Uruguay

We spent a good few days in Montevideo which is a surprisingly pleasant city to be in. It is easy going but expensive. The tourist trade is not aggressively developed which is quite a relief. Importantly though, aggression of any sort has been absent from our time here. People always seem to have time. Typically, we ask directions with just a few Spanish words and the poor victim appears to have all day to repeat again or to try another way to explain, or ‘oh never mind come, on I’ll show you’. 

The shops are easy but supermarkets are traumatic as the prices are really quite high coupled with a slightly complicated exchange rate. So we tour around the aisles trying to work out, 'does Nutella really cost $6?' !  More complicated seems to be buying meat as we really have little idea of what we are buying.

Anyway back to the business in hand - the arrival of the MV Grand Brasile!
We tracked this ship online and rather frustratingly it anchored outside Montevideo Port twenty four hours early. Oh goody, I thought we may get away a bit early. Not so!                 It remained anchored until late the night before it was due and slipped in overnight.

At this point it is worth just going back over what happened so far. The receptionist at the shipping company had been most helpful She explained that it was really unnecessary to use a clearing agent as the process was so simple and we could save some money! By this time we had teamed up with a German couple,Timo and Sandra, whose company we are very much enjoying. They have excellent English and contrary to our English stereotype they have a tremendous sense of humour. To add to this they are just married. They had their honeymoon in Brazil prior to coming to collect their van from the same ship.

Outside the Grimaldi Line Office

So according to our instructions  we presented ourselves at the shipping company offices ready to pay our fees and go and collect our vans. We arrived first, followed closely by about 6 other couples intent on the same purpose. 

Happycampers.de at the shipping office.

The whole process was explained to us and it all seemed so easy!  Off we all set a whole troop of mostly Germans and Swiss on our way to the dockside, all we needed was a brass ‘Oom Pah’ band to lead us and the picture might have been complete. We got to the customs office who took an age to process our papers and sent us off to get copies of our vehicle documents. We were given directions to a place where we could get copies. 
So Timo and I set off for copies. Half an hour later we were still looking. Each attempt at getting directions resulted in us going further along the same road. Eventually the man in the pet shop pointed with his chin that we needed to go a bit further on. We saw a café, we asked in there and the waiter asked the only customer, who got up, beckoned us to walk along the road after him. He then opened up an apparently derelict shop which was full of all kinds of junk, he then sat down and warmed up an ancient photocopier and set about giving us all we need. After which we paid a small amount (possibly the cheapest thing in Montevideo) and he returned to his lunch but not before giving us a flyer for his newly opened  electrician business. 

A history lesson
During the early part of WW2 Atlantic merchant shipping suffered terrible losses as a result of attacks by the German navy upon the largely unarmed ships. Chief among the German craft was a battleship The Admiral Graf Spee which earned itself a fearsome reputation. Even once the allied navy had mobilised to defend the merchant ships they found they were outgunned and out manoevered by the Graf Spee. its power, speed and most notably its accuracy was remarkable. Three ships were tasked to find it and destroy it,  Exeter, Ajax and the New Zealand ship Achilles. When they finally tracked and engaged Graf Spee,  The Exeter was so badly damaged it had to retire from the battle. Ajax and Achilles were also damaged and in no shape for full fledged battle. Graf Spee was also damaged and retired into the Neutral port of Montevideo.

The two crippled allied ships stood back at the mouth of the River Plat while the German ship requested to offload prisoners and its wounded crew, then to make emergency repairs. They were allowed 72 hours to do this. 
During this time British naval command sent messages back and forth to the crippled Ajax purporting that a large naval force was on its way and would block the exit of the Graf Spee when it tried to leave. These messages were easily intercepted by the Germans and, believing his ship was doomed the skipper, Hans Langsdorf ordered the ship to be scuttled just outside Montevideo harbour  all the munitions on board were set to explode and with the crew and prisoners safe The mighty Graf Spee was blown up and sunk. Still today what remains of that ship can be seen just above the water. During the salvage operation after the war the anchor was recovered along with the, then,new radar system that accounted for the astonishing accuracy of Graf Spee's gunners.

These are dispalyed in the port of Montevideo.

The Radar gun site of The Graf Spee

Anchor of TheGraf Spee

As for poor old Hans Langsdorf - realising finally that he had fallen for a trick, he installed himself in a hotel in Buenos Aries, spread the ships Ensign out on the bed lay on it and shot himself.






