Leaving on a jet plane
14 Kasım 2025, Kanada ⋅ ☀️ -3 °C
We are just sitting at the Edmonton Airport. With the US government shut down and flight cancellations due to a shortage of air traffic controllers, I was worried that are trip would be delayed but everything seems to be a go. We have an 18 hour trip ahead of us. Edmonton-Minneapolis-Atlanta- Beunos Aires. It is a long trip. We arrive tomorrow at 9 am. Still it was 7 hours shorter than flying through Toronto. We will spent a week in Beunos Aires then fly to Patagonia for a week and spend the last week in Uruguay. Three nights Montevideo and then we will rent a car and spend 3 days driving in Uruguay before taking a ferry back to BA and flying home. I will post every few days so please keep checking in on us. Comments are always appreciated. Oh yes the name of the trip is a parody of the song Don't Cry for me Argentina from the musical about Evita Peron, the wife of the President of Argentina Juan Peron.Okumaya devam et
19 Hours of Travel
16 Kasım 2025, Arjantin ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C
If anyone reading this blog lives in a major travel hub count your blessings as those of us who don't live in major hubs have to suffer through connecting flights.
We were away at 6 am from the house. My daughter Madeline was good enough to drive us to the airport which is commendable as Madeline is 19 and not always a morning person. I hadn't been able to check in prior to departure. Delta had changed our flight times but hadn't reissued our tickets. It took the WestJet employee a long time to print our boarding passes. She had to call WestJet support for help. Eventually they got it all sorted out and we were able to get to the gate with lots of time. After boarding the flight, the crew realized that a piece of equipment needed changing so we sat at the gate on the plane for an hour. I was very thankful for our 3 hour lay over in Minneapolis which was reduced to 2. We were in zone 7 for the Atlanta flight. They had called for volunteers to check their carry on but because we had a tighter connection had decided against it. We hugged the gate for loading and were the first to get on of the zone 7 group and shortly afterwards they cut off the carryon luggage. The seats were much more comfortable than our previous WestJet flight with wider seats and more legroom. Atlanta has a big airport. There is a large train that moves people between terminals. We initially thought we were flying out of E terminal but when we showed up at the gate the only people there were a couple of Mormon missionaries. They were off to BA as well to mentor and supervise younger missionaries. We realized they had changed the gate to terminal F so we had to go back downstairs and get on the train again to get to terminal F. Still lots of time at the gate. I had paid a little more money for some more leg room which was worth it as I didn't feel cramped at all.
It was an Airbus 330. We left at 9 pm Atlanta time arriving at 7 am. I think that I actually slept a little. It was a 9-10 hour flight which was much better than the 14 hour flight from Toronto to Santiago last year. My back has been bothering me and I was worried about the flight but it didn't bother me too much.
We had a very long wait at customs. I always thought Toronto was slow but this was much slower than anytime I have come through Pearson airport. I had prebooked a taxi at the airport expecting better service however the car looked like it had been in a demolition derby and the driver drove like he wanted to scare us. The brake pads sounded like they were long overdue for a change. We arrived at our Airbnb in the neighbourhood of Belgrano in the north part of BA by 1 pm. We were tired after our long trip and it was warm at 32 degrees Celsius. We wandered around Belgrano buying some groceries and exchanging money. I had a very early night at 8:30 as I was just exhausted and managed to sleep in until 7:30.
For our first day in Buenos Aires we headed south to San Telmo where we visited a 200 year old house that had been restored by a private owner. During the restoration they realized that the house had been built by a wealthy merchant over a tunnel that had once covered a river. When the family left in the 1870s, they turned it into a tenement building hosting 100 people in rooms that shared one bathroom and 2 kitchens. It went from a mansion to slum very quickly. The house had been constructed of beautiful red brick as had the river covering. They had done an excellent job excavating and restoring the house and tunnels. After the house tour we took in a large indoor market and a large street sale of crafts and antiques. We ate lunch at the market and shared this massive steak sandwich. We also took in some street performers and Tango dancers. It was fun just taking in the vibe and getting the feel of the neighbourhood. We finished the afternoon at the museum of modern art before heading back to the Airbnb to chill out.Okumaya devam et
Bicycle tour, MALBA, Graveyards.
