MONTEVIDEO

Dry land at last. On Thursday, we arrived at the first stop of the journey, Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, and just across the river from Buenos Aires. It seems very European here, you feel more like you're in Spain or Italy than South America, except that it's a bit run down (after the economic crisis in Argentina a few years ago) so some of the buildings are falling to bits. The main square, Plaza de Independencia, above, is pretty impressive though.

Just outside the port is the meat market, and I was pleasantly surprised to find it's more like a giant barbeque than the slaughter house feel I had expected. I was even happier when I found out that the veggie option is a huge bowl of molten cheese!

On Saturday, the usually sleepy streets around the meat market were transformed by locals strutting their stuff to impromtu performances from bands practising for the carnival later in the summer.

Having spent four weeks sweating aboard the ship, dying to jump into the inviting turquoise waters but not being able to, I was determined to make it to the beach for a swim. We chose the windiest day of the trip so far and shivered on the sand drinking red wine out of cartons mixed with coke, but I still went for a quick dip. You can see some lovely alto cumulus clouds in the picture (it's about time I included something about the clouds, seeing as I'm now a professional cloud gazer).