Word Cruise Day 52/152 - Montevideo, Uruguay - Sacramento and Los Angeles - what?

Cruise day: 52/152

Ports days: 17
Sea days: 35
Countries: 6
Continents: 2
Ports: 11

First - Hey, Viking, are you listening?  The internet on the Star sucks!  I mean really sucks.  Like worse than my old 56K-baud dial-up internet in the 90s sucks.  Please fix it!  Thank you.  There, I feel better.

On to today's post! (assuming I can post it as the internet sucks...)

It sure sounds like a California post today and not a post about Uruguay, and you're partially right.  First, Uruguay. We are docked in Montevideo.  Montevideo is an interesting name for a town.  Our guide today said that the current wisdom is that the name comes from a combination as follows:

• Monte means mountain in Spanish
• deo carries the meaning of from east to west
• vi is the Roman number for six

So, Montevideo is the sixth east-west mountain or hill.  True?  Who knows?

We were in luck this morning and Viking was able to fit us into an excursion called Colonia del Sacramento by coach and foot.  The weather was predicted for the mid-70s and sunny - perfect for a tour.  First, a look around as we docked.

We popped out on the veranda as we sailed into port.  This monster was pushing us.  I'm sure Cruise Critic member Heidi13 will correct me, but I saw with my own two eyes as this tug bumped our port side rear and pushed us.  

Then, they got behind us and followed, all while being attached to us with a rope.

There was another tug toward the front, but they never got physically involved with the ship.

The port is interesting.  It is certainly a working port.  A container ship docked while we were eating dinner tonight. We also saw this ship carrying autos.

What was really interesting is that it looks like this port also is a ship graveyard.

These sad vessels were just sitting there, all in various states of sinking.  We aren't sure if the water is shallow there and they are resting on the bottom, but all of them sure look like they've seen better days.

After breakfast, we hopped on bus #4 and hit the road for the 2.5-ish hour ride west to Colonia del Sacramento.  You can see where we are ported on the lower right in Montevideo and then Colonia del Sacramento to the west right at the tip of the point, and directly across Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires, Argentina.  This will be important a little later on.

Before arriving in town, we stopped for a quick look at Plaza del Toros, a former bullfighting ring.  The facility has been heavily renovated as a historic landmark but wasn't open for visitors unless Ina specific of the facility.

The town is quaint with very distinctive Spanish and Portuguese features.  The streets are mostly cobblestone, but that differs depending on who built them.  Here is a prime example.

The rough cobblestone is a Portuguese design - uneven with all different-sized stones.  The flat area with essentially evenly sized paving bricks is the Spanish design. There were lots of tree-covered streets.

Colonia sits on Rio de la Plata.  The brown color of the water is a result of plant life under the water.  The water itself is clear and very clean.

Portuguese architecture is colorful and many times built with stones.  The adjacent Spanish architecture is flat and lacks color.  These juxtapositions of mixed design, both architecture and paving techniques, are visible throughout the city.

At some point, a sperm whale beached here.  They salvaged the bones and put them on display.

We enjoyed a nice lunch at a local restaurant featuring chicken or local Uruguayan ribeye steaks.  We learned an interesting fact.  Uruguay has a population of about 3.5 million people and over 12 million cows.  That means that there are nearly four cows in Uruguay for every person.  Beef is a big industry in Uruguay.  They pride themselves in practicing organic farming and work very hard to not use anything artificial in their farming process.

After lunch, we had the opportunity to explore the town on our own for about 40 minutes.

We went down by the water and looked across the bay.  It wasn't very clear, but if you looked really closely, you could make out the buildings of Buenos Aires, across the bay to the west.

We also spotted some of the local parrots that reside in huge nests high up in the palm trees. These guys had a luxury two-story unit with a view and appeared to be doing some renovations.

They fly incredibly fast and are quite difficult to catch in flight. I got lucky to grab these.

We got back to the ship after our 8.5-hour day.  We headed up to dinner.  An aside...you may or may not have heard about a little sporting event that is taking place this evening.  It is called "The Superbowl". If you're not familiar, Google it. :-)

Well, Viking is familiar and decided to do something about it.  They set up the pool deck for football watching on the big screen.  They are also streaming it on stateroom TVs.  If you have ever been to s Superbowl party, then you know that food takes center stage.  Viking decided that they liked that tradition and put out a spread that rivaled the best Superbowl party anywhere.

Chicken nachos and chili cheese fries

Chicken nachos, beef sliders, chili dogs, chili cheese fries

Wings, jalapeno poppers, pastry-wrapped sausages

Wings, poppers, and sausages with corn chips, seasoned blue corn chips, and pita chips, served with salsa and guacamole

Baskets of mixed chips with salsa and guacamole.

In addition, they had bags of popcorn, Doritos, cookies, and brownies.  The bar was working overtime as well.

We chowed down, grabbed some game-time snacks, and headed to the room.  I have a bunch of readers expecting a blog tonight!

We were able to score tickets for the included Montevideo bus tour tomorrow.  We also got the good news that we will be allowed to explore on our own tomorrow!  Yea!  There is a neat-looking market right across from the port so we're looking forward to exploring there tomorrow.

For now, it's all about the Superbowl. A guest set up a football squares pool - $10/square, $200 paid per quarter, and $400 for the winning score.  If you aren't familiar, they set up a 10x10 grid and randomly assign digits 0-9 along one side for LA and along the top for Cincy.  They do that after everyone has picked their squares, so the scoring combo you get is random.  If the last digits of the score match your square at the end of any quarter, you win that quarter. All money is paid out so the organizer doesn't get anything other than if their squares win. I got saddled with LA-3 / Cincy-5 - a pretty pathetic score combo.  So, we're just cheering for Matt Stafford to finally realize his potential after escaping the Detroit Lions. I consider my $10 as a donation to the cause.

Enough for tonight.  Bus tour and self-exploration tomorrow in Montevideo, Uruguay.