18 Kasım 2025, Arjantin ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C
We have had a busy 2 days here in Buenos Aires. We started the day with a 3.5 hour bike tour of Palmero and Recoletta with Dario. Dario and his buddy Luca ran a bike touring company which was strategically located on bicycle routes that took us up to the botanical garden, ecopark and Palmero forest which are a large interconnected green space to the north of Palmero. We visited the BA law school which had been built along Doric minimalist style which could have been taken out of fascist Italy. Juan Peron had spent time as a military officer in Italy and had been deeply affected by his time there. We visited the Floralis generica- a mechanical flower made from airplane wings that at one time opened and closed but was broken in the open position. Perhaps a reflection of Argentina's troubled economy. Dario treated us to mate, a caffeinated tea like drink drink with a straw. The mate comes from Yerba mate plant that grows in Northern Argentina. It was just Cheryl and I on the trip as no one else had signed up so we had a lot of opportunity to chat with Dario about his life in BA. After our tour ended Cheryl and I had a very pleasant Italian lunch in Palmero. People were lining up outside to get their take out which was a good sign. There is a very large population of Italians in BA and lots of great Italian food. After lunch we visited MALBA- Museum Art LatinoAmerica Beunos Aires. Lots of modernistic art from South America, some good but some bad. After an hour in the gallery we were all played out and headed home. After supper I headed out to get a haircut at a local barbershop. I got a good cut for 20 CDN dollars which is much cheaper than my haircuts in Edmonton.
Today was going to be very hot. It was forecast to go up to 30 degrees. As such we decided to get going early. We were away by 8 am and opted for an Uber rather than the bus as the bus connections to the Chacarita cemetary were poor. The rich and famous people between the late 19 century and mid 20 century buried themselves and families in these ornate mausoleums. It was like a city of the dead. Some of the mausoleums had fallen into disrepair and one could even look into them seeing the caskets of the buried. We found the much visited tomb of Carlos Gardel, a musician, composer, band leader known for his Tango music who died in a plane crash in 1935 at age 45. People come on the anniversary of his death to Tango at his grave. After wandering around for a while we tired of the cemetary. It wasn't to hot so we headed off on the bus to the botanical garden which was the most enjoyable thing we did today. It was one of the best botanical gardens we have visited. Like all gardens it was divided into various gardens based on the region and the design. My favorite was the Roman garden constructed to feel like an ancient garden with statues and ponds. The garden was beautifully shaded. I don't think that I have ever seen so many butterflies and we even saw a humming bird.Lots of school groups. The teachers of one school group were speaking English so we started talking to them. They were so excited as they wanted the students to interview us and practice their English. We were the stars of the botanical gardens for 10 minutes. We still had some energy after the botanical garden and it was only 12 noon so we bought some food for lunch at a grocery store and headed to the Ecopark/Zoo which was next to the gardens. It was difficult to figure out but I think the zoo had experienced some hard times during Argentine 's economic problems. More recently though there had been an attempt to resurrect it as a rehabilitation centre for injured animals but they still had their legacy animals like a NA bison, giraffes and some other large animals that they couldn't get rid of. Think Lucy the Elephant at the Edmonton zoo. The zoo wasn't as well shaded as the botanical garden so it was hot. The animals were also hot so many of them were hard to see in their enclosures as they were hiding in the shade. We did catch a glimpse of a puma, saw a giraffe, a flightless Condor, lots of Mara, vincas-llamas, a NA bison. It was a little too hot to enjoy the animals so by 2 pm we headed back to the AirBnB. Thankfully the Air BNB has air conditioning.Okumaya devam et
The Enigma of Buenos Aires
19 Kasım 2025, Arjantin ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
I had to check the definition of the word to ensure that I was using it correctly. An enigma is a person or situation that is difficult to understand. For me I think that word well describes Buenos Aires. We have now been here for almost a week and I can't get over the fact that the city looks so good. The buildings and streets are well maintained. The subway is clean and efficient. I feel safe here traveling around, in fact safer than Edmonton. There are lots of police. People are driving new cars. There are lots of businesses and shops which all seem to be doing good business. People seem happy. Argentina has had significant economic problems for a long time with rampant inflation. I really thought that BA would feel run down like Havanna Cuba but it doesn't at all. If one were to visit BA and Edmonton one would think that BA was a much more prosperous city despite having a GDP per capital of 25 percent of Edmonton's GDP. Crazy.
