Day 16. We arise while the ship is pulling into our last port; Montevideo, Uruguay. Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay. It is a city very rich in history. The Spanish settled Montevideo as a first measure to combat the Portuguese expansion of Brazil. Nobody at that time was interested in moving here though, so they were offered both cattle and land to begin the settlement. Among the first settlers were families from Spain’s Canary Islands. There is no tender to take today as the ship is pulling straight up to a dock. We take our time getting up and out. When we get off the ship we realize what a tight spot the captain had to pull the ship into. Nice work Trym Selvig! We are handed a city walking map by someone standing on the dock and it looks almost identical to the one Todd found online and printed. Our plan today is to take a walking tour of the city just like we did in Santiago. Immediately after clearing the dock we see this sign. This will be super easy.

A brief rundown of some of the things along the walk are: The Plaza Zabala… The Plaza Constitucion where we bought our Montevideo Souvenirs… With a man collecting goodies from the garbage cans and loading them on his horse drawn trailer... The Solis Theater, which used to be the nations opera house and now is a museum… The Casa de Gobiemo, or the Governor’s house…The Plaza Independencia… And the country’s major bank building (which is enormous by the way!).We saw some very cool samples of architecture: But, for the most part, we found a LOT of buildings just falling apart and neglected:We agreed that the city is in need of 3 things in a major way: Paint or color, plants, and refurbishing of buildings. From our balcony upon returning to the ship we look out over the city and Denise comments that the city looks almost identical to what her mind’s eye envisions Beirut to look like.

Of all the places we’ve been to so far, this is our least favorite. Having said that, we must also say that the people of Uruguay are still #1 in our book. We would love to retire to Uruguay someday; but somewhere on the beaches of the country would be more our style.
Carlos and Aura come to the dining room to say goodbye to us. They are not staying for dinner, they are only there to exchange contact information and collect goodbye hugs and kisses. We are very fortunate to have had the pleasure of their company this trip and we all four agree that we hope the friendship continues beyond this one meeting. The wait staff and kitchen staff all sing us a goodbye song.And we take a picture of Vern and Marilyn for both remembrance and to send back to them. This is them with their “new best friend” with the alchohol. Todd is really not as bored as he appears in this picture, he just doesn’t realize that he’s in the frame. And it just wouldn’t be right not to acknowledge the men who kept us fat and happy every night. This is our assistant waiter Francisco (on the left) from Mexico, and our head waiter Alonso (right) from Peru.

Muchas gracias amigos! We skip the evenings headliner show because we have to get our bags packed and outside our door by 9:00pm. After finishing the packing we sit on the balcony for one last evening. We watch the sun set as we enter the channel entering the port of Buenos Aires.
It’s a long slow cruise between a series of these floating beacons thorugh very muddy waters. We are no longer on the Atlantic technically; we are floating on the waters of the Rio de la Plata, or the Plate River. It is exceptionally gross and filthy looking. It’s just silt, but YUK! We are off to sleep at a reasonable time because we arrive in Buenos Aires early tomorrow and want to begin the next leg of our adventure with fresh bodies.