We got back to the customs to find them still in the process of reinventing the wheel. This done we are sent to the port authority where we give our idea of the value of our vehicle and they then calculate the amount of port charges. They then sent us  to another customs office where we would again be checked before going to the warehouse. On the way we met a man from the warehouse who told us that we did not need to go to customs again so we went to his office where a phone call confirmed that we did need to go to the customs office.

At this point I will stop this protracted tale of woe to say that I am writing from our current location near the Rio Negro. We have found ourselves in a grotty campsite  having searched for a better place to spend the night but it was getting dark and we are tired out. We are adjacent to the men's toilet which is ‘basic’. The fluorescent light is flickering above my keyboard and I am being eaten systematically by every harmful insect known! They are in our hair and in our faces.What larks!!!

Anyway back to the docks. We got to the customs and they looked at the same documents and send us off back to the warehouse where we are greeted by the same man who has had another phone call saying that a small mistake has been made and we have to return  to the first customs office. So off we tramp, I should say that we are now close to midday and it is getting very hot. A few Germans are finding it hard to cope with such apparently idiotic bureaucracy and they are getting a bit grousy. 

Paying port fees

We get back to the first office  who corrected the mistake  and send us off to room 005. To get there, we each have to surrender our driving licence in exchange for a visitor security pass. Then down a short corridor to Room 005.  The staff here genuinely behaved as if this the first time anyone has been through this. Our papers are looked at and we then got to the boss who sends us back to the warehouse. Each time  we go to the warehouse we can see into the secure area and we can all see our vans but cannot go near. Eventually we are all given our vehicles  to find several  several cars appear to have been entered unlawfully which has caused a bit of a Teutonic stir. That is when I find that one window of our van has been broken and our radio has been nicked along with the screen from the reversing camera.

One of the delights of sea shipping, a broken window and a stolen radio.

Reunited with Pegasus once more,. Woo Hoo!

By this time it is a bit of a blow. Nobody is terribly interested  but happily go through a ritual of taking photographs etc. So we collect our vans and, yes you have guessed it we have to go back to customs to fill in more forms, they make perfunctory look around and then send us on our away. 



Some points to make: We expected some of this timewasting so no surprises for us .
We really have had the runaround  and I was reminded of the Flanders and Swann song The Gasman Cometh. ‘It all makes work for the working man to do’!

Despite the frustrations everybody we have dealt with has been most pleasant, polite and personable. We have absolutely no expectation that anything will come of the loss and damage. The final part was the one that got us! Having been first in the shipping office we realised that we were the only ones left,  every one else had got their cars and gone.

Der neue Cherman chums! Timo und Sandra

Well, we finally have our van and in company with our new friends  we have pushed on to a campsite outside Montevideo. Of course all the others are there too. It is owned by a truly charming Swiss man and is a very nice place to spend the weekend getting vans sorted ready for some proper overland journeying. I do find that I am really rattled by the damage done to the van  even though it is relatively minor it has really got under my fingernails, but we have to learn by it and move on I guess.

While at the camp which is called the Swiss Paradise, among the people we met was a truly remarkable woman. She is travelling  all over the place in  her Toyota Land Cruiser. It is beautifully laid out and designed for one person with all the equipment she will ever need and she explained to me that she does not feel so remarkable as since her husband died some years ago she has been living alone on an Alp! She told me that in the summer she has some company as a farmer puts his cows out and the occasional walker come by but in the winter she is quite alone. She is the most interesting person to talk with. So self contained.

We also met with an Austrian couple who travelled a similar route in Africa as us, at around about the same time as us though we never met.

Having spent a couple of days sorting out the van we have moved on. We set out to drive to the border of Uruguay and Argentina. It was a long drive but we arrived in a town that has been so important in the western world for over a century. Most of us will have heard of it but really, like me, will have had no appreciation of its importance. 
It is The Town of Fray Bentos!

Once a houshold name !

I had rather trivialised it as like many others we know of the corned beef and tinned meat pies. The meat processing plant closed in 1976 as it was finally overtaken by technology and a changing world market. For just over 100 years It has processed beef for the world on an unimaginable large scale.

This a genuine warning, what follows is not suitable for vegetarians!

