Montevideo, Uruguay

            Wednesday, 10 Jan 2024 – The ship was scheduled to dock at Montevideo at 8:00 AM.  Montevideo is the capital and largest city of Uruguay.

Jesse had set an alarm for 7:15 AM, in order to do a little laundry.  We could have taken our dirty clothes home, but we both prefer to return home with mostly clean laundry.  The laundry room wasn’t scheduled to open until 7:30 AM, but when he arrived, the washers and dryers were already filled.  However, it wasn’t very long before two washers were available.  Instead of returning to our cabin, Jesse stayed in the laundry room and conversed with other passengers.  He met a woman from Malaysia who shared some of their political problems.  There was a man and woman there, who were both recently widowed.  They had both taken advantage of one of the newly added “Solo Traveler” bookings.  The woman shared information about the ship’s 10-day internet outage.  The passengers had assumed incorrectly that the outage was due to a lack of satellite coverage; however, that was only partially true.  Apparently, the ship had been scheduled to be the last Oceania cruise ship to be retrofitted with a new Wi-Fi system, but they were extremely behind schedule.  Anyway, the previous Wi-Fi contract expired at the end of December; hence no internet!

When Jesse returned to our cabin, it was about 9:00 AM.  Some of the laundry was still damp, so Jesse hung it in the bathroom to finish drying.  Sally was already awake, so we went to breakfast a little earlier than usual.  Since today would be our last day to have a substantial breakfast, in addition to our usual breakfast, we loaded up our plates with bacon and waffles, covered in maple syrup!  When we returned to our cabin, we retrieved our luggage from under the bed and started packing for our return trip home, while Sally lay down and rested a bit.

We hadn’t gotten very far with our packing when it was time to leave for our excursion.  We had booked ‘’Highlights of Montevideo & Tango.”  Our tour guide was Mercedes and our driver was Henry.  We rode through central Montevideo as Mercedes narrated the sights. The city was full of monuments.  We made a photo stop at the glorious Legislative Palace built from over 50 varieties of marble.  We rode through the tree-lined Prada neighborhood, dotted with turn-of-the-20th-century mansions.  We drove past historic Centenario Stadium, built in the 1930s, where Uruguay and Argentina battled it out in the inaugural FIFA World Cup championship.  We made a photo stop at a larger-than-life bronze oxcart sculpture.  The sculpture was cast in France, and supposedly, when Mussolini saw it, he was so impressed that he forbade them from shipping it to Montevideo.  After negotiations, he finally agreed to release the sculpture.

Our final stop was at Plaza Independencia, the central square.  It is towered over by the iconic Palacio Salvo, once the tallest building on the continent and still an Art Deco stunner.  The Plaza Virgilio’s monument to Fallen Soldiers of the Navy for commanding city views.  Our time at Casona Mauá proved to be the high-point of this excursion.  This impeccably restored venue once belonged to the visionary banker responsible for printing Uruguay’s earliest paper currency.  The Baron knew good taste.  Original 1870s beveled glass, Carrara marble, and magnificent floors, ceilings, skylights and moldings were captivating.  There, we watched a breathtaking classic tango performance by a male and two female dancers.  At one point, the dancers invited a few guests to dance with them, including Jesse!  We were also served complimentary drinks in shot glasses, for individual toasts with the dancers.

After getting back to our cabin, we resumed our packing.  Although we had promised to meet Ed & Alicia for dancing, we were unable to make it.  At 7:30 PM, we decided to break for dinner.  On our way to the Terrace Café, we ran into Jim & Pat and took a photo with them.  They wanted to eat outside on the terrace, so we didn’t sit with them.  We preferred to eat our last dinner in Maribeth’s section!  Afterwards, we said our goodbyes and resumed our packing, finishing a few minutes after the 10:00 PM deadline.  When Jesse set out our luggage, none of the bags had been picked up.  Jesse checked in for our flights before retiring.