Hello,
We sailed overnight from Punta del Este and arrived at Montevideo about 8 a.m. I said to Karen, "I see a hill!" That, of course, is a joke. The joke is that no one knows why Montevideo is called Montevideo. But, one theory is that the explorer who first went there said to his first officer in Spanish, "I see a hill."
One thing we discovered is that we would much rather be in Uruguay than Brazil. It is a cleaner, more organized place. Traffic mostly stays between the lines, and of course they speak Spanish instead of Portuguese. That just means we could communicate easier, as we have a smattering of Spanish and virtually no Portuguese.
Montevideo is the capital and largest city in Uruguay. About a third of the total population lives here. It is a big city;
They have many beautiful
beaches in the area. Today we were scheduled to go horseback riding on one of them. And so we did!
We first enjoyed a leisurely breakfast while watching the ship dock. Incidentally, this is our breakfast restaurant on the ship. They have a really nice selection daily.
Then we made our way to the van that took us out to the horses. You never know for sure what the setup is for leaving the ship. Sometimes you are tendered. Sometimes you just walk out and are right in the town such as in Itajai. Sometimes you take a bus through the port area and then switch to another bus after clearing customs. But here in Montevideo, you got directly onto the bus that takes you to the horse venue.
Our guide for this trip was a very nice lady named Maria Teresa. She was a lively 30ish woman who spoke very good English. That is not always the case with our guides. Sometimes we would think "please speak Spanish instead of trying to speak English! We will understand you better!" But not so with Maria. We liked her immediately, and had an easy time communicating. One reason is that she reminded us so much of Alex's fiancée Maria. Quite the resemblance both in name and appearance!
Our ride out to the country was about half an hour and took us through downtown Montevideo. It is a nice, clean, well laid-out city. Maria gave us a brief history of Uruguay (which, by the way, means "land of many colored birds" in the language of the indigenous people) and Montevideo. There are many wineries in this area, along with much other agriculture and quite a large cattle industry. One thing that is not here is oil. Apparently they have none. That may be one reason the government hasn't screwed things up so bad. It seems like in any South American country with oil, the government owns the oil industry and uses the proceeds to screw up the country. But, that is just my (David's) opinion!
As we were getting close to the ranch, our guide made an error about which dirt road to turn down, and our poor bus driver ended up having to back all the way out and go to the next road. Which he did with aplomb. Actually, our destination was not so much a ranch, but a nature preserve - the Costa Llama Reserve. (As an aside, most Spanish language speakers say the double L kind of like "yuh." But both in Uruguay and Buenos Aires, they say it with a "sh" sound. As in "shut." They do the same thing with "y." My horse was named Bayo. But it is pronounced Bah Show.")
Our hosts provided a nice breakfast for us of local coffee, fresh squeezed orange juice dulce de leche (a kind of soft caramel that they use like peanut butter) and many local pastries all made fresh for us on site. Unfortunately, we didn't get the memo on this and had already had a huge breakfast on board ship, so we could not enjoy much of it.
They gave us a short talk about the area and showed a brief film. Then it was time to be introduced to our horses.
Karen had not been on a horse since she was bucked off of one as a teenager in summer camp. Needless to say, she was apprehensive about getting back on the horse! But she persevered, and lo and behold, after much nail biting she was up and on!!! Yay for Karen!!!
We mounted up and, along with twelve other guests, went for a beautiful ride on the beach, just outside the reserve. We crossed several areas where the sea ran inland a short distance and formed small streams. I wondered how the horses would react to getting their feet wet. They didn't react at all. The water was only about a foot deep, and only ten or twenty yards wide.
An hour or two later we returned. It had been many years for both of us since "forking" a horse, and we were ever so slightly sore. But we slid off and had some of that breakfast we didn't have earlier, and before we knew it, we had forgotten any soreness.
After saying goodbye to the horses, we loaded back into the bus headed back to the ship.
On board that night, we were treated to a fantastic tango show! A tango dance club from Montevideo came on board and just dazzled us. They had a kids group performing with them as well. The kids were probably about 12 or so years old. They were amazing!
Then off to bed to rest up for Buenos Aires!!! Night all!!!
David and Karen
No comments:
Post a Comment