March 3, Montevideo, Uruguay

 So we took a bus trip today to see the highlights of the city and the large Juanico Winery.  It was determined to rain all day, so we didn't spend much time at all at our photo ops.

This building has an interesting story. It was originally intended to be a hotel, but the residents hated it.  It became condominiums instead.  The builder had a brother who built a similar building across the river in Buenos Aires.  Both were to have lighthouses on top, and the lights were too touch in the middle of the river, which, if I understand, is 170 miles wide.  It's too far! They didn't take into account the curvature of the earth, and the buildings are not in eyesight to each other.  Fortunately as time had gone on, the Montevideons have come to love the building.

Another famous landmark is the telecommunications building with a top that looks like a sail.

As I said, it rained all day. So when we arrived at the winery and were on our way through the very extensive vineyards, one of our three buses actually slipped off the slick dirt road and became stuck.  After several minutes of trying to free themselves, the driver released all his passengers and loaded them onto the other buses for the trip to the visitors' center and tasting room.  Standing room only. 🤣

At the visitor center we sampled four wines--one red blend, two whites, and a very nice dessert wine.  We had a lovely five course meal.  We were stuffed!  Here is the meat course.

What you see here is a bird nest.  They usually nest in trees, but here at the winery they build them on top of the posts.   The bird itself is unremarkable, just a little brown bird. But they build these relatively large nests, and they put a wall on it to prevent the nest and everything in it from being blown out by the wind.  You cannot see the wall on this nest because it has already been vacated by the builder and taken over by another bird.

 Now back on the Oosterdam, went passed a huge ship graveyard.  It's kind of messy looking.