Running out of time

I am running out of time!  I start my trip home late tomorrow night. I still haven't posted about Buenos Aires (fantastic, complete with tango lesson) Iguassu Falls (stupendous--can't capture in photos), and Rio (beautiful...have to see it to appreciate all of the beaches and mountains and...)

 

 

 

I will finish with posts about all of these beautiful places next week after I get home.  Hope you will continue to read me then.

 

 



Finca Piedra and Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay—April 16

After we checked out of the hotel, we visited an estancia ranch.  This ranch was started by a Frenchman who had fallen in love with Uruguay and had wanted to develop a vineyard.  He bought the land, got the vineyard started, and asked his daughter and son-in-law to take it over.   It is called Finca Piedra.

 

Nadia introduced to the family to us while we were served tea on the terrace beside the pool overlooking the vineyards.

 

 

This young family has continued to develop the vineyard and now have begun to produce the wine themselves.  In addition, the daughter has begun to develop it as a ranch where tourists can come and spend a few days.

Here is a tourist family relaxing under the trees.  Notice the mate on the table.

 

 

After the introduction, we were taken for a ride through the fields and vineyards with the resident Gaucho and his horse.

 

 



Then some tried their hand at milking a cow.

 

We then walked to an area where they keep guinea hens, ducks, geese, turkeys, peacocks, deer…

 

 

…even water hogs—which are 200 pound rodents.  Not sure if they are eaten like the Peruvian guinea pigs.

 

But we did have a wonderful lunch here of roasted beef, lamb, chicken and sausage with delicious wine from the vineyards we had just visited.

 

 

After lunch, we drove stopped at Colonia del Sacramento. This town dates from 1680 and was the only Portuguese settlement along the Rio de la Plata.

Here the river is only 17 miles wide compared to over a hundred miles wide at the estuary in Montevideo.  For years it operated as a contraband port because it could evade strictures imposed by the Spanish crown.  A lighthouse is seen in the background of the ruins of a convent.

Today it is a resort city, a port and the trade center for the surrounding rich agricultural region. The historic quarter was named a UNESCO heritage site in 1995.

 

 

 

 

 

Colonia del Sacramento is across the Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires.  It is the main water thoroughfare for visitors from Argentina to access any part of Uruguay.   We took a ferry from here to Buenos Aires, arriving in the evening to be introduced to a new country and this beautiful city by our guide, Hector.

 

 

 

 

 

Montevideo, Uruguay—April 14-April 15

April 14

We spent most of the day transferring from Chile to Uruguay.  Our flight over the snow capped Andes was smooth and uneventful. We were met at the airport by Pilar, our Uruguayan guide. She told us a few things about Uruguay and Montevideo on our ride to the hotel.

Slightly smaller than North Dakota, Uruguay is the second smallest country in South America.  It is boxed into the eastern coast of South America by Brazil to the north and Argentina to the west. To the south is the wide estuary (117 miles wide) of the Rio de la Plata, while the Atlantic Ocean washes its eastern shores.  So, we have gone from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast in a very short period of time.

April 15

This morning we toured the city of Montevideo.

 

Since our hotel,  Radisson Montevideo Victoria Plaza Hotel, is located on the central Plaza Independencia, we began with a walking tour by simply crossing the street. This is the most important plaza in Montevideo , and it is located between the Old City and downtown.  At one end is the Gateway of the Citadel, one of the few remaining parts of the wall that surrounded the oldest part of the city.

The first building pointed out to us was the Palacio Salvo. The original specifications describe a lighthouse at the top of the building, which was replaced by a set of antennas.  The building was originally intended to be a hotel, but this plan didn't work out, and it has since been occupied by a mixture of offices and private residences. For decades it was the tallest building in South America.

 Another important building on this plaza is the opera house, Teatro Solis.  It is Uruguay’s oldest theatre. It was built in 1856 and went through an eight year reconstruction beginning in 1998.

 We then strolled down to the Ciudad Vieja (Old Town) which retains its atmosphere of bygone days with old buildings, cobblestone streets and lazy plazas.  This pedestrian street shows a homeless persons sleeping on a bench, one of the few I have seen on this entire trip.

 

This led us to Plaza Constitución (Constitution Square), also known as Plaza Matriz,  the oldest plaza in Montevideo. This day it was full of vendors and people enjoying their families.

 

 

 

One of the most vibrant places in the Cuidad Vieja is the Marcado del Puerto.  Inside the Market’s ornate building (it was once a train station) market stalls have been converted into parrillas (grills) and seafood restaurants.  It is here that we had a delicious lunch of steak.  Uruguays are voracious meat eaters and the parrillada (beef platter) is a national standard.

 

  

 

 

We then drove and walked along The Rambla.  It is an 8.1 mile long avenue that goes all along the coastline against the Rio de la Plata. La Rambla provides a great environment for people to do a big variety of activities, such as jogging, walking, biking, fishing, fly kites, or simply drinking mate with someone and taking a sunbath.  Facing this coastline are hundreds of condos.  It looks like a great place to live.

At one of our stops, a man carrying his mate greeted our tour director, Nadia, and chatted for a while.  Notice what he is carrying. It is a thermos and some sort of container with a metal straw. 

