March 07 – Punta del Este

Last night we cruised east along the southern coast of Uruguay to the resort city of Puntadel Este.  The city is bordered on the south by Rio de la Plata and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean.  The population of Punta del Este is just over two hundred thousand people and is a popular summer resort for visitors from Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil.  Of course being in the southern hemisphere, their summer is from Christmas in December to Carnival in February.

The main roads that run along the coast are lined with high rise condominium.  Most of them seem to be very new and quite a few had very unique styles.  Further away from the core of the city there are very expensive looking estates.

When we booked our excursion of the city, I thought we were going to a Rail museum.  This was interesting because we live close to St. Thomas which was a leading railway junction and has its own rail museum.  It turned out that we had booked a tour of a modern art museum called the Ralli Museum.

Despite our general disinterest in modern art, we did find this museum to be very good.  Ralli was a European banker who had acquired many pieces of art and when he decided to retire, he opened up several galleries across the world to display his collection to the general public.

We both loved a collection of sculptures by John Robinson. This collection was displayed in a garden and had ebony statues of young children doing ordinary activities.

Marg particularly loved a Dali statue entitled “Women in Flames”.  The torso of statue was made up of open drawers. According to the description “The beautiful faceless figure symbolizes all womanhood.  Her drawers hide her secretes and feminine wiles; they contain her timeless mystery.”

We then went to another art museum known as Casa Pueblo.  We weren’t that excited until we found out that is was based on the Gaudi school of architecture.  Gaudi was the mad genius behind the Sagrada Família in Barcelona Spain . His guiding philosophy is that in nature there is neither an object with a true straight line nor a ninety degree angle between adjoining objects.  The Casa Pueblo is true to that philosophy and is very visually interesting.  I wish I could say the same thing about the art collection. Casa Pueblo was the studio of the famous South American artist Carlos Páez Vilaró. Unfortunately his art did nothing for either of us.

Before dinner we went to the ship’s theatre and watched a magician named Jay Mattioli. He was a very energetic performer, who had performed on America’s Got Talent.

This evening was the first dress up night for dinner on the cruise.  We had our picture taken with the Captain, which has become a ritual with us when we go on a cruise.  All the ships officers were in the lounges in full dress uniforms and this makes for a rather classy evening.

For dinner I had duck and Marg had lamb.  Both dishes were very tasty.