Historical/Background Info:
I believe Uruguay to be the safest and most stable country, politically, in all of South America. Uruguay has a total population of only 3.5 millions people and 1.5 million of them live in the capital city, Montevideo. We will be there tomorrow. There are 12 million head of cattle and 9 million sheep in Uruguay. It is a flat country with rich farm land and two extremely HUGE aquifers. The Guanani Aquifer lies beneath all of Uruguay and parts of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. This underground water could supply the world with fresh water for 200 years!! Uruguay also raises and exports a lot of soybeans, wheat, and some rice. Punta del Este lies on the southeastern coast of Uruguay just 87 miles from Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. It has become a resort town due to its beautiful beaches and moderate climate and is known as “The St Tropaz of South American“. The 19 sq mile municipality of Punta del Este has a population of 15,000 but this number increases to over 150,000 during the summer months when Argentines, Brazilians, and Europeans come here to enjoy the beaches. Many of them now have permanent residences here. There is a contrast of old colonial buildings with new developments of very expensive homes and condos for the rich and famous. The downtown street along the beaches is lined with numerous restaurants and night clubs. There is also a very nice casino. I guess what I am trying to say is, Punta del Este is not your typical South American city. It would be my first choice of places to live if I ever wanted to move out of the United States.
What We Did Today:
My ttour, "Highlights of Punta del Este" was to be 3 1/2 hours and left the ship at 9:00 am. We anchored today as there is no dock for ships here. It was a 20 minute tender ride to the pier. Punta del Este has countless beaches making it a vacation resort area for Argentines, Brazilians, and people from all over the world. There are hundreds of very nice, modern high rise condo buildings lining the beach areas. We drove through the residential areas with some VERY beautiful homes owned by the rich and famous. These homes are very expensive and quite large. There are quite a few retired Americans living down here now. There were no slum areas in Punta del Este. We stopped at the Ralli Museum with paintings and sculptures by many Latin America artists. There was a court yard full of Salvador Dali sculptures. After this stop we went back down town and stopped for 1 1/2 hours of free time to walk around, shop, or have a coffee or lunch. The guide said it was a 20 minute walk back to the pier so I said goodbye to him and walked back. I was back on board by 12:30.
We were very impressed with Punta del Este back in 2012 and I am even more impressed now. It is a place I would not mind living permanently. Today's weather could not be nicer. Beautiful, crystal clear, blue, sunny skies with little humidity and a pleasant temperature of 80F. Our guide said they had lots of thunderstorms yesterday so we lucked out for a change. We will be stopping here again next Tuesday.
Here is the link to today's photos. Click on link below. When open click on the first photo to enlarge it then arrow through the album.
https://goo.gl/photos/zb2ZVz35fSeZpXB57
At lunch the Captain was sitting at the table next to us in La Veranda so I asked him if the divers found out what our propulsion problem was. He said they took photos of what appears to be nets. Said they are evaluating the photos and coming up with course of action. If I read his body language and tone correctly, I am even more concerned now that his cruise may be in for a big change. Hope I am wrong. Well, sitting with him was a female. She is the new Captain that is replacing him tomorrow in Montevideo. This is her first assignment as Captain as she was recently promoted from Staff Captain.
This afternoon I am working on this blog and Rebecca is napping. I may go out and sit on balcony soon. This evening was to be the barbeque dinner up on pool deck. The last one was rained out. The weather today is perfect for it but due to the gastro-intestional problem it is cancelled. We got a letter today saying that they would be doing a "deep cleaning" of the ship on Sunday morning from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm. It is the end of the second segment so many passenger will be leaving the ship anyway. If we do not go on a tour or go see Buenos Aires on our own that morning, we will have to go sit in the Horizon Lounge during the cleaning. Bummer!
Usual cocktails and dinner in Compass Rose tonight. The chef is supposed to making us some French onion soup. Will definitely go to tonight's show. It features a couple from Argentina doing some traditional Gaucho things. I believe we may have seen them in 2012. If so, the show will be very good.
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