On Wednesday we decided to do a self guided walking tour of downtown BA. We started at Plazo de Mayo which is right beside the beautiful and ornate Casa Rosada- the pink presidential palace. Madonna in the movie Evita sings Don't Cry for me Argentina from the balcony of the palace. I don't think the real Evita sang from the balcony but maybe she sang in the palace or at least hummed some little diddies to herself. We visited the very beautiful Metropolitan cathedral built in 1750 with a very ugly neoclassical front added in 1820. We walked down the very beautiful Plaza de Mayo street admiring all of the skyscrapers built circa 1910. I felt that I could be in Europe. We crossed the widest street in the world Avenue 17th July. Looking up the street we could see a giant obelisk. Turning around there was an iconic image of Evita Peron on a building. It was 17 lanes wide and took us 3 lights to get across. We kept walking mesmerized by the beauty of the buildings. It was surreal. We walked past the Terra Colon, BA opera house. A beautiful stone clad building larger than La Scala in Milan. We finished our walk at the Galleria Pacifica, a very high end shopping mall with all of the world's high end stores. The walk was supposed to only take 2 hours but somehow we managed to take 4. We weren't finished yet as we still had to see Argentina 's largest bookstore located in an old theatre. Yes Argentinian still read books. We have noticed many bookstores this week and they are full of people buying books. This theatre was huge all filled with books and people.Okumaya devam et
A Rain Day
20 Kasım 2025, Arjantin ⋅ 🌧 16 °C
Today they were predicting a heavy rain day so we decided to mainly do indoor activities. It wasn't going to start raining until 11 so we figured we could squeeze in the BA rose garden. It was also close to the Evita Peron museum which we wanted to go to. The rose garden was very good with different beds dedicated to different types of roses. We wandered around for about an hour smelling and looking at the roses.
Our olfactory glands eventually needed a rest so we walked over to the Evita Peron museum. Evita Peron was the wife of Juan Peron. She had been a famous radio actress before marrying Peron.They were both controversial figures. Evita had a cult-like following which increased after her early death in 1952 from cervical cancer. I think pap smears were not commonly used for screening in the 50s. A totally preventable disease. Juan and Evita were populists ushering in public health, public education and workers rights. The museum was in a beautiful building which had initially been a woman's shelter established by Evita. It gave a very positive audio tour of the Perons and Evita. Lots of her old dresses.
We then headed over to The museum of Fine Arts. It still hadn't started raining so we ate our lunch in a park beside the British Embassy.
The Museum of Fine Arts was a more traditional gallery with less modern art and more art from European painters. It appeared that wealthy Argentina had left their art collections to the gallery. They had a number of impressionistic pieces and sculptures by Rhodan. For all intensive purposes we could have been in Europe.
The rain was still holding off so we had one more goal of the day. Chat gpt had found a cafe that served decaf coffee. Cheryl always liked an afternoon decaf but all of the coffee shops we have been to so far don't have decaf. Ambar cafe was half way home to our BnB so we took a bus there. BA has a very efficient public transit system of both buses and subway which we have conveniently used to get all around town. 60 cents a ride. We have only used Uber once and for a 25 minute trip it was only 6 dollars.
While we were at the cafe, the rain finally hit and did it ever pour rain. Fortunately we were safe inside enjoying our decaf drinks.Okumaya devam et
Last Tango In Beunos Aires
21 Kasım 2025, Arjantin ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C
Today we decided to take a Tango class. We met Diago at his studio in an apartment in the Palmero district just across from Plaza Italia. The lesson was 1.5 hours long and just flew by. Diago was able to teach us the tango walk, sidestep, leg raise and an 8 step routine. We were able to master all of the steps before the class ended although we were not as graceful as Diago. After the class ended we walked back to the bike tour company from Monday so we could retrieve my water bottle that I had left there. The staff in the bike shop recommended a nearby restaurant so we went there for lunch before heading back to the BnB for a cup of tea. We still had a little energy left so we wandered over to a nearby museum that had sculptures by the famous Argentine couple sculptor Rogelio Yrurtia and painter Lía Correa Morales. Very large and impressive sculptures.
Another thing that has struck me as being curious about Beunos Aires are the number of small stores be it clothing stores or food stores. Today we went by a store for eggs. There are stores for men's underwear and pajamas, women's underwear, dog food stores, cellphone cover stores- hundreds of them, tiny pharmacies. How do they all stay in business. Haven't they heard of Walmart.Okumaya devam et
El Calafate and Perito Moreno Glacier
23 Kasım 2025, Arjantin ⋅ 🌬 14 °C
Yesterday we left Buenos Aires. We really enjoyed our time there and kept very busy. Everyone says this about Buenos aires but I will repeat the statement. It felt like a European city. Santiago last year felt like a South American city while Buenos Aires really didn't. Talking to the Uber driver on the way to the Jorge Newbury airport only confused me more. He spoke passable English and I asked him about wages for various types of workers. I was really surprised by some of his answers. For example, a teacher at a private school which pays more than the public system may only earn 12000 CDN per year. How do they afford to live in Buenos Aires. Crazy.
