Northbound

Continuing north, we’re back into summer. We think 10 days is long enough for winter, don’t
you? Margie’s celebrating the warm sun with our new friends Gilly and Tony from England.
(We’ve shared a dinner table with them since Los Angeles. The first leg of the trip we also had a
couple from Seattle, second leg paired us with a Spanish/Malaysian couple from Kuwait, and for
the third leg a Canadian/Croatian couple from Calgary rounds out the table. All great people, and
we had a lot of fun with them.) Don’t know who the cutie is that Tony’s ogling, but a lot of
them appeared out of the woodwork this day.

Had an interesting behind-the-scenes tour of the stage. This is the women’s dressing room, where 5 singers/dancers, each with an assistant, can make a complete tights-to-wig costume change in 40 seconds. Five men, five women, and a six piece orchestra put on two singing/dancing review type shows every other day, plus miscellaneous other lesser events. The dancing is nothing short of incredible, even if you don’t factor in the fact that they’re performing on a moving stage as the ship rocks and rolls not in time to the music. One can only imagine what the Cumberland County Playhouse could do with their budget!

Next came a day in Montevideo, Uruguay. Big city in a small country. We wandered around on
our own, remembering just enough Spanish to buy dust collectors and sandals. This building, on
Independence square downtown, is the first reinforced concrete high-rise in South America at 27
stories, built in 1923. Notice also the more modern building on the left, with all the lovely
window air conditioners.

Then across the Rio Plata (150 miles wide at the mouth) to Buenos Aires, Argentina. We opted
for one of the organized tours in this MUCH bigger city, and went on a boat ride through the
river delta. The delta covers an area about 100 x 200 miles, comprised of more islands than I can count. Some people live on the delta islands, but many more weekend there. A modest 2
bedroom home on 1/4 acre can be had for about $30,000USD. Scattered amongst those we saw:
Our boat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Colonial architecture such as this club house.
Trucks hauling rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Junkyards
Repair station (flat tire?) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New vehicles under construction

Buenos Aires is also the start of the third and final leg of our cruise. Next comes two days at sea and then two days in Rio de Janeiro.