0249 Paraiso Suizo to Grande Amburgo, Montevideo

2^nd May Paraiso Suizo to Grande Amburgo, Montevideo

We finally depart Uruguay and get on board our ship to Europe

Thank goodness I had packed up my rear awning and tent in the sunshine yesterday, because tonight it rained and everything  would have got wet just before I had to leave it packed up on the ship for 4 weeks !  As we didn’t have to be at the port till 2.30 pm, we had a leisurely pack up, and after saying goodbye to everyone who was on a different ship over the next few days, Franz & Ingrid in the Unimog, and I eventually set off at about noon, with a plan to stop at the supermercado in Aventida en route to buy some wine.  We had heard a rumour that there was limited or no alcohol available on the ship, so we decided to stock up a little in case, and if the rumour turned out to be false, we could always take it with us into Europe and drink in later !

When we got to the supermarket it was PACKED – I guess because everything has been closed for May Day yesterday.  But we got our wine, loaded it into our vehicles, and set off into Montevideo.

On the way, the sky got blacker and blacker until it was soon raining as heavily as any rain I have seen on the whole trip  Horrible conditions, but thank goodness it was Sunday as we had to drive right through the city, and traffic was light. 

The drive along coastal rambla (corniche) past town was no fun, hardly able to see a thing in the heavy rain, but glimpsing

beaches on our left that would probably be quite nice in the sun ! But there was a lot of deep standing water so had to be very careful, not wanting anything untoward to happen during the last few kilometres !  And my lovely clean car was now filthy again !!  We arrived at the port on time at 2.30 pm, found Fabrizio from the shipping agent, and got the vehicles electronically scanned for size, and export paperwork done. 

While our export docs were being processed, we were stopped by a kind of outdoor marine museum, which not only had an old steam crane from London, but also the Range Finder (now known as radar) from the German Battleship Admiral Graf Spee which of course was scuttled in 1939 just 6 miles outside Montevideo Harbour.  It was only recovered in 2004 – All very interesting.  Later, driving around the docks there

were hundreds of containers as well as carefully packaged (and very large) wind farm turbine blades and their towers – Wonder where they were off to ?   We then sat beside vessel Grande Amburgo watching them unload Peugeots, BMW’s, and some heavy equipment  until 6 pm, as the rain slowly cleared.  Finally we were loaded onto the ship just before  6 pm, and the vehicles tied down by the crew on 6^th level, before we moved our stuff into our cabins on 12^th level.  I have

nice twin bunk cabin with porthole on the port side.  Almost straight away we had a quick dinner of spaghetti and pizza, met a few of the crew but can’t remember all the names yet – Filipino steward is Randy, and Rafael the chef.  A quick explore around the decks watching containers being loaded onto the front section of the ship, and then to bed………

 Pics are here :- https://picasaweb.google.com/117739775480775657932/0250ParaisoSuizoToGrandeAmburgo?authkey=Gv1sRgCL7E86KXovfLlwE