We flew the 3.5 hours down to El Calafate which is in Patagonia. My initial impression on landing at the airport was flat and windy. We took a cab to our Air BNB and in the part of town we are staying at they have never heard of urban densificaion. All of the buildings are so far apart from each other. There was a grocery store nearby so we bought some food for supper and then walked down into the centre of town to pick up our rental car. The older part of town was in a river valley and reminded me a little of Pincher Creek. The main point of interest in this area is the Perito Moreno glacier located 1.5 hour drive west of town. One can do bus tours to the Glacier but it was about the same price to rent the car for 24 hours. Having seen many glaciers here in Canada and even skied on one, I was unsure whether or not I would be that impressed by the glacier. Cheryl kept telling me facts about the glacier that it was the third largest in the world but then I saw something saying it was the third largest in South America so I wasn't quite sure what the true fact was. If you went on a tour one could combine a boat tour on the lake by the glacier and/or even a climb on the glacier. I found the blog of a travel writer who reported that he enjoyed doing the board walks across from the glacier and didn't think there was much merit for doing the hike or boat excursion so we decided to stick to that. We met two American women in the grocery store who had gone that day and they said that they were pretty impressed.
The advice for people with cars was to get going early to avoid the bus tours which would get going later in the morning. We were away by 7 and were to the park gates by 7:45 with about 20 other vehicles and the odd smaller bus tour. We had to pay a whopping 45 dollars per person to get into the park which we learned later that everyone on the trip had to pay even those on the bus tours. After entering the park, there was a large lake on our left which contained multiple icebergs maybe the size of 2 or transport trucks. Eventually we rounded a corner and caught the first glimpse of the Perito Moreno glacier from several kms away and it was huge. The glacier ends in a lake where it calves icebergs and at the calving face it measures 70 metres in height. As we were so early we got a choice parking spot and started hiking the slightly metal boardwalk a few hundred metres from the calving face. Every 5 or 10 minutes there would be a cracking and huge chunks of ice would fall into the lake, creating large impressive waves. We walked the entire 5 km boardwalk system getting every possible angle of view of the glacier. It was mesmerizing. 4 hours we spent there but by 12:30 had started to flag a little so we heading back to the car to drive back the 1.5 hours to El Calafate return the car and chill out. Cheryl thought it had been the most exciting day on the holiday. It was definitely a memorable experience.Okumaya devam et
Travels to Middle Earth
26 Kasım 2025, Arjantin ⋅ 🌧 8 °C
Yesterday we departed El Calafate on the bus for El Chantel which is about a 1.5 hour bus ride away. El Chantel. Chantel is located in the Glacier Ntl park and it is a hiking, trekking, climbing centre due to its proximity to Cerro Torre and Mount Fitz Roy. Mount Fitz Roy is probably familiar to everyone as its silhouette is the emblem for Patagonia clothing. The buses here are all double Decker and as I had booked ahead in advance we had the front row seats on the top of the bus. It gave us a very good view of the countryside. I think Cheryl and I were the oldest people on the bus as it struck me as mainly young backpackers. The first part of the trip was through the Patagonia Steppe, think desert like grasslands with few trees mainly given over to large cattle and sheep farms. We did see some wildlife from the bus including guanacos and ostriches. Guanacos are a form of camilid like a llama. Very sparsely inhabited. We saw some bike packers biking against the wind. It looked like hard work. The other excitement provided by the trip was passing other buses. The highway was very narrow with almost no shoulder so when the buses passed they were extremely close. So close that at times we thought we were going to collide with the other bus. I include a video.
Initially the trip went north but then we turned westward and we caught our initial view of the Fitz Roy mountains. That's when I started to get the feeling of being Bilbo Baggins from Lord of the Rings. The mountains here look different than the Rockies as they have spires on them which gives them a foreign exotic feeling. Like mountains that you would see in Middle Earth and Lord of the Rings.
