What s rocky ride we had last night. It is very hard to walk on the ship. Apparently it was questionable if we would even stop here because of the seas and the fact we had to tender in. Getting on the tender was a bit thrilling.

On the peninsula there are only about 5000 residents in January and February when the temperatures range is 29-30C. Their summers are December to March. At other times of the year it is cold and windy …..ranging between 6-7C. It is a very secure area so much that our guide says his 16year old son might go out on a Saturday night and not come home til 3-4 in the morning and he is not worried. He says even thought it’s expensive to live here, the sense of “security is priceless”.

The peninsula is only 2 kms long

Blue church “Virgin”… 3 services per day cuz it’s the only church in town.

$2.5-3 million for house on peninsula. You can see the water in any direction.

The Rio de la Plata is 220 km wide at this point.

Graf Spee German battleship scuttled in 1939. The anchor of it is displayed along the waterfront

There are no street numbers. The address is only the “Point”, the street name and the name of house…. which every one has. Our guide says “that’s why so many postmen committed suicide”.

“Torres Imperial” is the newest condo….(3)buildings.

In some of the “good” buildings in the first 15 days of January charge you $1000/day or $15,000. Ouch!

The wind usually blows 30 kms/hr all the time but can be up to 100 kms/hr.

Trump tower has been sitting unfinished for 2 years now…… “all the workers have been sent to Mexico to build the wall”…..lol!

If you want to build a home here and you have take down trees, you are taxed to take them down. For each tree taken down, 5 must be re-planted.

Ralli museum.. no charge to enter. No art pieces can be sold till after contract to display is over. There are 5 in the world. We spent maybe 40 minutes in here taking pictures. Quite fabulous. I like some of the Dali sculptures, bronze sculptures by John Robinson and paintings by Beryl Cook.

Meislner works

It’s in the Hollywood area where properties are one acre in size… huge beautiful homes with beautiful gardens.

The Onassis home was left empty for 30 years but was sold 3 yrs ago with everything in it..

SAN Rafael very nice neighbourhood…$650,000. Then we passed by a condo building where each unit is worth $7million all with infinity pools…”Acqua”… just as we came back to beaches.

Apparently Kennedy bought large piece property here in Punta Del Este…. which was used for poor people.

Medical is free but there is a wait period much like Canada.

1/2 million people here, 2 million in Montevideo out of 4 million in the country.

$110/ metre a day to moor at the dock. Our guide says its second only to Miami in price.

There is a very famous sculpture called “La Mano” or the hand coming out of the sand. The sand by the way, is like powder. What a wonderful place but way out of our price range …. home of the rich and famous!

The return trip to the ship was really quite thrilling. So much so that we couldn’t seem to connect and stay connected to the landing ramp. Jeanette and several others made it of the tender. As I was standing waiting for the okay to go, one of the bumpers seemed to explode and a rope broke. We ended up leaving the ships landing ramp, circling around then making another attempt. The crew insisted that we all sit back down but before I got taken off (I had been first), one woman took a flying leap jumping. Shocked the crew! She could have fallen, crushed or any number of things. I think she was very panicked.

Montevideo, our first port of call…. what a shock it was to see the harbour/dock where our ship was tied up …… so many derelict sunken boats! What not to allow if you want to impress cruise passengers!

We hadn’t booked an excursion and so we just walked through the old port as far as Constitution Square. Most of the stores were closed being that it was Sunday. The whole area could be quite something but it is totally run down. My knee was nasty by the time we got back to the ship.

Some of the sunken boats in Montevideo harbour!

Old town Montevideo

One of the “better” balconies

A little scuzzy!!!

Feeding the pigeons in the park

I decided to check with Wikipedia on the size of that street. Here’s the facts. It doesn’t mention that there is a subway below or that the “medians” are parks between the “7” and “2” lanes. It is unbelievably huge!!!

July 9 Avenue, is a wide avenue located in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Its name honors Argentina’s Independence Day, July 9, 1816.

The avenue has up to seven lanes in each direction and is flanked on either side by parallel streets of two lanes each. Through the centre of the avenue runs one of the city’s Metrobus (Buenos Aires) (Bus rapid transit) corridors, which stretches 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) and was inaugurated in July 2013.[1] There are two wide medians between the side streets and the main road.

After leaving from San José on the 19th, we arrived in Buenos Aires through Lima, Peru, at 6:30 am on the 20th. We had to wait a couple of hours for our fourth, Marilyn, to arrive. Her flight was delayed.

Apparently the city has been around for about 500 years-since 1580. It is a humongous city with the most beautiful magnificent buildings all on tree lined streets. Some of the streets are very narrow but the Avenida de Julio I would say is close to 12 lanes wide. The subway is below the street plus there a couple of bus lanes in the middle plus parks on both sides and 3+3 in either side. I just know it took 3 lights to cross the Avenida …… walking at a good clip. The building so reminded me of Europe. No wonder they refer to the city as the “Paris of South America”.

The Rio de la Plata is widest river mouth in world…. so we were told.

Met Annamaria and Armando from

Chile and North Carolina on Princess cruise. …. at Tango Porteño. He told us definitely “do not drink the water or eat fruits or veggies that haven’t been cook or peeled.

We bought a 2 day hop on hop off bus for which we got to see a lot. A couple we met on a restaurant (they were from Toronto…. on their honeymoon l), told us to go to this fabulous restaurant called La Mar (seafood) in the area called Soho and Hollywood. Well ….. on the2nd day, we took the bus … got off at the Italia Square and then we walked and walked and walked and finally took a taxi but never found it…….but found some interesting murals. What a huge, huge city. We took a taxi back to hotel with an old guy and his little dog…. a white poodle. It obviously was his little buddy. The ride probably took in excess of half an hour but was including a tip…. about $9 CAD. Cheap! It’s definitely a cheaper country than Costa Rica.

Our hotel was a place called La Fresque. It was at the corner of 9 de Mayo and de Julio…. near the Palace of National Congress in the

Monserrat area of BA.

In the middle of Avenida de Julio is a building used for families and children ….social services. It has an outline of Eva Peron on 2 sides. She was like the patron of the disadvantaged and social programs. Peron was elected 3 different times.

Under highway is a monument to the dark times of Argentina’s history….. “dark for dark times”.

Park 1536… belief Mendosa site

La Boca …. first port of BA.

Italians settled in this area…soccer/football is big. So many buildings are royal blue and yellow

Most famous area of plastic artists!

Russian Orthodox Church seems out of place with its blue domes.

Puerto Madero….. newest part of city built on old port… has many beautiful high rises, parks and many fine restaurants. … where “Argentinians like to be innovative”. It shows in the buildings.

Along water there are many sculptures of sport figures… built for 2018 Olympics.

We went for dinner on the 22nd… very disappointed cuz we went to an apparently very famous place. It was less than stellar, the waiter was kind of cranky. We left just as it started to rain. We bought a bottle of wine, took it to the room then holy crap it was like a bomb went off. It was a single strike lightning thunderstorm! OMG it was incredible. The streets were slick with rain. I would have like to have taken a picture but alas… all photo taking devices were dead. Linda got a great one. Maybe she will share.

Below are some sights around the city displaying the beautiful buildings and tree-lined streets

Park in the middle of Avenida de Julio