Here's a close-up of his equipment which he put on the ground briefly.

 

Let me explain.  The infusion, called mate in Spanish-speaking countries or chimarrão in south Brazil, is prepared by steeping dry leaves (and twigs) of the mate plant in hot water rather than in boiling water. It is consumed similar to a tea, more traditionally hot, but sometimes cold.

Drinking mate with friends from a shared hollow gourd (also called a guampa, porongo or mate in Spanish, or cabaça or cuia in Portuguese, or zucca in Italian) with a metal straw (a bombilla in Spanish, bomba in Portuguese) is a common social practice in Uruguay, Argentina and southern Brazil among people of all ages.

Yerba mate is most popular in Uruguay, where people are seen walking on the street carrying the "mate" and "termo" in their arms and where you can find hot water stations to refill the "termo" while on the road. In Argentina, 11 lb. of yerba mate is consumed each year per every man, woman, and child, while in Uruguay, the largest consumer of mate per capita, 22 lb. of yerba mate is consumed per person per year.  Interesting, huh?

We went to the Central Market which is such a contrast to the one we saw in Cusco.  This one is very modern, with stalls of fruit and meat, fabric shops and restaurants, but presented in a slick style.

 

 

I noticed this woman carrying her mate while shopping at this market.

We ended our day with a very private dinner on the top floor of the hotel.  We celebrated the birthday of one of our travelling companions.  Nadia had arranged for a birthday cake with a huge sparkler to complete the celebration. A lovely way to end a perfect day.

ConCon, Vina del Mar, Valparaiso, Chile--April 13

Today was another beautiful, sunny day.  We have been blessed with perfect weather this entire trip.  The only concern today was that last night a tremendous fire broke out in Valparaiso, making international news.  More about that later.

We drove the 65 miles from Santiago to the Pacific coast stopping first in a little fishing village called ConCon. 

Since this was Palm Sunday, not many people were out and about.  What you did see a lot of  were pelicans…on the sea walls, on rocks, on roofs. 

 
I had to have a photo of me with my pelican friends.  I have a history with pelicans which I will tell about sometime.

 

ConCon is a typical little fishing town.  I spied a man making his nets.

 

This little restaurant that serves empanadas, a Chilean favorite (but it is not as good as the Cuban ones, in my opinion) was typical along the main street.  There were also  a number of seafood restaurants, of course.

Saints can be spotted around town like this statue of Saint Pedro in a cage.

As we proceeded along the coast, we could see the high rise buildings of Vina del Mar.  This is one of the most famous and popular resort cities in South America.  The city was founded in 1874 as a week-end retreat and garden residence for the wealthy elite from Valparaiso and Santiago.  It offers all the amenities of a resort city: luxury estates, including the summer home of the President of Chile, waterfront hotels, parks, gardens, social clubs, a municipal casino fashioned after the one in Monaco, sports facilities, golf, tennis, horse racing.  It is sort of the Palm Beach of South America.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continuing up the coast, we could see smoke filling the sky above Valparaiso.

 

Overlooking precipitous cliffs onto a wide harbor, Valparaiso is Chile’s principal port.  The port area is flat, but the many homes of the poorest people are built on 17 hills that tower above the bay, unlike in America where the most expensive homes are built on the hills with a view.  It is here that the fire started and is still burning . 

Twenty-two percent of the city’s population lives below the poverty line.  The national average is 14 percent.  In 2003, the UNESCO declared the city a World Heritage Site.  It is also a cultural center in Chile.  Nobel Literature laureate Pablo Neruda built one of his three houses here, and it is the site of the National Council of Culture and the Arts.

It has been the seat of Congress since the return of democracy after the 1973-1990 dictatorship, when the old legislature in Santiago was replaced with the new building in Valparaiso to decentralize the branches of government.

Yet Valparaiso is the city with the most slums in Chile, and the region is home to one-third of all family income of the poorest 10 percent of the population is just $270 US dollars, while the monthly income of the wealthiest 10 percent averages $7,200 US dollars.

The hills are densely populated with brightly colored wooden houses.  The fire spread from forested areas at the top of the hills down into poor neighborhoods of wooden slums.  I saw burned areas in the hills as we descended to the coast.

 

As we drove through city, we saw hundreds of people gathering at a school.  Some were bringing clothes, diapers, food for the victims. 

 

Others were calling for help.

Firemen, all of whom are volunteers, came from all over the country to help fight the fire.

The army was present and helping as well.

 

Some people were going to mass because it was Palm Sunday. Vendors in front of the church were selling articles made of palms.

 

Ash was in the air as we took a hundred-year-old funicular to the top of one of the hills to our restaurant.

 

The restaurant was open despite the fire.  It was a quaint place overlooking the port.

 

 

 

We filled the little dining room as we were served a delicious meal.  This was the first course.

 

I was seated next to a window and was visited by this curious seagull.

 

We could see the smoke from the window as well.



 

After lunch, we walked around the cobblestone maze of winding streets, hidden plazas and steep stairways before boarding our bus for the trip back to Santiago. 

The day and the visit to Chile ended with this glorious sunset over the Andes which is viewed from my room.