Whilst still awaiting the arrival of Arthur we decided to fill a day by catching a bus, or three as it turned out, to a fort with great views, on a small hill, on the other side of Montevideo. The number 104 got us into the city. We had trouble finding the stop for the next bus but a very helpful bus conductor showed us the way. The 125 took us to a bus station in a suburb of the city. I then asked a bus inspector the way to the hill. But before I finished asking him he jumped into the road and chased after a bus and got it to stop and gesticulated for us to get on. This bus took us to the base of the path to the fort. After visiting the fort, with its views of the city, we went to catch a bus back and the conductor said we didn't need to pay. We were not at all sure why but we sat down and he tore of down the road with just us on board. When he saw a bus coming the other way he stopped and told us to get that bus. All very confusing, but we did get back to the bus terminal, where we tried to get on a 125 back to the city but without a word it just drove off. More confusion. A local lady seeing our dilemma kindly pointed out that we should wait for the bus on the other side of the terminal. What a day! By the time we got back to the apartment we were exhausted but did know a lot more about Montevideo buses.

Finally the Grande Africa arrived in Montevideo during Friday night and we actually saw it leaving the next morning from our apartment. We hoped Arthur was in the port but being a weekend we had to wait to Monday to get any news and even then we didn’t expect to see Arthur until the middle of the week. With another 5 days to wait and our patience wearing thin, we had to move to another next apartment. It was smaller and rather dusty with damp and cracked wall plaster, a filthy oven and, the last straw, a cockroach, which Peter nearly stepped on. Thank goodness we only had a few days there. The next 4 days went slowly. Peter went, for the second time, to the pictures to see 'The Wall’ Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) from his the Wall tour. I gave that a miss. We had hired a car for a couple of days to go out of the city but had to return it after one day as it overheated and we only just made it back to town. It did give Peter a chance to practice driving on the right.

Finally the call we had been waiting for; Arthur was ready. Having visited Holland, three ports in Africa and three ports in Brazil he finally arrived two weeks late.

Only one problem we received an email to say Arthurs battery was missing. Now why anyone would want to steal an old battery we don’t know but anyway of we went into town to buy a new one which was twice as expensive as one in the UK so Peter was not happy. In the end a little man drove out of the city to our apartment to deliver the battery, which he had strapped to the back of his moped. Peter suspected that it hadn’t been stolen, but when they needed to move the vehicle the battery was flat and they had removed it to charge it and somehow forgotten? This seemed more likely because as soon as Peter had fitted the new battery the hazard lights had come on. We suspect when they load the vehicles the hazard lights are switched on and in our case not turned off.

The following day, accompanied by 2 shipping agents, a customs officer and a new battery we went to the port and found Arthur. At first he looked okay but then Peter noticed that the spare tyre was missing. On closer inspection we found that it had been put on to replace one that had a puncture, which they had put in the cab. Big nail in brand new tyre, good start. The paperwork all seemed okay so after a bit of discussion and lots of hand shaking we finally drove back to the shipping agents office, collected our luggage and drove out of the city. We found a small Gomeria (tyre repair shop) in a small village and got the puncture repaired. The owner had to have his photo taken with me and Arthur to send to his mates. After this we headed north for a bit and then decided to camp the first night in a petrol station, with some lorries, to get Arthur sorted. YPF petrol stations, are great places to camp. Not only are they free but they are quiet, which is more than can be said for most S. American campsites and have toilets, cafes and usually reasonable WIFI.

The next day we headed north towards the border and a town called Fray Bentos. Yes the Fray Bentos of meat pie fame. We both remember our grans cooking them as treats. We went to the factory which is on a massive site and is now a museum with World Heritage status. It all started with a chap called Justus von Liebig, a German chemist who developed a meat ‘tonic’ which later became the world-renowned Oxo cube. In 1865 he moved to Uruguay where he went into the cattle processing business. A rather large amount of beef was needed to create the "extract" – 32kg of beef to make 1kg of Liebig’s tonic. By 1887 the factory had reached such a size that the mainly German and English workforce constructed their own town. The Liebig factory was replaced by Anglo of Uruguay in 1924 and it developed other products including the famous tinned pies. During WWII more than 16 million cans of corned beef were shipped to Europe, in one year alone. We managed to get a tour in English and got shown around the site, which was abandoned when it finally closed down in 1979. All the old machinery is still in place but looking a bit rusty. Our guide showed us the compressor and generator room, control room, a not so nice slaughter house and the refrigerated block which was 7 floors high and had 70 large refrigerated stores. On lots of the machines we saw the names of British companies. Finally we went up onto the roof to get a great view of where the ships docked to pick up the products. They came over to S America carrying slabs of iron as ballast. These were replaced with the meat products for the home journey. The iron slabs had been used as paving slabs around the site as they were so hardwearing. In a field next to the factory were 4 cows- little do they know how lucky they are! The administration office was exactly as it had been left the day the factory closed. It was all quite eerie. British safety inspectors would have a fit, we wandered around on the roof 7 floors up to see the views, no parapet or railing and best of all a giant lift shaft next to the staircase with no gates on the 6th floor, sections of wall between the shaft and staircase missing and just to make it really interesting the concrete stairs were smooth from use and running wet as they were open at the top. After the factory closed in 1979 the name Fray Bentos was bought by Princess and finally Baxters who still make the pies. Apparently Prince Charles visited the factory in 1990 and joked about being raised on Fray Bentos corned beef. Not sure I can see the Buckingham Palace chef serving corned beef.