I was extremely excited about our trip to the Falklands. I was not particularly excited about returning to Montevideo. John and I had been here some years ago when we were doing an Easter Week trip to Buenos Aires and Punta del Este. I remembered Montevideo, particularly the center of the city, as being rather rundown and dangerous in spots. And I need go no further than downtown Los Angeles for that kind of experience! But I did not want to spend the day on the boat, so I looked online for things that seemed more interesting than the excursions that the Norwegian Sun offered. I came across a company that offered bike tours in English, and it looked like the route was pretty flat and easy. John was a little noncommittal about going, so I put off making a reservation. But two days ago, after we left Stanley, I finally sent off a request for a spot for two people. The woman who replied, giving her names as Professor Alicia Barbita, told me that there were two spots available, but only for the Spanish-speaking tour. I figured my Spanish is usually good enough for these kinds of things, so I agreed to it.
It took a bit of searching, but we finally found our guides outside the port area. Our fellow guests again were all Mexican. There was a family with several small children, and there was a large man in his late forties with two enormous sons both in their twenties. I figured between the children and the fat boys we would not be going all that fast. And I was right! Our guides, a girl about 25 and a boy about 18, walked us up to where we were to get our bikes. While I can say nothing bad about our guides, I can also say nothing good about the bikes. I think if most of these bikes had been left unlocked on a street in Los Angeles, nobody would bother to steal them, even for scrap. And mine was absolutely the worst.
Nevertheless, it took quite a bit of time to get everybody fitted to a bicycle, no matter how bad they were, and to find helmets for the children. As I waited, I looked around. Montevideo still looked pretty shabby overall,
but I could tell that they were attempting to slowly do some restoration. At least some Uruguayan hipsters had started to move downtown.
As I said, it was a Spanish-speaking tour, but our guides did speak some English and would usually give us the short version in English of what they had told the Mexicans in Spanish. I learned a bit more about the history of Montevideo. This is not a particularly old city. It was only towards the middle of the eighteenth century as Spain and Portugal began to contest their borders and particularly the control of the Rio de la Plata, that the Spanish decided to establish a settlement here. The Portuguese had already placed one a little further up the river, almost across the river from Buenos Aires, called Colonia de Sacramento. Colonia, by the way, is a truly charming place, and may have been the highlight of our previous visit to Uruguay. The Spanish did choose a strategic spot, a point with a good view of the entire estuary, and they placed both a city and a large fort there. I later found this map in the the local history museum.
You can see all the characteristics of a city as mandated in the Leyes de Indias, the mandated model for all Spanish cities in the New World. There is a central square, the Plaza de Armas. On one side of it is the cathedral, always facing west, as the church required, always the most imposing building in the city. On the other side of the plaza is the colonial or municipal government building, always the second grandest building in the city. From the plaza, streets run east and west, north and south, in a perfect grid. Formidable walls surround the city, at least on land, and there is a military base to protect the city from enemies without and sometimes within.
Today the Plaza de Armas is no longer suitable for mustering and training soldiers. Instead, there is a lovely nineteenth-century fountain in the middle.
The cathedral is nearly hidden among all the foliage.
It is basically a neo-classical structure.
The interior is pretty ho-hum by Latin American standards.
Back on the square, a statue of Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, the city’s founder, stands proudly on horseback.
The American craze for tearing down statues of dead white men, particularly if they are vaguely military or otherwise patriarchal, seems to have not yet arrived in Latin America.
We had quite a while to wander around here. One of the things we noticed before in Montevideo is that people love to set up tables in public spaces and sell stuff. The goods displayed range from minor antiques to complete and absolute junk. And there is far more of the latter than the former. The last time we were here one table had quite a collection of severed Barbie doll legs as if somehow Ken had turned into Hannibal Lector. There was nothing that memorable today.
Oddly, I never really saw anybody buying anything and the vendors are as unaggressive as possible. I almost feel like setting up a table is a more a way to meet people than a meaningful income stream.
From the old plaza, we went to a new one. This square is located where the old fort used to be. The main gate of that fortress was preserved.
The rest of the square is dominated by an even grander equestrian statue, that of José Gervasio Artigas.
Artigas was credited with preventing Uruguay from be divided up among its neighbors, and so in a way he is the father of the country. Underneath the statue there is a crypt with his remains.
Two ceremonial guards stand on either side.
The area around Plaza Artigas is lined with office buildings old and new.
The Palacio Salvo is one of the most iconic buildings in Montevideo. It was once the tallest building in South America and it is still the tallest in Montevideo. It once contained a hotel and in the basement there was a theater where Josephine Baker and many other celebrities of the era performed. Today the Palacio is mostly used as office space.
