January 32 Montevideo

January 31 Montevideo, Uruguay
Did you know that Uruguay has 12 million cows? Nine million sheep, 5 million horses, and 3 million people. And every family has the right to own a horse. 1.5 million of the country’s population live in Montevideo.
The name Montevideo means “I see a mountain,” and was supposedly uttered by one of the first explorers to the area. We had the mountain pointed out to us and it isn’t much of a mountain. A few miles from the capital, is Punta del Este, a world famous resort area.
We docked in a commercial area. In fact, when looking ashore from the ship what I thought were condominiums turned out to be miles of containers.
Montevideo and Uruguay are know for fine leathers so instead of the H. Stern jewelry company shuttle we took a leather company shuttle to their shop in Independence Square.
The shop wasn’t much…..a room not much bigger than our living room, and up a flight of steep stairs. I didn’t see enough buying to warrant the vans which ran all day but it must work for them.
We wandered around Plaza Independencia, looked at the statute of liberator Jose Gervasio Artigas on his black marble horse (he’s buried underneath it), bought a post card, and walked along the main avenue. Several people stopped to see if they could give us directions and all told us to watch our wallet and purse.
What I saw of Montevideo didn’t impress me but people who took tours said it is a lovely city. The areas around the dock reminded me of pictures of war zones ----after the shelling. Things improved as we got closer to Independence Square but it wouldn’t be on my list of favorite places.