Blogs from East, Uruguay, South America

Let’s talk about this ship and about this cruise overall. We are on an 8-night/9-day cruise on the Costa Fortuna which holds just over 2,000 passengers when at full capacity which it is not. The drinks available are Sprite, Coke, Coke Zero and Fanta. They do have some sort of canned disgusting mango/peach/I-don’t-know-what tea and canned, disgusting lemongrass tea. There is no other tea on the ship that I can find. I know these people drink tea and use tea bags but I don’t know where the hot water is or I’d be brewing my own tea and making an iced tea. There is no iced coffee (except what I made one day that was not good). There are constant espressos. Every bar has a gigantic espresso machine. I did see cappuccino on the menu one ... read more

Uruguay Spanjolene kom til til området, som i dag heter Uruguay, i 1516. Fram til 1828, året som Uruguay ble en selvstendig stat, var det en stadig kiving mellom stort sett, portugiserne og spanjolene om herredømmet. Landet er i dag en demokratisk republikk. Det er ingen statsreligion og religionsundervisning er forbudt i skolen. Det er ca 45 % katolikker, og i 2012 ble både abort og likekjønnet ekteskap legalisert. For de historieinteresserte, finner dere mer informasjon helt på slutten av reisebrevet. For å få en rolig, avslappende avslutning på turen vår, ble vi, av en argentiner vi kjenner, rådet til å dra til nord/øst-kysten av Uruguay. Vannet er varmere og strendene bedre her enn i Argentina. Da vi oppdaget at karnevalsparadene så smått hadde startet opp i Montevideo, bestemte vi oss for å ta tre overnattinger ... read more

Just because Uruguay is such a pleasant surprise and because we have enjoyed it so much we wanted to share some more pictures from the second part of our trip along the Atlantic coast of Uruguay. This means a lot of beach pictures so if this is not an appropriate moment for you, as we understand European autumn has arrived, please just skip this post. From Paloma we traveled to Cabo Polonio which is the direct opposite of Punta del Este. Where Punta del Este is the high rise building hip and posh latin American jet set beach resort, Cabo Polonio is a small hippie fishing village without electricity and running water in the middle of a nature reserve. Where in Punta del Este you can look at people, in Cabo Polonio you actually meet people. ... read more

Back to the mouth of the river and back into Uruguay. This port was a tender and put into a very picturesque beach town , well beach city I suppose. A small island used as a resort on the East coast. Puerto de Punta Del Estes. The day was sunny and warm with light winds. Quite a long tender ride in to the pier. On arriving , there was the usual mob of local tour operators, bus charter operators and taxi hacks. Everyone trying to sell their time and take up yours! We choose to walk,the perimeter with our friends, so 6 of us. We had a map and put Jit in charge of navigating the local tourist stops. Had we taken the ships tour , it would have cost us $49 each. Kate and I ... read more

Geo: -34.9751, -54.943We dressed in shorts and shoes expecting to walk around a small town. We should have dressed for a day at the beach. We were tendered ashore today into Punta del Este around 9.30am. What a beautiful little town. Long sandy beaches stretch out along both sides of this penninsula. On one side, a calm protected bay where our ship lay docked, and the other an exposed surf beach heading out to the South Atlantic. We wandered around the bay beach, alongside yachts, giant gulls and flying fish leaping out of the water. Even a giant sea wolf had arrived on shore as a welcoming party. Basically a large seal, with a huge impressive mane. It wasnt long before Id abandoned my shirt, and shoes for thongs and we were knee deep in the ... read more