February 13, 2022
NAUTICAL TERM OF THE DAY ~ Bunker
To bunker is to...wait a minute! Just for grins, I'd like to see what YOU think this term means. Please leave a comment below with your guess. Winner takes the Grand Prize: A Rubber Cookie with Cement Frosting! (Please remember if you're following this blog by email, you cannot leave a comment there. Click on the title and you will be redirected to RoundTheWorldWriter. Thanks for playing!)
Please don't think I'm slamming Montevideo by saying it's "where you go when you're on your way to someplace else." This is what our excursion guide, Adriana, said. What she meant is that it's not the glitzy, touristy destination its larger neighbors, Argentina and Brazil, are. But Uruguay has plenty to offer and they are working on improving their touristic profile. For example, move over New Orleans and Rio, did you know that Uruguay boasts the longest Carnival celebration in the world? Also, there are about 3.3 million people who call Uruguay home. And those 3.3 million have about 9 million dogs! (Come on, dog lovers! What's not to like?)
The city of Montevideo is pleasantly laid out around planned squares filled with greenery. There are copious parks interspersed among neighborhoods. The downtown, which they call their "central district," reminded me of Seattle because, like that city in the Great Northwest, trees line a number of its streets making it a very livable urban area. The difference is much of Montevideo's architecture dates to the 1930's and features art deco, art nouveau, and neo-classical lines and embellishments. According to Adriana, 16% of the population is considered impoverished, 18% wealthy, with the rest falling into a wide, diverse middle class.
All the homes, whether humble or quite affluent like this one, are hemmed about with gates, bars, electric fencing or razor wire. This is has been the norm throughout Central and South America, ever since we visited Costa Rica. Makes me appreciate the small town where we live and fact that we don't feel the need to erect this kind of defense around our little "castle."
Uruguay's government is a democratic republic, with lawmakers and presidents elected for five year terms. They CANNOT be re-elected, (which makes more and more sense to me!) The current governmental coalition is conservative after a time of democratic socialist rule. As in the States, the political pendulum tends to swing back and forth. For the first time, they are experiencing a problem with more immigration than expected. Their newcomers tend to be from Venezuela, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
The citizens of Uruguay are unabashed carnivores and love beef. They are proud of their gaucho (cowboy) heritage. Asado barbecue is their national culinary favorite. Even though the country is positioned on the largest estuary in the world, as well as the southern Atlantic, fish is not their first choice.
Our tour ended with a visit to Baar Fun Fun (Pronounced "Bar Foon Foon") for a tango demonstration. Oh, my word! What a smoldering, intense, athletic, sensuous dance!
The tango troop came on board the Star as destination performers later in the evening. The dance is raw passion under tight control, very exciting to watch. With all the lifts and kicks and flicks, pound for pound, dancers really are the strongest athletes around.
We had originally been scheduled for only one day in Montevideo, with a second stop in Uruguay at Punta del Este, a smaller city farther east on the coast. Unfortunately, it's a tender port, which means we can't dock there, and the wind is expected to make the water too rough for our lifeboats to conduct tender operations. So we have an overnight here, which I'm sure will make all the football fans on board happy because that will increase the chances of good broadcast quality for the Super Bowl tonight!
I'll leave you with a short tango video. Please remember if you don't see the vid on your FollowIt! email, just click the title to be taken to the blog.
More soon!
To bunker is to hunker down. At least that's what we call it. Love, love your blog by the way!!
ReplyDeleteSorry, Meatball. That's not the nautical meaning of the word, but thanks for playing!
DeleteOur first of two days in Montevideo fell on 1 January 2015. Talk about a dead city … absolutely no one was on the trees until late afternoon. But we didn’t mind because we had the city to ourselves and explored quietly. The second day … wow … such a lively city.
ReplyDeleteBunker = To fuel the vessel. I believes it comes from the old days of coal bunkers and now the fuel is brought to the vessel on bunker barges.
ReplyDeleteMust be fun to have an overnight in a port. A chance to have dinner ashore and not feel rushed to get back to the ship.