We were dropped off at the bus station and wheeled our rolling luggage through the small village of 4000 people to our Air BNB on the north part of town.Okumaya devam et
Laguna Torres
26 Kasım 2025, Arjantin ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C
We were faced with the decision yesterday of which hike to do. The most famous hike here in El Chalten is to the Laguna de los tres. It offers the iconic Instagram photo of The Fritz Roy Mountain reflecting in the lake. The hike is 22 k round trip and 1000m of elevation gain. It is rated as an 8 to 10 hour hike. I wasn't sure if we had it in us to do this hike. We are more of a 4 to 5 hour hike. The lesser but easier hike was to Laguna Torres also 22 k but with only 500 metres of elevation rated at 6 to 8 hours. We also thought that if we fared well on the Laguna Torres hike, we could have a rest day and tackle the more difficult hike. We got going fairly early which for us was 8 am. The hike had a very gentle elevation gain over the 11 km in and at various points commanded great views of Cerre Torre, the spiky mountain in the distance. There were lots of people on the trail many of which passed us. We made it up to the lake in 3.5 hours and ate our lunches taking in the splendour of the lake, the glaciers and the mountains. It was very beautiful. Rain was predicted for the mid afternoon so we headed back after 15 to 20 minutes. The views weren't as scenic on the way out but we did see Condors soaring like vultures in the sky. We made it home by 2:30 which was 6.5 hours and a long hike for us. We were pretty tired and relaxed before an early supper. Fajitas. We had bought the beef from the local grocery store and it was a wonderful cut. The rain didn't arrive until 6 pm but it became very windy. Gusts of wind buffeted our accommodations all night long. Cheryl said it kept her up but I was so exhausted after the hike, I would have slept through anything.
Today we were a little sore from our hike yesterday and rain was predicted until 10 am so we took life easy at first. When it stopped raining we did a 2 hour hike to a local waterfall and wandered around town to get a feeling for life in El Chalten. Lots of little houses here. Lots of dogs. No solar panels. Supposedly everyone's electricity is so heavily subsidized by the government there is no reason to go solar or use wind power. Unfortunate they have lots of both.Okumaya devam et
The Kleins
28 Kasım 2025, Arjantin ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C
The highlight for us over the last two days has been getting together with our good friends from Edmonton, Jennifer and Doug Klein. Jen and Doug are travellers extraordinaire who have been traveling in South America for 2.5 months. They specially altered their plans to join us in Chantel for a few days. It was a little touch and go for them as they were traveling from Chile and their shuttle was delayed but they managed to make it in time for supper. We met them at Taperas an Argentine restaurant for supper. Think massive slabs of roasted beef, lamb and pork. They were able to regale us with stories of driving the Canterra Austral in a rally car, hiking the W trail in blinding snowstorms in Patagonia, being stalked and escaping from Pumas and more. It was all so adventurous and spellbinding. Of course we were able to tell them all about the excitement of looking at Eva Peron's hats at the Eva Peron museum and taking Tango lessons and having to dance with the male instructor which didn't seem half as exciting when we were telling them about it as when we had been at the museum or in the dance lesson.
On Thursday the Klein's met us at our Air BnB for a hike at 8:30. We had sworn off doing the big Laguna de los tres with them and had instead settled on the 4 hour Laguna Capri hike. They are spending several more days in El Chantel so they will save this hike for another day. The Laguna Capri hike was perfect. It offered commanding views of the Fitz Roy Mountain and the weather was perfect with totally clear skies such that you could make out all of the spires on the mountain. It would have only been better if we had seen a dragon circling the mountains. We haven't seen the Klein's since the summer so we had so much to catch up with them. I didn't bring up the Tango lesson or Eva Peron's hats again or the heat stroked Puma at the BA zoo as it just wasn't as exciting as what they had done. Having friends to walk and talk with made the time fly by and it seemed that the 2.5 hours up to the lake just flew by in no time.
We ate our lunches all sitting on the same log looking out onto the Capri lake and the mountains and the beauty felt surreal. I didn't mention that I thought the mountains looked a lot like one of Eva Peron's hats. I just sat in silence eating my ham and cheese sandwich and was happy that I had some friends. Of course the hike back down the mountain wasn't as thrilling but we were still afforded some incredible views of the Rio de las Vueltas and the snow covered mountains in the distance.
We were done the hike by around 1:30 and felt much better than we had felt on Tuesday. We reunited with the Klein's later in the afternoon for cake and coffee at Meme's bakery. Cheryl and I shared the largest piece of Carrot Cake which we felt guiltless eating as we had spent the morning preburning the calories. We enjoyed a game of Quiddler with the Klein's. Quiddler is a scrabble like card game. Whenever I am faced with playing such games, I think I develop word game anxiety induced expressive aphasia and can't think of any words to make. I kept my anxiety under control and finished 3rd with a respectable score.
