24.1.11 and 25.1.11 Montevideo and Dresses 20, 21,22,23
24.1.11 we have had a couple of lovely relaxing days at sea the weather has been glorious and a bit cooler at 26C. David is wearing his new Jaeger Dinner suit and is drinking a Kangaroo which is an Aurora style vodka martini. I am wearing dress 20, which I believe (from the dry cleaning label) I have not worn for 4 years. There are thirteen formal nights before we get to Sydney and this was our fifth.
25.1.11 Montevideo, Uruguay and was first sighted in 1516 by the Spanish explorer Juan Diaz de Solis; I am very pleased it was he rather that the Portuguese, as we can at last get to use our Spanish. The population is about 3.4m and are mainly of European: Spanish and Italian extraction. Uruguay is a smallest country in South America; they have a very stable economy National Health Service, 8 hours working days and social services. Montevideo is easy to walk round and over half the country’s population live here.
Montevideo is situated on the Rio de Plata, the river plate, Plata is Spanish for silver and it was from this port silver and gold were taken to Spain pre 1800s’.
The river is very wide and more like a sea – 150 miles across to Buenos Aires. Montevideo is also famous for the battle of the River Plate in September 1939 when the graf spee –a German battleship – was scuttled by her captain in the harbour after it was severely damaged by the Brits. We saw the anchor and various parts of the ship which have been recovered the full story is quite sad.
As with Rio there are many old buildings in the port and old town area which either are being or will be restored, for us it was great to see the crumbling facades and then the bright restored ones.
Mate:
The Uruguay people drink something called mate which is like a herbal tea, this requires a special straw and bong so we now own one of these sets. I was invited to try before we bought but declined.
Tannat Wine:
We attended a wine lecture about Brazilian wines and learned of the Tannat grape variety and how a low tannin wine is produced, Uruguay also uses this grape so we bought some of the wine; dress 21 is the manager of the esencia Uruguay and her assistant. Dress 22 is the owner of Bombonier Lourdes we walked past her shop and it was like Spain all the brands of wine, chocolate and nougat we know so we went in to have a look, it appears she specialises in importing typically Spanish products, so we bought a bottle of the famous Tannat wine from Uruguay.
Dress 23 is the one that got away, Maria Eva was lovely and trying to sell us some antique crystal for way too much but she and her mama kept us talking about Venice and Murano glass and who could resist that smile.
Our time here included a restored steam train trip and tour of the main sights, it’s an interesting place and they reckon they invented the Tango, but I think the Portenos of Buenos Aires will not agree.
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