After our stop here, the tour continued on towards the shore. One of the nice things about Montevideo is that it has open shoreline from one end of the city to another. It rather resembles Chicago in this way. And just as Chicago has Lake Shore Drive, so Montevideo has its “Ramblas.” Again like Chicago, some of this area is well-developed parkland while other parts are just stretches of grass between the road and the water.
We stopped at some of the more interesting sections. One was an outdoor physical fitness area.
Along the way, we saw the Embassy of the United States of America. There was something inexpressibly depressing about seeing our country’s offices here surrounded by high walls and razor wire. I understand, particularly in the aftermath of the attack on the embassies in places like Nairobi the need to keep State Department workers safe, but when this is the image presented of freedom and an open society, well, somehow you can understand how cynically foreigners can view American claims.
We continued along the way until we came to a point with a historic lighthouse on the end of it.
Although the lighthouse was handsome enough, the rest of the area surrounding it was mostly a kind of parking lot. Nevertheless, we stayed here for a bit to get a view of the city.
The color in this picture is intentionally quite accurate. The Rio de la Plata, like the Mississippi, is a big muddy looking stream and even here in Montevideo, where the water is mostly salty, there is a slight brownish tinge to the water. I think one of the reasons Punta del Este became the big resort area, besides the bigger, sandier beaches, is that open to the Atlantic, the water there is clear and blue. The kids were ready to take a break here.
and so was John.
From here we continued back mostly the way we came along the Ramblas. We had not gone long, however, when the kids apparently demanded something to eat and we stopped at a convenience store attached to a gas station. This messed up the schedule and that annoyed one of our guides though she did the best she could to keep smiling. The younger guide, the boy, took a couple of us over to see the nearby Holocaust Memorial. This was designed to look fairly bleak, although with perhaps inadequate maintenance it looked even worse than it should have.
There were some plaques with inscriptions such as this one from Maimonides, the medieval Jewish philosopher.
While this may not be one of the most moving Holocaust memorials I have seen, it is interesting enough the Uruguay has one. Its nearest neighbors, Paraguay and Argentina, were both notorious for their Nazi sympathies before, during, and after the war. Uruguayans proudly tell you that theirs was the first country in the world to give diplomatic recognition to the new State of Israel in 1948.
We finally got moving again, even though one of the large Mexican boys kept having problems with the chain falling off his bike.
We passed by the headquarters of MercoSur, one of the two open trading blocks in South America.
Going back into the city we passed by some restored buildings like this cafe with its wonderful tile facade.
I think at some point in the future, Montevideo will have an utterly charming historic center. It is not there yet, but the heritage of great late nineteenth and early twentieth century architecture is there.
Around two o’clock we finally ditched our crummy bikes and said our thank you's to our tour guides. We still had a couple hours more before we had to be back on the boat. We went in search of the cafe shown above, but never managed to find it. We did find an open restaurant with high marks on TripAdvisor and we had an outstanding meal there, probably the best meal of the trip. I should have taken note of the name of the place in case any of you, gentle readers, find your way to Uruguay some time soon.
On our way back to the ship, we passed by the Plaza de Armas and went into the old colonial administration building, now the museum of the city of Montevideo. They proudly showed us the room where the original constitution of the country was signed.
Like other countries in South America, Uruguay has had its problem with authoritarian governments. But it is probably one of the most stable and open societies on the continent. Uruguayans are also proud to tell you that theirs was the first country in the southern hemisphere to adopt same-sex marriage.
Despite the fact that the city is relatively compact, we had some problems getting back to the ship and we walked more than John should have walked. We saw a couple interesting things along the way like a remnant of the old fortifications
and a sign telling about Darwin’s time here in Uruguay.
Tonight we sail up the river towards Buenos Aires and the end of our trip. We have to get off the ship as early, so we have to pack tonight.
Overall, this has been a good trip. The cruise was a necessary compromise between what John wanted to do and what he physically could do as his foot continues to heal. As I had been to a number of these places before, I was not sure how memorable the experience would be for me. But coming back to places I had seen before was unexpectedly pleasant, and there were unforgettable memories like cruising down the Beagle Channel or going around Cape Horn. And I can never get enough of my little penguins!
There are other places I hope to see in South America like Columbia, the Atacama desert of Chile, the highlands of Bolivia, and much, much more of Brazil. Nearly 62, I may not ever return to many of these place again. But I will always cherish the memories I have of my time here in the Southern Cone.