After the game we bid adieau to the Klein's. They needed to get organized for more adventures and we needed to pack as we were heading off to El Calafate in the morning and then on to Montevideo Uruguay on Saturday morning in search of more fashion museums.Okumaya devam et
Montevideo
29 Kasım 2025, Arjantin ⋅ ☀️ 7 °C
The problem with going to remote places like El Chantel is that one has to extract oneself from the place and this inevitably chews up a couple days of your holiday. Friday we took the bus back to El Calafate and stayed in a small cabin at a hostel. El Calafate seemed to be even more touristy than when we were there a week ago. We ate out at a bakery and called an early night as our flight to BA and then on to Montvideo was scheduled at 8:20.
Saturday turned into a rough travel day. Things had started going badly a month before though. Initially our flight was scheduled to leave El Calafate at 1 pm which would connect to a flight in the late afternoon to Montevideo. Aerolineas Argentina changed the MV flight so we would have only 20 minutes to connect. As such I decided to change our BA flight to 8:20 as this was the only other option. I don't like early morning flights as I don't sleep very well anticipating that I will have to get up early. Of course I didn't sleep very well Friday night and woke up way too early and lay awake in bed for a long time before the alarm went off at. 5:30 am. Then I realized that I had forgotten to get our boarding passes so I frantically tried to navigate the user unfriendly AA website in Spanish as the time ticked down to 6 am and the arrival of the cab. Fortunately I had prepacked the night before. Our cab was punctual and we got out to the airport by 6:20 only to find that we were there 40 minutes too early as the baggage and security screening didn't open until 7. I had asked the night at the hotel about what time to get to the airport and the hotel clerk didn't know. Our next problem developed when we were boarding the plane. When we tried to scan our boarding passes for the flight to BA, they didn't work. We were pulled from the line and told that we had to have proof that we would be leaving Montevideo such as a copy of our ferry ticket back to BA. I hadn't bought the tickets yet. They finally accepted our tickets for our flight home but the desk agent was going to bar us from the flight. My phone was glitching because of poor cell service in the airport but fortunately Cheryl was able to produce our flight number. She told us that we would have to buy the ferry tickets in BA on our layover to prove that we were planning to leave Montevideo which we did on our phones in the airport. We flew into the AEP airport and because we were flying onto Montevideo we had to leave the secure area and head to international. This part of the airport was incredibly busy and loud and there were only a few gates. Our flight was to have left at 4:40 pm but didn't leave until 7:20. If we had taken the later flight from El Calafate we would have had plenty of time to make our connection. I fell asleep in the airport for a while but was feeling pretty rough by the time we got to board our plane. I went to the desk agent to show him our ferry tickets and he looked totally confused and told me that he didn't really need to know if I was coming back from Montevideo. Customs also didn't ask us about our return plans. I can't help but wonder whether the first agent was confused over her responsibilities. We Ubered in from the airport and collapsed with exhaustion into the Air BnB bed.
The only amusing thing that happened all day was meeting Pele the El Calafate cat. There was a cat waiting in the departure area when we showed up. One doesn't typically see a cat wandering around an airport. I went to investigate and he was waiting for a shop keeper to show up at 6:30. As soon as she showed up he followed her into her shop where she told me she would feed him and give him some affection.Okumaya devam et
Montevideo
30 Kasım 2025, Uruguay ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C
We spent 3 nights and 2 days in Montevideo. It was probably the perfect amount of time and we kept very busy. As we had arrived so late on Saturday night we didn't really see any of the city when we Ubered in from the airport. Our plan for our first day was to rent bikes for a few hours and bike the Rambler a 14 mile boardwalk along the Rio Plata. I checked for local bike rental shops and found a bike rental shop a 20 minute walk from our Condo. Many of the bike rentals were closed because it was Sunday but this was reportedly open according to Google and their hours had been confirmed by the owner only last week. We headed off and after a few blocks I said to Cheryl "I think this place is a dump" There was dog shit on the sidewalks especially around any tree, graffiti covered the lower floors of all the buildings including the security shutters, the buildings looked in rough shape and the sidewalks were so uneven and cracked that I kept stumbling and tripping. Montevideo looked terrible at least the part of town we were in. Plus the streets were absolutely deserted. We made it to the bike shop and it was closed. So disappointing. We walked back to our Airbnb and came across a very pleasant market of mainly food.
