Wednesday 28th January, Montevideo, 22 degrees

An easy start to the day although we were a bit too easy mayhap and found ourselves late on parade somehow. We had to pass on walking to have breakfast and then get going to ensure we were on our bus before 8.00. Phew – this is supposed to be a holiday!! Today we have opted for a more thorough bus tour of the City and then a wine tasting and Argentine tango.

We had a different guide today and it was interesting to see how much the Montevideo story changed – in 24 hours!! I guess we will take all the ‘facts’ as near enough.

So a bit more information about Montevideo but not too much as we did a lot yesterday …

Tourism is taking over from other exports as the main contributor to the economy – Montevideo saw 190 cruise ships come into port last year.

Apparently, the River Plate is not a river but a delta, the third largest in the world and is only 5 metres deep. The promenade we walked along yesterday is known as the Rambla. Oil is imported from Africa, cars from Brazil. The biggest commercial partner to Uruguay is China

I now know that the independence hero on the horse in the main square is Artigas. He left the country for Paraguay and never returned because he was betrayed. He is still a hero in the eyes of the people of Uruguay and certainly has a big statue with his ashes underneath it,

A funny thing did happen in the square. Yesterday we solemnly took pictures of the ‘old gateway to the city’ commenting that it did not look like the old medieval or Roman walls in London. Only to learn that the photographs we had taken were the breeze block wall holding up the old gateway on the other side. School boy error. Anyway today we were able to take a photograph of the old gateway – the other side – and to be quite honest it did not look much different!!

Ho hum!

Today’s photo of the square with Artigas and the Art Nuevo Apartment block…….

We did see one new piece today which was amazing – a representation of the bullock carts which used to be the main means of transport.

The Pope John Paul came to Uruguay a few years ago and since then A cross and statue of him has gone up. It has gone up so quickly we wondered if the Pope brings his statues with him in kit form, so people can plant them immediately he leaves…. Apologies for the photograph it was taken from the bus.

We visited again the parliament building which we saw yesterday but today a wall painting was drawn to our attention of a famous Uruguayan novelist, Mario Benedetti. He looked fun!

We then left town to head to the vineyard or ‘winery’ as it is known here. Our route took us past an area of town we hadn’t seen before where the poorer people live. There are 50/60,000 families living in or around Montevideo below the poverty line. The families are often large and have 6 – 8 children. Children have to go to school to enable mothers to collect child allowance for them. Many of these people earn money by recycling refuse. Unemployment generally is a an issue for younger people in the City. The long carnival they have in Montevideo provides employment for some.

The vineyard is, like yesterday, run by a family dynasty. This family came from Italy and initially made wine for the church. In 1890 they started making wine commercially and there was a lot of evidence of old wine making equipment, The large outside brick built vats have been converted into accommodation to allow people to come and stay – very enterprising.

One of the first grape varieties they used was lambrusco grapes but these are now only used for grappa. They have also moved on from their historic approach which was for quantity rather than quality. Now quality is more important. The equipment has been substantially updated.

What was very different to the vines in Europe was the number of leaves left on the plants. We wondered whether that was an issue of the heat ie the leaves provide some level of shade to the grapes. Not sure. We did not get an answer to this vexing question.

The grapes are all picked by hand between February and April. It was a bit difficult to pin down the grape varieties but we think they are Cabernet franc, Merlot, Chardonnay and Tannat.

After a brief talk on the history of the place, we were led downstairs to a cool area with large wooden vats around the walls with signs indicating 27,000 litre and 12,000 litre sizes. There were several tables laid up for a meal but I have to admit we were a little bit thrown by being confronted with food so early – it was about 11.20. However, like good children we tucked into what turned out to be our first course of lunch (!) of meats and cheeses, olives and nuts. Next came cooked meat – chicken, beef, pork and sausage, fried potatoes and salad – and wine!!

A bit early but hey ho. We were sharing a table with Lynn (ukulele Lynn) and her husband David and another couple who were initially a bit frosty but thawed out after a few glasses of wine …..

We were even more amazed when, after our first glass of wine, came tango dancers onto the floor. Goodness gracious – it was a lot to take in before noon! However, we rose to the occasion manfully (that is man embracing woman) and duly watched and clapped at the right places.

The imbibing interspersed with tango demonstrations and eating took up another hour or so. I think we both liked the white and rose wines best, so made a couple of purchases, deftly avoided the dancers standing at the door waving dollar notes (we must remember to bring cash out with us) and left for the return to the ship. We were back at on board at 2.30 having snoozed our way home. Not a bad way to spend a morning.

We will of course be practising some of those moves and steps in the privacy of our cabin over the next few weeks……

We decided to go upstairs and catch up on our circuits and watch the Aurora leave Montevideo. Looking at the map, we had not appreciated how close Montevideo is to Buenos Aires, It is just over the border into Argentina.

It was a lovely evening as the tug pulled the ship round to go out of the harbour. I had not appreciated until today’s outing why there were so many Maersk containers piled up on the dock but it would appear that Belgium is part funding the container terminal and Maersk is a Belgian shipping line…… that makes sense now.

We were also given a closer view of the ship graveyard on the way out – there are certainly a lot of ships in various stages of disrepair languishing there. I suspect someone loved them once when they were new and shiny.

We also got a glimpse of one of the few hills in Uruguay and the one that put the ‘Monte’ in Monteverdi – there are various theories about the ‘Verdi’ bit.

We certainly did not need a meal after our early but filling repast at the winery, so it was a quick snack where we usually have lunch and then free time until bed time. All in all a good day.

We now have two days at sea before reaching the Falklands.