Montevideo, Uruguay - Wednesday, March 2, 2016

A lovely sunny day when we docked in the morning at Montevideo, Uruguay.  This port is ideal for a walk to the downtown.  We wanted to find one geocache here, as there are very few in South America.

Apparently there was a geocache here at the dock, but we could not find it

We quickly learned, by following the ship's crew, where to find the free internet.  We headed out towards Avida 18 de Julio to the Plaza Cagancha.  Here we would find the divide between the old town and the new town.

It is all south from here!

Apparently pot is legal here.

One of the many vendors 

Charming Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay, standing tall as a contemporary metropolis, hub of commerce and higher education.  This exciting port city is undoubtedly a cultural centre for the Uruguayan region, considering the fact that Montevideo constitutes half of Uruguay's population.

Perhaps one of Montevideo's most remarkable attributes is its notably eclectic architecture.  The city's diverse range of art deco and colonial style architecture clearly reflects its multicultural history, drawing on Portuguese, Spanish, British, French and Italian influences.  Chided Vieja, or Old City is home to some of Montevideo's most stunning colonial architecture and internationally recognized cathedrals, nightclubs, museums and theatres.

Local architecture

Love these doors

The wall between the old city and new city

A trip to Central America and South America is not complete until you see the Bimbo truck

We had a wonderful day walking the streets, looking in the shops, checking out the vendors and looking for a geocache.  Thankfully we did find one outside a restaurant in a rather shady area.  It was a quick stop.

Uruguay's specialty wine is Tannat.  We managed to find a small shop that sold lots of Argentinian wines as well, so we brought a couple of bottles  $6.50 for both.  This was our introduction of very cheap, great quality wines.  You do not find any Chilean wines in Argentina, or Argentinian wines in Chile.  This was a lovely little port town to spend a day.

Thursday was a day at sea with calm seas, warm temperatures and sunny skies.

Buenos Aires - March 1, 2016

After spending our first night on the Star Princess, we had a full day in Buenos Aires before we would set sail for Montevideo, Uruguay in the evening.  This was our first cruise with Princess and our first on a very large ship.  We were quite apprehensive because we love the smaller ships.  We were so glad we had booked a balcony and as the trip progressed, we enjoyed sitting on the balcony at the end of the day and witnessed many wonderful sunsets.

We booked a shore excursion for the day.  We headed out on the typical "cruise ship" tour busses ....  loaded with every shapes and forms of humans.  The tour started with a drive through the city to the Plaza de Mayo (scene of yesterdays geocache), but we were not able to see this area or get off the bus because all traffic was diverted because the new government was taking over.  This made the traffic absolutely horrible for most of our trip.

It was cool to drive through North Palerno, past the parks and see the "dog walkers" handling as many as 12 dogs on each hand.   Here the majestic old homes, referred to in W.E.B. Griffin's novels, have been converted to embassies.

The main focus for us today was La Recoleta Cemetery, located in an exclusive neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.  It is a city of 6,400 Neo classical, Neo gothic, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco mausoleums.  Included here is the black marble crypt of legendary Eva Peron.  We were fortunate to tour for an hour and were glad to have a guide as a person could get lost here.  Certainly makes New Orleans look tiny!

Eva Peron's Mausoleum

Entrance to the Duarte Family Mausoleum 

One of the many roads in the cemetery

Real estate in the cemetery is very expensive.  Families have been buried here for many generations.  Rents can be as much as apartment rentals, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.  When families discontinue payment, the remains are removed.

This family did not pay their rent.   Monty Python ....  "bring out your dead"

La Boca District is a  historic neighbourhood at the mouth of the Riachuelo River and has a strong European flavour, multi-coloured houses, vibrant street art scenes and a number of atmospheric tango cafes.  Unfortunately, it started to rain quite hard while we were there ...  but we did manage to shop.

La Boca District ....  rainy, but you get the idea how cool these shops and building were

La Boca District ....  these looked so real

The traffic was still extremely busy as we headed back to the ship, but it gave us lots of time to see the city.  Buenos Aires certainly would merit a return visit.

We boarded our ship once again and settled in for our cruise.  The compulsory lifeguard drill was interesting.  We have been to many and seen them done quite a few different ways, but this one had a unique ending.  We were shown how to hold our nose and jump into the water.  Trust me, there was no place on that ship we would have jumped into the water from.

It was nice to enjoy the sail out of the harbour at sunset, of course a nice glass of Argentinian Malbec helped.

Buenos Aires - February 29, 2016

We started our journey in Buenos Aires.  At the airport we were greeted by our hired car.  The driver wore a black suit, looked like a bouncer and drove a Peugeot.  He drove us to our hotel and we were glad to have a nap and a shower.  Dinner was recommended by the concierge, at La Chauvrasquite, a very typical restaurant and excellent.

The next day would be our day to board the ship, so had most of the day to explore downtown Buenos Aires.  Our hotel was within walking distance of most of the interesting historical buildings in the core of the city.  Buenos Aires has a population of 3,000,000 in the actual city and 13,000,000 in the greater metro area.

The city square is the Plaza de Mayo which contains the Casa Rosada which is the presidential mansion.  Today the military presence was intense, with the military setting up barricades, spray painting the manhole covers ... obviously setting up for something important.  When we got to the Plaza de Mayo, the heat was intense, with little shade.  We had a geocache to do there and happened to meet up with several other geocaches.  It was Feb 29th and we were able to take part in a "Leap Year" event.

We were also able to cross widest street in the world "Agenda 9 de Julio", with an imposing 16 lanes. It typically takes at least two traffic light rotations to cross.

We both have been reading a series by W.E.B. Griffin, which is a historical fictional series taking place in Buenos Aires during and after WW 2.  It is a wonderful history of this area and brings to life the places we visited.  It is also a great series.

Mid-afternoon we took a cab to the port and boarded our ship, Star Princess, for the start of our 31 day cruise "Around the Horn".

Our ship  "Star Princess"

The very busy Buenos Aires Harbour