One skill of travelling was to be able to pivot quickly. I had come across a walking tour around Prado Park and some high end surrounding neighbourhoods including the presidential palace. There was also a notable art gallery at the end of the walk. We Ubered off to the start of the walk which began in a very nice rose garden although not as nice as Beunos Aires. The Uber driver spoke passable English and told us how safe Montevideo was. We visited two beautiful statues in the park, one commemorating the last 4 indigenous Urugugayians who were sent to Paris and died of home sickness and the other one of a stage coach. We continued our walk around the perimeter of the park but had to divert into an adjoining neighborhood to visit a Carmelite church. It had been finished in 1959 and had a neogothic appearance but on closer inspection was made of concrete. It was very beautiful. Our initial impression of the surrounding neighbourhood was that it was very nice but then when we started walking through the neighborhood we noticed a couple things. The houses were probably 75 to 100 years old and when built were probably all beautiful mansions. Closer inspection revealed that many of them had fallen into disrepair and some were derelict. The non derelict homes were surrounded by significant fences and walls topped with razor wire or electric fencing. Something one would not expect in a safe neighborhood. We kept walking and also noticed uneven sidewalks, dog shit, and ornate street lights that didn't look like they had worked for years. All within blocks of the presidential palace. We did a quick walk through the botanical garden which was pleasant enough and no dogs. The presidential house looked good as did the house next door. We finished the walk at the Juan Manuel Barnes Museum. It was closed as indicated by a hand written sign.
Sunday evening we walked over to Independence Square the heart of Montevideo and the location of an impressive statue and mausoleum of General Jose Artigas a leader of independence from Spanish rule. Other notable sites were the Canadian embassy, an opera house known as Teatro solis and a beautiful 1920s skyscraper known as the Palacio Salvo.
Monday morning we had hoped to go for a bike ride. Unfortunately it kept raining longer than initially predicted so we had to give up on the bike ride. We walked over to the Palacio Salvo building hoping to get on a tour. Chat GPT thought they offered an English tour at 10. They conceigre told us to come back for the English tour at 11:30. We walked around the old town and port area. It looked a little rough but one could tell they were trying to maintain it as a lot of cruise ships visit Montevideo. We saw the headquarters of Bank of Nova Scotia in Uruguay which seemed a little strange. We made it back to Palacio Salvo by 11:30. The concierge on the desk told us that he had told us the wrong times and that the English tours weren't available until 2 or 4 pm. We walked back to our Air BnB for lunch. Our time constraint for the day was we had to pick up our rental car at 5:30. I am a big fan of picking the car up the night before as sometimes getting the rental car can be very time consuming. After lunch we did a brief walk on the boardwalk before heading back to Palacio Salvo for a 3rd time at 4 pm. The boardwalk near us wasn't too exciting but at least we got to walk along the water.
The Palacio Salvo had been a hotel completed in 1928 by the Salvo brothers who had immigrated from Italy and made their fortunes in the textile industry. The architect was Mario Palanti an Italian living in BA. He also designed the Barolo Palace in BA which I think I included a photo of earlier in our trip in this blog. The carvings on the two bottom floors of the building were dedicated to Charles Darwin so there were all these ornate stone carvings of finches and tortoise . The architect was a combination of art deco, Renaissance and gothic. We went to the top floor at 95 metres and the 10 floor roof at 70 metres. It was spectacular. We also saw their ballroom, their beautiful marble staircase and a beautiful stain glass window. On the bottom floor they had a tango museum as the famous Tango song Cumparsita had been written on the site by Mateo Rodriguez as a dance hall had been located there prior to building the hotel. And the hotel you ask. They had experienced financial problems in the 30s and they had to sell off the individual rooms. The larger rooms made nice apartments but the smaller rooms still remain as smaller rooms to this day some having to use communal showers.
We noticed a lot of street signs labeled Donna Coca on top of the street name. It seemed so odd. Cheryl googled it and it ment donated by coca cola. Coca cola had paid for many of the street signs. Crazy.
The people here in Uruguay love their Mate, a caffeinated beverage of cut up Yura mata leaves that you add hot water to at 80 degrees Celsius and drying through a straw. We see carrying their thermoses and mugs with straws everywhere.
