We planned to join the free walking tour for tips at 11am.
This was a dock port. Right off the ship.
Walking to the walking tour meeting place. Montevideo was very walkable. I liked the flowers in this tree.
At first, we stopped at the wrong park thinking it was the meeting place. We waited a bit; husband got the wi-fi to work on his phone. With his google maps, we realized that we were in the wrong place and continued in the right direction. Arrived --
The tour gathered, and then split into an English and Spanish group. Our tour guide had his mate cup and thermos ready for the tour.
This is the presidential building. Our guide noted that the President did not have body guards because no one knew who he was. He asked us if we knew who their President was. We did not, but I expect them too :).
There is a weekly parade on Wednesday. I think he said it used to be Friday, but that was not convenient for the city, so they made them move it to Wednesdays. They did not seem like very happy paraders. It was cool that we got to see it.
Continuing on the tour and back to the no passport stamp. The tour guide tells us that everyone is an Uruguayan; that we could all be Uruguayan. He noted their economy is fueled by Venezuelan immigrants who maintain a credit card balance. Versus the Uruguayans who pay off credit cards at the end of each month. They seem very open to immigration, and so maybe why they did not stamp our passports because they did not care if we left or not. Just a guess; does any one know for sure? I'm still sure the cruise ship would alert authorities if they left anyone behind.
We were told they are atheist, so they have churches but they are barred up and are only used like 3 days out of the year. We stopped for a break in this park where we could walk to the Burger King or McDonalds for restrooms and/or a snack. This is the park where we first stopped earlier thinking the tour started here.
We learned about the mate tradition. They say they practice with the thermos before having a child. If they can keep up with the thermos and not drop/dent it, they are ready for a child. One couple in our group asked if he would share a sip of mate.
I liked this art on the building.
Here is another church example. That is our tour guide. If you look above his head, in the top row of windows, and above the exposed pink brick, you see a tree growing out of the church.
Our tour guide noted that Uruguay had more cows than people, and that we had to do our part and eat some. It was on our list, and conveniently our tour ended at the Estancia del Puerto market. We tipped our guide and went to look for lunch. This place had several meat places. We picked one and sat at the bar. We ordered. Husband got his beer, and we got our bread. Then we waited and waited and waited without them acknowledging us sitting there. The tables were getting better service. Two ladies sat beside us. We had not had luck with the wi-fi. They got her on; I think my husband eventually got on. They ordered. I think they got food first. Then ours came. I was not impressed; maybe we ordered the wrong thing. It was fattier than I liked. We needed to have gotten a better cut of meat, but hard to tell in Spanish. The sauce was good. It was warm by these fires, but cool to watch. We both got our bills; ours had an interesting extra charge...hum. So, I had read about this being meat heaven, so was disappointed.
There was an empanada stand here; my husband tried to get a dulce de leche one. They did not have any made. He went for candy at a store instead. It was reasonably priced. We paid in USD and got some Uruguayan coins for my collection in change. This clock was cool. Our tour guide said the building was a train station that the British built. Uruguay did not see the need for a train station, so it became this market.
After, we headed back to the ship. One more picture from near the port that had someone else was posing in front of earlier.
Back on the ship, we went back to the room. No around the Horn certificates; fingers still crossed. We changed and then watched the sail away from the gym.