Montevideo overnight

Our group, Yanella, our tour guide is in the front, wearing a black suit.

Yanella providing us so much good information on the tour.

The first day in Montevideo we walked and walked for miles. We were in search of scissors so I could cut Jerry’s hair and we found a pair for only $5 in a one room sort of department store. We walked to all of the sights in the section called the Old City, taking photos as we went. (I haven’t tried to upload a photo yet because I think it could use up too many of my minutes, but maybe soon I will try.) I tried on a magnificent multi-toned leather jacket, with the designer right there in the shop. But, I remembered where I live and the small number of days when I would be able to actually wear a leather jacket. We phoned home and talked to our kids – if you didn’t talk to us, you weren’t home and we didn’t use minutes talking to the answering machine.

As we were heading to the telephone place, we were stopped by a fellow passenger returning from a private tour of the city. He had such a wonderful time he wanted to share the tour guide’s name with someone who might be able to take a tour the next day. Since we were in port overnight and had until 2 pm the next day, we were definitely interested. Later we returned to the phone place to call the guide, but neither we nor the attendant working at the phone place could get the number to work. So we walked outside and saw a maroon van which was the color of the recommended guide’s van. I said “Hey, you never know” and asked the woman in the van if her name was Shanela – of course, it was! So we arranged to have the tour the next morning and set about getting another 8 people to share the $150 expense with us. Next morning we met our group of 7 plus us (close enough) and set off on a marvelous tour which took over 3 hours, which passed like a flash. Shanela was great, bubbly personality, knowledgeable. Best of all she had lived for 8 years in New Jersey so she not only spoke excellent English, she also understood we wanted just enough history to understand the significance of what we were seeing, but not a lesson in Uruguayan history.



The city looks very European, part old and part modern. We felt safe, but there was a strong presence of police wearing yellow straps (like Safety patrol) which said Policia Turistica. I guess they were there in large numbers because there was a ship in port. We walked through a huge restaurant near the port renowned for barbeque. For a few minutes I considered eating some. The beef, chicken, sausage, pork were cooked on huge racks over wood fires, creating a fabulous odor that made my mouth water. We walked to all of the squares and photographed monuments and statues, the original gate to the city, the oldest building, their statue of liberty, monuments to gauchos who are very important in their culture. What a great city it is.

The port of Montevideo is on a river over 2 hours from the ocean, so at 2 pm we set sail again and enjoyed the slow cruise down the river to the sea.

We have seen the waterspouts of a pod of whales swimming by, as well as a few of their backs just breaking the surface of the water and the smallest glimpse of a tail fin. We saw albatross this morning in large numbers. And I left the Grand Lounge comedy performance early to see the sunset because I had a feeling I would see the green flash again. There were no clouds on the horizon at first, but then there were a few. I said “no, no, no” and blew a puff of air – which worked ;) and the clouds vanished. I was watching the reflection in a mirror so I could see when the sun was nearly gone without hurting my eyes looking directly at it. Just before the sun dropped out of sight, I turned to the window and there for an instant was the phosphorescent lime green splash of color – my third sighting of the green flash and all from ships at sea. (Google green flash because it is a really interesting optical phenomenon.)