This massive plant which is now justifiably a UNESCO World Heritage site has fulfilled the role of a kitchen for the world. Their description not mine. Founded in the mid 1800s by a German scientist, who was a true visionary who sought to develop new technologies to improve the scale of production of affordable and preservable food. In the years that followed, Fray Bentos developed  and honed its ability to take cattle from the massive herds that thrived then in Uruguay. The cattle were transported to the then, small town of Fray Bentos. Here they utilised a number of new techniques to slaughter and preserve the beef. This quickly turned into a mission to provide cheap large quantities of beef and beef products. Their production would centre around processing beef in every form in one place, eventually supply huge quantities of frozen beef, making canned products  and tanning the leather. They sought to process everything and waste nothing except the Moo! The various interests were soon amalgamated into a joint venture called Anglo beef. 

OXO was invented here! 

To supply troops in the trenches in the First World War, they soon became sufficiently adept and productive that they were producing food  in industrial quantities to provide for armies and refugees from all the conflicts of the years to come. Importantly, as they developed Corned or ‘Bully’ beef their capacity grew dramatically. Around the turn of the century, they were already building the town and industry as the world demanded their products.

Throughout  the 20th century, Anglo provided for all sides in the various wars and conflict as well as for relief operations. The technological developments were truly remarkable. The newly built plant in 1921 included the largest deep freeze ever built in the world, even today.

A most imposing site.  The biggest freezer the world has known

Canning at the turn of the century was in its infancy but Anglo and its antecedents developed a way of canning and cooking beef in the can in one operation. Of course, all of this had one requirement that was in its infancy, electricity! 

One of six steam engines to generate electricity

Soon a group of huge steam engines were built to provide power for this operation; generators were constructed resulting in the very first electricity supply in Latin America and indeed one of the first in the world. Not only the plant but the town was incidentally fired up, initially though the town was only allowed a supply after 10 at night.

In its heyday, Fray Bentos was drawing  in massive  stocks of cattle slaughtering, and butchering  on a 24hour seven day a week basis and then using developed mechanical techniques of removing all the edible parts to produce the factory products. Anything that was left went to animal feed and so on. Hoofs and bones were put through the glue factories and the like that were all part of the local structure. Hundreds of tons of frozen beef, canned product, glue and leather were shipped  from the little port of Fray Bentos all around the World, rightly earning it the reputation of ‘the kitchen for the world’.

Such a familiar site I can still remember the anticipation of cooking a Fray Bentos  tinned steak and kidney pie!

In 1976 it finally closed, production ceased and The Massive plant closed its doors for ever. The Town o Fray Bentos still continues and appears to be now quite quiet but does not have the appearance of a dying town. Visiting this place was something that I really wanted to do as I had the nostalgic view of past tinned steak and kidney pies and a household brand.
What we got was an imperfect view, we had a guided tour in Spanish so it was 
hard to form up  really accurate details.  However, what it left was a deep impression of   a phenomenally important and innovatory industry to whom the 20th century truly owes a debt of gratitude. It is also undoubtedly one of the more important elements in the development of The Industrial Revolution.

The plant remains mostly intact, though it is hard to see how it can properly be preserved. But for now, what remains is the hulk of the massive cold store that imposes itself over the area  and a technology and food production university integrated into the original buildings. 

Last backward glance at those cranes.

And finally those two lonely cranes that remain motionless at the end of a jetty that once played a vital part in feeding the world. The brand of course still remains but really only in name but what a legacy!

One abiding Idea remains for me and that is that all those involved in its preservation and continued legacy is that they really do know what a treasure they have had and continue to have.
  

Coals to Newcastle.

The Bully Beef we brought from Egypt

I had no idea that when we took the planned picture that we would be able to stand next to the original  canning autoclave that produce the original product. Far less did I know that we would have such a privilege  to learn more of this extraordinary institution.

I used this reference before  as a bit of a joke  but we did bring a can of corned beef from Egypt which we had left over from our  last sojourn.

I show this to give some idea of scale . This is a pile of iron hangers which transport garments etc through the laundry. there must be 10,000 here!

On the road again:
We had spent our nights in a park along the river that is adjacent to the factory in such a beautiful setting. We are moving on now to Argentina. But just on our last evening we met up with a remarkable English couple Gavin and Jenny who having spent 6 months travelling are about to take a ship into the Antarctic for several weeks before continuing to Asia on their journey around the world. We wish them well and look forward to seeing them in England eventually. 

Gavin and Jenny + Ruby the Land Rover

 Finally I needed to fix that broken window. I had decided that it would be too difficult  to get  proper car glass to replace it  so we would use ordinary domestic glass. However, the woman in the shop was helpful and fully understood what we wanted, but firmly refused to supply it sending us instead to someone who would make it from acrylic.  They did. It cost a fortune.

Anyway it is now fixed. So we set off with our new German chums for Argentina!