Cruise Day 2: Montevideo, Uruguay

NOTE:  We're now in Valparaiso, Chile.  But I have about 15 or so blogs from our cruise, so I'm going to post these a few per day, in chronological order.  I'll try to remember to add this note so that people know to go back a few days. 

2 February 2020

We’re currently on a cruise, and have just pulled out of the port of Montevideo, Uruguay.  Montevideo is practically right across the Rio Plata from Buenos Aires, and it’s only a several hour trip by the local boat.  But cruises are about slower travel and full days in port, so our ship left Buenos Aires yesterday evening, and “arrived” in Montevideo this morning.

I opted to just wander around the city a bit, making in a slow Sunday visit.  Montevideo is an interesting city, built with architecture similar to Buenos Aires, but the old city isn’t kept up as well.  So the gorgeous old buildings with ornate balconies and decorative trim are beginning to be a bit run down, while the former businesses in this area have moved to brand new shiny high rises in the newer section of the city. 

But the old city is in walking distance of the port and docks, so that was where I wandered.  Many cruise ship guests were on tours or the hop-on-hop-off buses, so town wasn’t too terribly crowded.

I know I haven’t talked much about the history of Argentina, but most of North, South, Central, Meso, and Caribbean Americas have the same sort of history:  indigenous people once lived there.  Europeans explorers-conquistadors-colonists came somewhere in the 15^th-16^th centuries and killed off some of the indigenous peoples, took the land and natural resources, and established colonies in the name of their monarchs.  Wars back and forth, wars with the indigenous populations, land grabs and land trades and eventually treaties – and at some point, the national borders were drawn and the countries eventually gained independence.  In the Caribbean, there are a number of islands that are considered territories of various other nations, but for the most part the former colonies are all separate nations.

So, Uruguay speaks Spanish the way people do in Argentina.  The flags both feature a sun that looks vaguely like a compass rose, with light blue stripes.  And people seem to visit back and forth, very easily.

But Uruguay is a very small country, among the smallest in South America, and it’s sort of squished between Brazil to the north and Argentina to the west and south across the river.  Uruguay almost looks like an afterthought.

Not that I want to give this country a complex.  They have beautiful beaches and a relaxed vibe.  It’s a nice little country.

Uruguay and Argentina also share a penchant for alfajores.  This is a sweet treat, and alfajores (plural of alfajore) is pronounced al-fah-HOR-esz.  Alfajores are made with two plain cookies, sometimes chocolate and sometimes vanilla.  Then dulce de leche is sandwiched between the two cookies.  Usually, the whole thing is dipped in either white or dark chocolate, but sometimes it’s left uncovered.  There are artisanal alfajores shops all around, and every supermarket to mini mart sells a variety of alfajores.  Because everyone has their personal preference.  Not being a big fan of alfajores, I prefer the chocolate cookie with dark chocolate couverture, and then I put the alfajore in the freezer.  Yup, freeze that dulce de leche nice and solid, so it turns into more of a solid caramel consistency.  They actually are pretty tasty this way.  I’ve tried alfajores straight from the store, and the dulce de leche tends to be too soft for my taste.

This particular alfajore shop had great paintings outside, though, so I had to take a couple of photos.

I wandered up and down the pedestrian street, which seems to feature artisans markets and eateries.  As always, I found interesting buildings with beautiful doors, or maybe stark white houses with vibrant bougainvillea growing outside. 

One thing I noticed, and of course had to photograph, were the mini mosaics filling in for missing sidewalk tiles.  They weren’t pictorial or anything – more like mini random works of abstract art, where scrap tile was used to fill in the space where a larger concrete tile broke or came out.  I suspect these started out as mostly utilitarian, to prevent falls and lawsuits, or maybe to keep mosquitoes from breeding in puddles that would form in the space.  But they’ve become little pieces of art, and I thought they were just lovely.

There was also an interesting café that was quite crowded, and seemed very popular.  I didn’t eat there, but they had a hallway covered in colorful flyers or notices.  The English and Spanish don’t necessarily make sense, but all together they make an interesting sort of wall of urban art.  It was just a fun kind of wall, and I spent a few minutes reading the signs, and ended up taking a couple of photos.

I started finding tile walls that matched the scrap tile in the sidewalk, so of course had to immortalize that too.

There was a lovely fruit market, complete with ropes of garlic, hanging peppers, a few flags, and crates of fruit, all creating their own little mosaic on the sidewalk.

There were a couple of murals I encountered.  The first was next to an apartment building, and I’m not sure what it means.  The woman is covered in fruits and vegs.  Is she Primavera?  Springtime?  Maybe Mother Earth, with all of the produce?  Or is she promoting eating more healthy foods?  Maybe becoming vegan?  I have no idea, but it was an interesting mural, especially against that blue blue sky. 

The second mural was also interesting – one young woman’s face was superimposed over a series of young women who had linking arms, but their faces weren’t included.  They were obviously nameless and faceless, and the whole thing was painted in muted colors with sort of grey overtones.  It made me really curious, so after taking several photos I started walking down the street but found a woman walking toward me, in an apron, so I asked if she was from Montevideo.  Si, yes, she was.  So I asked if she knew the mural at the corner.  Yes, she did.  And I asked what was the mural about, with all these young women.  Sadly, the answer was that they represent the young women who have been killed, who have been murdered.  This mural is their memorial.  I didn’t know if there was a specific incident, if murder of women is on the rise, or exactly what happened that inspired this mural – my Spanish isn’t that good, and this woman was in the middle of her work day.  But it kind of makes sense that they would be nameless and faceless, because as we know around the world, too many women are murdered, and these women could be anybody.  They could be any of us.  They could be ALL of us.  So yes, this was a sad and sobering mural. 

After that mural, I needed cheering up.  I found a woman walking down up the street holding a tiny orange striped kitten, and I asked about him.  In our combined Spanglish, I learned that yes, he was a boy cat, she found him three days ago, and his name was Tony.  So I pet little Tony on his head, and he nuzzled into my hand, and the world didn’t seem quite as bleak as the mural felt.

That was about it.  I chatted with a few people on the street, and eventually made my way back to the ship.  It was a warm day, and I try to avoid buying more plastic water bottles constantly – so I made sure to come back to the ship for lunch and lots of cold water.  I know, on St. Thomas we used to laugh about the cruise ship tourists who had to get back to their ships for lunch.  But, ah well.  Now I understand.  Though my excuse, should anyone ask, is that our time to be back on board was 3 PM, so I didn’t want to miss that.

We’re now heading out the Rio Plata, and will head southward.  The captain said the seas are fairly calm, so it should be a nice day at sea until our next port.