Stop 1 · Argentina
Buenos Aires
The name means "good airs", from Nuestra Señora del Buen Ayre, the sailors' Virgin of the fair wind. Locals call themselves porteños — people of the port.
Cities whose names are plain descriptions
Translate each of today's stops and you get something blunt: good air, a white city, a hill you can see, a trunk in a river, three towns.
The five stops
Stop 2 · Uruguay
Montevideo
The most likely origin is a sailor's log entry — "monte vide eu", I see a hill — describing the 132 m Cerro across the bay.
Stop 3 · Serbia
Belgrade
Beograd means "white city", most likely for the pale limestone of the fortress ridge above the confluence of the Sava and the Danube.
Stop 4 · Sudan
Khartoum
The usual explanation for the name is "elephant's trunk", after the shape of the land at the confluence of the Blue and White Nile.
Stop 5 · Libya
Tripoli
From the Greek Tripolis, "three cities" — Oea, Sabratha and Leptis Magna. Only Oea survived into the modern city; the other two are ruins along the coast.
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