Montevideo then Cape Town

Careful watch

Now, that's a proper gun!

Faded grandeur

Beer in the square

Harbour view

Breakfast on deck

British war memorial

Celebrity Infinity on the 'runway'

That's better!

The countryside

View to the sea

Independence Square

Graf Spee in harbour

End of the line

Head to head

Once the tallest in South America

Revolutionaries

As it used to be

Local colour

Made in China?

Market restaurant

Montevideo dawn

Harbour view

Not quite Copacabana

Now THAT'S a BBQ!

Our berth

Our escort

Background presence

Port market

Queen Victoria

Recylcer

The wreck's out there

City view

Suburbia

The fort

Leaving Montevideo

Next sector

Avoid that Cape

She only just fits!

Traffic lights

No need for comment

Who invented the tango?

Uruguay – a Nation created by the British to separate Argentina from Brazil (and stop the fighting between them) and to give the British influence in South America after the loss of the US after Independence. No natural resources to speak of, but a deep-water port accessing the enormous estuary known as the ‘River’ Plate, makes Montevideo a busy port capable of handling larger shipping than Buenos Aires. The mouth of the estuary is 120 miles across, but the channel is dredged to between 12m and 14m - QM2 draws 11m, so we had a cautious entry in the dark! It’s so huge that the water is permanently brackish, so the ship will float even lower in the water.

The channel markers are laid out like an airport runway, with the port and starboard buoys flashing in sequence down a channel probably 8 miles long but only 150m wide – quite surreal as we glided into the port, followed by Celebrity Infinity just 3 or 4 miles astern. Of course the US buoyage is the wrong way round for a European sailor, so one has to think twice when trying to work out what comes next! A 180 turn and 300m sideways move into the berth was a neat manoeuvre thanks to loads of thrusters and azipods on this ship.

We had breakfast on our balcony to make the most of the port entry and then off on our tour ‘Trail of a Legend’ tracing the events of December 1939 and the Battle of the River Plate. We explored the city and saw the buildings where the British, Uruguayan and German diplomats oversaw the political battle, which played out into the scuttling of the Admiral Graf Spee after much scheming and deception by the British. Then out to the fort which looks out over the harbour and the estuary and from which thousands of sightseers saw the warship destroyed by scuttling charges 4km offshore, via the Montevideo cemetery in which the German casualties are buried and the rather bizarre British Cemetery – very few naval graves in fact, but as there was a large British community (We used to own and run most of the infrastructure here), there is a wide variety of elaborate Victorian memorials. A quick visit to the Naval Museum, displaying a 150mm gun salvaged from the ship in 2004 and back to the QM2 for lunch and a cool, off – a hot day!

Montevideo is famous for its port market, in which you can get any sort of meat dish barbecued on wood griddles and any amount of tourist tat, but what an atmosphere! The steaks are simply HUGE, much larger than the plates on which they are served with mountains of chips and inches thick!! Have to admit that we didn’t attempt anything, but wandered round the faded grandeur of the city and enjoyed a beer in the shade of the Plaza Independencia plane trees.

R & F returned safely from their Iguassu trip and we enjoyed our dinner as the ship tiptoed out of the harbour in the evening sunset, headed for Cape Town, merely 3321 miles to the East as at Noon today and we are cruising at just over 25 knots – next land to be seen could be Tristan da Cuhna. We have covered over 7178 miles since New York and it’s amazing to think that we are so far South on the globe, although less far South than the UK is North of the Equator.

Quite a day in Rio de Janeiro!

What a day! An early start as we arrived before 6 am – to see the Redeemer statue floodlit and the Sugar Loaf just being lit by the sunrise – magical! The ship slid into the harbour as the sun rose over the Brazilian Navy and then did a 180 turn to come into the berth backwards just ahead of MV Discovery as we had breakfast.

Our new friends the Moorhouses had a contact in Rio who had arranged Frank, our guide and a minibus to take us around for the day, so off we went on a private tour, starting with a trip up the rack-and-pinion railway to the top of the Corcovado Mountain with the Christ The Redeemer Statue. (Statue was built after a public vote to find a symbol for the city and built in 1931)

Just time for a quick coffee before our trip through the forest up the very steep track almost to the top, where there are 300 steps and a short escalator! What a view – perfect day, no clouds and a panoramic of the whole of Rio.

Next top the paraglide! It was Jaki Moorhouses’ idea and the rest of us had dismissed it as too dangerous, but when we got there it didn’t seem so bad, so Richard, Felicity and I agreed to do it – at ground level! Probably about the trickiest was the drive up, with all the pilots driving like Ayrton Senna up a winding track.

A proper liner

Above the helicopters

Northern Rio

Landed!

On the way down

Aussies on CTR

Ready to board

Rio & lagoon

Cablecar

Base of the Sugar Loaf

Coming in to land

Copacabana

CTR at dawn

Monument silhouette

Monument silhouette

Rio at dawn

Sunrise over the Navy

Not that bad after all!

Favella

Flags in the station

Sugar Loaf at dawn

Intrepid tourists

Landing beach

Final approach

The train

Copacabana

A large ship a long way off

Felicity

The North from the SLM

Paraglider landing

It's fun now!

Cunard please note!

Rio traffic

On the way to the Sugar Loaf

On the beach

P at the monument

Quarantine Island

R & P halfway up the cablecar

R at the Monument

Rio and racetrack

Ready for takeoff

Christ the Redeemer in the sunlight

Rio from the train

View from SLM

Rio and the bridge

Sandcastles

Sugar Loaf

Sunrise

Dangerous dessert

Coming In

Band on the train

Monument at dawn

Christ The Redeemer

Monument from the train

Poster at the top

Track through the town

Cablecar

Rio from the train

Ready & waiting

We flew from there!

Safely down

Don’t ask about the take-off – suffice to say you don’t look down the almost vertical strip down which you have to walk or run to get lift! 15 minutes of exciting gliding and you’re on the beach ready for a beer. Paul and Pauline manned the bus and got the drinks in!

Frank took us to a brilliant restaurant for lunch – a buffet that put Cunard to shame! Then off to Sugar Loaf for a trip up the cablecar via the eye-candy beaches at Ipanema and Copacabana – sounds really chic! Millions of people on the beaches, which are really colourful with all the sunshades and sandcastles.

A new Swiss cablecar (original 1912) takes you up in 2 stages to a fantastic viewpoint at the top, with a different perspective of the city.

R & F left us for their hotel – they had a night ashore before their private trip to Iguassu to see the falls there, while we went back for a late cup of tea as the ship sailed into the night at 11pm – another romantic departure as the city lights provided a foreground to the mountains.

On our way to Montevideo now at a steady 19 knots – very humid – 2 sea days before we hopefully meet up with the independent travellers again.

Such a lot of photos on this page that haven’t titled them, but I’m sure you can work it out! The computer loads them in a funny way too, so they aren’t in the right order – never mind!