4Runner Roadtrip – Uruguay
After a long flight from California, we landed in Montevideo sometime after midnight and then had all of the customs and pet import procedures which all went smoothly but put us to the hotel sometime around 3 am. It was pretty rough. We had to be up early as I had to visit to the Migration department to swear that I was only bringing the car in on a temporary basis. They register some paperwork, I paid some fees and then took the papers to our vehicle importer. The 4Runner had landed early of course and we had planned on it being late. The captain of the boat must have had a hot date in Montevideo or something.
Our container buddies were already in Montevideo and had outlined the Migration process for us which was very helpful. They had submitted all of their paperwork two days earlier and I was to go with them to see the vehicles unloaded and they were going to take possession of theirs and would be driving off into the South American sunset that afternoon.
It was kind of exciting being at the port with all of the containers stacked up and getting moved around. Shani and Sebastian had to wait outside of the port as he is a dog and dogs aren’t allowed in I suppose. Once our container was pulled down and opened there was a slight problem, the car battery on our friends van was dead. Doh! The port guys had to push the van out of the container and I had to take the 4Runner and drive it over to another container for storage until our papers were processed. Sadly this meant some storage fees for us.
After taking a bunch of photos for any damage caused during the journey we put the 4Runner into it’s new home for a few days and locked the container. I walked back to the van where they had hooked a forklift up to jump start the dead battery. I’m not sure how this happened but as I walked around the van I heard a loud crash and the van rocked back and forth. I came around the back to see the forklift had smashed into the very same door they had to get fixed right before shipping from Europe. Unbelievable!
While it looked bad, the door still worked and a couple of hours later (insurance adjuster, etc.) and they were on the road. Poor Shani and Sebastian had no idea what was taking us so long! A few days later I was back at the port to retrieve our 4Runner. This time upon inspection there was a large scratch on the drivers side, probably something sharp on the port guys trousers as he shimmied in or out after loading or unloading it. I was (and still am) kind of upset about it but what can you do? That’s part of the price of the adventure. Later I discovered another big scratch on the roof…not sure how that got there?
We had booked an apartment in Montevideo for 5 days as we had no idea how long this process was going to take. We had a really nice view but the bar on the ground floor was very popular and we didn’t get very good sleep. We found secure parking for the rig and made our plans for some rest and recovery at a small beach town quite a ways away from the hustle and bustle of Montevideo.
It was just on the cusp of high season and we had slim pickins but spending one week in one spot and then moving a few blocks away for another 10 days we were able to spend some time up in Punta del Diablo before it got completely nuts with tourists.
I was hoping to get some surfing in at Punta del Diablo but the conditions weren’t good and the surf shop decided to ignore my inquiry. If the surf looked fun I could have gone over to the surf school one beach over but it seemed a lot of effort for little tiny waves that crumbled almost instantly after breaking. And the water was certainly cold – Costa Rica has ruined me!
We left Punta on the first day of High Season and spent the night in Montevideo before heading north to Fray Bentos where we would cross over into Argentina. At Fray Bentos we stayed in an absolutely lovely place, perhaps the best outfitted place so far, and a lovely private back yard. It even had a garage but the 4Runner was too tall to fit. The house has these really cool techie locks and the door bell actually calls the owner’s cell phone, pretty cool for a little town in South America.
We had to run around and get more paperwork for Sebastian so that he could now enter Argentina, much less involved than the US versions. We walked over to the vet who was just around the corner, bought the right stamps and had one last person we needed to drive to see. We popped back over to the house to get something to eat and get the car for our next task only to find that these neat techie locks had locked us out of the house! We had pushed the little lock switch and we should not have pushed the little lock switch. Unfortunately, we learned that it was impossible to unlock without the master key which was 3 hours away! Fortunately they had a garage door opener with a family member just a few streets away and we got to practice setting up our new SUV tent while we waited for the owner to arrive with the master key.
The border crossing from Uruguay to Argentina from Fray Bentos was pretty easy. Getting stamped out you have to relinquish the temporary import permit or face hefty fines; our importer had stressed this to me when I went to the customs office with him after getting the 4Runner. And then you enter Argentina where they don’t stamp passports (It’s all electronic anyway) and you get a new temporary import permit. A pretty painless process as far as border crossings go.
Stay tuned as the 4Runner with California license plates becomes a minor celebrity and we start our big journey to the “End of the World”.
