Just for the craic, yesterday I went to Montevideo, capital of Uruguay, on a day trip. It meant getting up at 5 am (the horror) but was totally worth it.
It’s about 2 hours on a fast ferry (the ferry is called Francisco after the Pope and was made in Hobart in Tasmania – I saw the place it was made! It’s so new you have to wear shoe protectors on it) across the Rio de la Plate from Buenos Aires and is a beautiful city, very South American ie lots of spanish style architecture, good bit of dereliction and tons of dog shit in the streets. Montevideo was terrible for it and there didn’t seem to be that many dogs. Buenos Aires has it’s fair share as well but testerday was very noticeable. There also seemed to be lots of hacking and spitting and people coughing their lungs up on the ferry. Apart from that was beautiful.
It was cold and wintery when I got there but the day improved. My experience of South American winters has been very good so far – about the same as an Irish summer. No joke! They laughed in school when I told them that the other day the temperature in Dublin was the same as in BA – 18 degrees though it’s winter here and summer in Dublin! At least I think that’s why they laughed – could have been my brutal Spanish…
I danced some tango while waiting for my lunch and had a medio y medio or two – a kind of sparking wine, half wine, half bubbles, very popular in Uruguay. I went to a museum about the founding of the country and couldn’t understand most of it but it seems Uruguay is independent (from Spain) for just over 200 years. And they have a super flag – blue and white stripes with a lovely smiley sun on it, just the kind I like so I bought loads of flag related shite. The sun represents a new nation of the world – it was new at the time I suppose.
I also met a lovely girl in the souvenir shop who worked for 5 years in Dublin and lived in Rathmines! She was amazed to have someone from Dublin walk into her shop. The people here are generally very friendly.
As Peter and Joseph are very knowledgable about WWII history they both mentioned a German warship, the Graf Spee, that had scuttled itself in the bay of Montevideo in 1939 rather than surrender (I think). So I looked it up and turns out most of the ship is still in the bay but they salvaged it’s anchor and rangefinder and have them on display in the ferry terminal, right beside where you get off the ferry. So I took some photos and it was nice to see a fragment of war history.
Montevideo is another place I never thought I would visit so it was another memorable day for me, even though it was such a flying visit. I didn’t really know what to expect and as usual I was pleasantly surprised. Once you get over your fear of being robbed or mugged in South America it’s actually a fantastic place!
