Uruguay

Day 560,
59 997 km since the beginning of the journey,
Uruguay

Thursday morning began with the absence of the internet connection again. That meant that the connection lasted so long that the message displayed in Spanish reported about the lack of credit. It was a bit of a surprise because I had paid 100 pesos and then used 19 pesos only twice. (for which you get two days or 48 hours), then elementary mathematics shows that there should be still 62 pesos. Should. But still no connection at all.

Since I had planned to drive to Uruguay in the morning the decision was to sort the matter out later. There are about 75 thousand inhabitants in Qualeguaychu. The name of the city comes from the Guarani sentence "The River of Large Jaguar". In January and February a big carnival takes place here.


Juicy mandarins are everywhere on sale.

 
Local San Jose Cathedral. Further on the direction was towards the river Rio Uruguay which is the border between Argentina and Uruguay and about 33 kilometres away. If I had followed the GPS suggested route the distance would have been at least 200 more kilometres. The paper map is the best of all.


The bridge over the Rio Uruguay. A toll bridge.


Further on everything goes according to the usual rules. You drive as far as you succeed, then a man shows where to park the car. The usual formalities with the passport and car documents and that`s that. Uruguay is a visa-free country for Estonians. A new stamp is added to my passport and the visa is valid for 90 days. The document "en Vehiculos Admision temporaria" confirms that the car can be in the state for a year.

Meanwhile the issue of in insurance is discussed, but the Mecrosur Insurance made in Argentina is also valid in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile and Peru, so everything is in order. And that's the whole story - we shake hands and welcome to Uruguay and I can drive on.




The first city - Benton Fray – is a few kilometres away




And the popular picnic and recreation area, Las Canas is 8 kilometres away. 




The recreation area is perfectly OK, no one asks any money, there are places for barbeque here, and there are power sockets and lightening. This time - three-hole sockets. The world would be a much more boring place if all countries use only one set of standards.




Do not need a special fantasy to get electricity.


A couple of meters away is a tap and cold water. Generally – quite satisfactory.

One of the main attractions of Fray Benton is the "Museo de la Revolución Industrial".




The museum is located in the buildings of meat industry, built in 1863, and the main products were meat concentrates. To manufacture 1 kilo of concentrate - 32 kg of meat was required and in Uruguay the manufacturing was many times cheaper than in Europe. The factory was closed in 1971, and in 2005 was opened again as a museum.


Liebig meat products were so famous that they were mentioned by Jules Verne in his books.


Those products were used by Stanley when he was in Africa in search of Livingstone; by Scott - during his Antarctic expedition, by Hillary - while conquering Everest, etc.etc..




The museum entrance.


Washing machine for cleaning work clothes.






Metal road surface tiles from Glasgow, from 1866.






The engine room.


Estonians have also worked here.


This factory was the first place in Uruguay where electric lighting was used.




Up at the office - a copy machine.




The traces of depreciation on the floor




Cold Storage.

To be continued ...