We walked over and got our rental car from the Sixt rental car office only several blocks away. The main excitement was driving the car onto our building car elevator and driving out of the elevator. The Nissan was a tight fit even with the mirrors turned in. We were very tired after all of our walking so we chilled out in our Airbnb that night.Okumaya devam et
Montevideo to Colonia
2 Aralık 2025, Uruguay ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C
We rented a rental car in Montevideo in order to drive and explore the countryside between Montevideo and Colonia. My initial plan had been to stay at a estancia or ranch for two nights however that plan only existed in my imagination. I found a few ranches that took guests but they had either closed or never responded to my email. As such I decided that we would stop in a small beach town known as Santa Anna for a night and then spend a night in Carmelo which is a little West of Colonia for the second night. Chat GPT recommended 2 stops. Humedales de Santa Lucia just 40 minutes outside of Montevideo. The driving was very easy after we had navigated the apartment elevator. I had worried about driving while in Buenos Aires as the Argentine drivers seemed crazy. None of the roads in Uruguay seemed very busy and the roads were all in very good shape The first stop was a wetlands beside probably one of the poorest communities that we saw in Uruguay. We didn't stay very long at the marshland. We then drove on to a place called Kiyu which had a beautiful beach and cliffs above which 3 paragliders were sailing. We had lunch and strolled on the beach and watched the paragliders. Our final stop for the day was Nuevo Helvecia or New Switzerland which had been settled by Swiss immigrants in the late 19 and early 20 century. It was a pretty town which seemed so different than the first town we had stopped at. Everything was closed for lunch time siesta so we waited for a Swiss themed coffee shop to open where we shared a large piece of chocolate cake with merengue topping and dulce leche filling. We chatted a little bit with the owner who in his broken English explained where his German and Swiss ancestors had come from. The restaurant played a soundtrack of Octoberfest songs. We continued on to Santa Ana where we stayed at a Yurt Air BnB owned by 2 modern day hippies. They had connected the Yurts to these adobe structures built with compressed mud and imbedded bottles that housed the bathroom and kitchen. It was really neat. Santa Ana also had a beautiful beach where we went for a spectacular sunset.
Next morning we had made arrangements to go horseback riding in Santa Ana through our Air BnB host. We met our Gaucho or Uruguayan cowboy German down at the beach. He didn't speak much English but we were able to communicate enough to each go for an hour horseback ride with him . I went first and then Cheryl went. We walked along the beach and through the shallow waters with the horses and his very energetic Labrador dogs. We also did controlled trots with us where he rode immediately beside us and held onto a rope to control Luna the horse that both Cheryl and I got to ride. It was quite fun. German had some connection to Toronto. He had either worked in Toronto as a carpenter or his son worked as a carpenter or the horse had worked in Toronto. I couldn't quite figure it out. The Air BnB hosts allowed us a late checkout and we didn't get away until noon . We headed off to Carmelo which is West of Colonia de Sacramento. The countryside between Montevideo and Colonia reminded me of southwestern Ontario. Very fertile looking with corn, grain and cattle farming. The only way it was different was that there were scattered palm trees and Eucalyptus trees. We made it to Carmelo which is known for its vineyards and wineries. I had asked Chat GPT to suggest a beautiful winery that we could visit. The one it recommended was very beautiful but we were told when we arrived that we would have had to prebook a visit and that only guests of their BnB could wander the grounds. By this time in the afternoon it has become very hot hitting 33 degrees. Cheryl and I just wilt in the heat so we headed into Carmelo to chill out at our non air-conditioned Air BnB. There was a museum of wood carving 2 blocks from the Air BNB so we ventured out for a visit in the heat. The museum was run by an 86 year old carver behind a hardware store. It contained his lifetime carvings which were all very unique. He walked us around the museum and explained with some help from Google translates all about his various carvings. We wandered around Carmelo after supper. Everyone was very pleasant. Lots of dogs and lots of youths and adults zipping around on scooters. We even saw a family of 4 on a scooter. Carmelo wasn't on the tourist route.
Today we had a leisurely start. We returned the key to Susan at her workplace before heading to Punta Gorda which was West of Colonia by 20 minutes to the 0 mile of the Rio Plata. There was a provincial park of sand dunes and a park and lookout commemorating the 2 visits that Charles Darwin had made here in 1833 and 1835 on the Beagle. We then started heading back towards Colonia visiting the ruins of a Jesuit mission and Conchillas which was a limestone mining town run by an English company in the 19th century. Many of the buildings were still being used today for various purposes reflecting how well they had been built. Having exhausted all of the tourist attractions in Southwestern Uruguay we continued on to Colonia and returned the car to Sixt.Okumaya devam et
GezginYou might be crying after flying Delta! Bon voyage
GezginI like Delta, or at least I like Detroit Airport. They have a train that takes you right to your gate, and a Veterans Lounge. Never had any trouble with Delta, and no lost or damaged luggage either, not like Air Canada or Westjet.
GezginHave fun on this next adventure! Safe travels & hopefully no crying!