OK well don't know how far I will get with this as time seems to have run away with us this afternoon. We are now in Santiago in Chile and have to be on our way at 5.15 tomorrow morning to the mining area further north in Atacama. I still haven't reported on Uruguay or our short stop over here in Santiago so will try to do that now and see how far I get.
We left BA Fri. late morning and headed for the ferry terminus. A big modern building made of tubular steel and glass and with a larger than life model of Marge Simpson in the corner! Honestly, and no I don't know either. Anyway all goes well and we across into Uruguay in one hour. We have only two nights in Uruguay and that is going to be spent in the Spanish / Portuguese town of Colonia de Sacramento. This is another town protected and largely maintained by World Heritage and is situated on the Rio de la Plata estuary.
The first impression of Colonia de S. is of a delightful small town of old Spanish style streets and Spanish and Portuguese houses going down onto the waterside. The streets are cobbled. Many of the houses date back to the seventeenth century. The Portuguese and Spanish fought over this place for many years and you can see that in the mix of architecture and the people. There were no plantations here and therefore only a few black people in the population who were brought here to work in the houses. There 's no indigenous population at all in Uruguay thanks to some ethnic cleansing in19th cent. Another story.
We visited a bullring just out of town which the Spanish built but it has fallen to ruin since the prime minister of the time didn't approve of bull fighting and banned it, only used for two years. The building itself looks well worth renovating and they are considering turning it into a theatre.
There are some fairly expensive modern houses overlooking the sea which are apparently holiday homes for more affluent Argentinians. The same Argentinians also bank here.............we had noticed that there were rather a lot of banks around.
So we spend our time walking around the town on Friday and then on Sat. we walk right round the bay and back which takes most of the morning. We eat out in one of the restaurants in the town square on both nights which has both great atmosphere but only average food. This we find is pretty much the rule so far in South America ie food not great but that's ok.
One thing of note here which may interest everyone is the old cars all over the place .......called vintage back home. Cars are extremely expensive here due to import duty and VAT so the people keep their cars for ever. Even I had a nostalgic moment or two seeing cars I remember from the sixties. Dad wants some input here so will hand you to him for a minute. A split screen Morris Minor convertible, Peugeot 404 both in good condition plus some older US cars that I did not recognize.

Our hotel by the way is a reconstruced Spanish house with rooms facing onto a small courtyard with a large tree in the centre. Small and modest but lovely.

Just for the record,before we leave Uruguay, you might like to know that it's largest export is beef ( Hereford) to Europe (40 per cent) followed by wheat and corn. They also have large dairy herds of Fresians for their own milk consumption. I thought uncle Peter might be interested in that last bit if he's reading this.

And so back to BA and our flight to Santiago. We have only a short time in Santiago so not enough to make a deep impression and I find I 'm struggling a bit to make it sound significantly different to BA. I feel at this stage that we probably are traveling a bit too fast. Anyway Santiago is about the size of BA and perhaps slightly less sophisticated. It is however the wealthiest town in Chile and of course everyone speaks Spanish. Every street corner has a bank and a pharmacy and we're not sure how they can sustain so many. There were two of the same branch within about 30 metres of one another. They also have a lot of stray dogs!
The main town square houses their govt. building as you would expect and are worth viewing............ some very good examples of 18th and 19th cent Spanish architecture. Also a statue of Allende who we are told wasn't murdered by Pinochet which it is rumored but committed suicide when he learnt he was dying. Our guide is a man of about 70yrs and so was here when Pinochet was in charge and maintains he did a lot of good for the country. So we move on and see a bit of the more modern side of town. Big sky scraper office blocks. Modern apt blocks and shopping malls. All the kind of things you'd expect in a modern city and of which, given it's history, Santiago is especially proud.