way we found a grocery store where Monika found a big bottle of beer and I found pretzels! Woo-Hoo! Score! For those die-hard pretzel fans out there, in Uruguay the small twisted pretzels were called "pretzli" and the small preztel sticks were called "stickli" as I recall.

By the time we reached the Veendam we were overheated, tired, and hungry. After lunch in the Lido we had a dessert of beer, wine, and pretzels, and I further recovered by taking a short nap. That gave me the energy to try to do some shopping in the marketplace one block South and West of the cruise ship port, but first we both donned shorts to try to cope with the heat. That was, by the way, the first and only time we had worn shorts during the entire voyage!

But in the end I was glad we had taken the afternoon to go shopping. We walked to an indoor shopping mall with the grill-type food places that are unique to Urugay and some nice craft stores. I found a "Montevideo" memento pen with a piece of rosequartz set in its handle, and Monika found some leather goods at quite reasonable prices. She picked up a nice white leather hat, kind of in the shape of a beret, and I picked up a coin purse like I had purchased in Germany about 10 years back. We also picked up a wood thimble with a metal head that fit my finger so I could do some heavy-duty hand sewing when we got back home.

Loaded down with our purchases, we made our way back to the Veendam and started to stow it all in our luggage as we reluctantly began the task of packing up to return home. Getting everything out of all the nooks and crannies in our room took a surprisingly long time. We interrupted the task to go to dinner in dining room and were rewarded by a dessert of baked Alaska.

Skipping the evening show, we returned to the cabin to finish up our packing, but then Monika noticed that for the first time in our voyage it looked like we were going to have a pretty sunset out over the Rio Plata. So we grabbed the camera and zoomed up to Deck 12, the "Sports Deck" to run outside and quickly take some pictures before the sun sank below the horizon. I was glad Monika had seen the possibilities, because it turned out to be an absolutely spectacular sunset and a beautiful exclamation point to the end of our voyage. The sun was setting between thin layers of clouds out on the far horizon, with the result that not only did the sun reflect on the water, but it also illuminated the clouds in a vivid shade of reddish-orange and even shot sunbeams out toward our ship. Now that's something you don't see everyday!

But all too soon the sun sank below the horizon and nature's evening show was over. We returned to the cabin to complete our packing, which took a couple more hours (we both clutter a lot), and then put our bags out to be picked up during the night by the porters. Afterwards I tried valiantly to complete the journal entry for the day, but I was literally falling asleep over the keyboard and finally gave up and turned in for the night.

Copyright 2011 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Cruise around Cape Horn Epilog

November 2010
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30
December 2010
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31

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