Well, we arrived in Argentina on Monday 19th January, as mentioned in the email, we stayed in Argentina to arrange for our vehicle insurance down in Lobos (125km SW of Buenos Aires), Argentina. We stayed in a hotel for the two nights (as the MANKAT1) was in Uruguay. At the time, we thought the weather was not as warm/hot as we expected for mid-summer. On the third night, on our way up to Buenos Aires, we visited some very close friends of ours in Moreno …. We had a lovely lunch and we caught up with all the news since we had last met in 2013 before we returned to Europe with all our medical issues. It was great to catch up and see them doing so well. It is surprising that in only about eighteen months how children grow up so fast.
On our third night, we visited the ‘BuQueBus’ terminal and booked our ferry over to Uruguay for the next morning and stayed in a hotel as close to the terminal as possible so that we only had to walk about 200/300meters the next morning with our luggage.
All went according to plan and we arrived in Colonia (Uruguay) about 12:15 hrs. We were met by a friend and the first thing of course was to hit a bank to get some local currency. Next was to get to a ‘Mercado’ and buy food and goodies etc. for the camper. This we did before we travelled down to our holiday village.
The temperature difference between here and across the river was unbelievable … it was now in the 300C plus range and the humidity was also very heavy for us in the beginning. For the first about five days, we just spent the time resting and adjusting to the ‘Uruguayan’ way of life, up in the morning, a long siesta and then out at night no earlier than 21:00hrs and then bed normally no earlier than 02:00hrs and at weekends it ranged from 04:00hrs to 06:00hrs before we hit the hay!
We took time out here and re-grouped and got back into the ‘travel mode’. We finally left on the 9th February and headed north.
Jan wanted some of the tyres re-grooved which we did, carried out by a gentleman, one of the rare few one meets in life! Also, we had one of the lockers had to be fixed (I notice now finally the second one also now needs attention)
My observations are that the land is not as flat as Argentina and a little greener in my opinion. The people are extremely friendly and we had several Barb-a-cues (Parilla/Asados) with local people that we really came to like a lot. Our host and hostess could not have looked after us better. We wish them a very happy and successful future in whatever ventures that they plan for themselves.
Most of the roads in Uruguay are in very good shape and only in one or two places, did Jan venture into ‘all weather pistes’ which is what he really loves to drive on.
We are certainly taking the pace much slower now, no rush at all and every second or third day, we will just take a day out and do some chores. One of the early days was to book some holidays for ourselves in the USA during the summer coming. For years, we have attended the MVPA and we have missed the past three years, now we intend picking up this ritual again.
After a week on the road, we went to a ‘Spa/Health/Thermal’ area and we wallowed in it. The famous one is about 15km from where we were, but it is normally crowed so we opted for a place called ‘San Nicanor’ we were not disappointed. It was a real treat! In and out of the hot pools several times a day in a beautiful landscape.
From here, we departed and headed even further north, direction Brazil. We Crossed into Brazil, but to this day, it was the most unusual crossing we ever experienced.
The place we planned to cross into ‘Brazil’ was ‘Rivera’ the Uruguayan name and ‘Santana do Livramento’ the Brazilian name. We were actually in Brazil (I didn’t even notice, Jan did) and we realised that we had a big problem in that we saw no border crossing, no customs, no nothing and no paper work to prove that we had exited Uruguay and entered Brazil. Well, the pressure was building and this just crowned everything …. Jan couldn’t understand how ‘I got lost’, but I knew I hadn’t but still, no sign of a border crossing. In the end, Jan just stopped driving on a street and sat down at the road side, I was furious and ended up going back to the nearest fuel station (about 200m behind us) and I asked one of the attendants did they speak English/Spanish or could they tell me where to report to? …. I have to say this was the third gentleman that we met on our trip …. He arranged for a colleague of his to drive in front of us and bring us to the ‘Police/Immigration’ office. I can honestly say now, we would never have found the place. As it turns out, the paper work was done in about five minutes … including the registration of the MANKAT1 …. No papers for it (nor for the motorbike) they just took the registration of it and noted it ….. They told us, that the information was put into their computer. …. Yes, not very consoling or re-assuring, as we had no proof. Anyway, we took off and continued on our merry way. About 13-15Km down the road, then we had the customs and the vehicle inspection. The man here was very nice and after about 2 or 3 items that he checked in the camper area, he just told me that he was finished … he was more interested in locals, going down to Uruguay and buying stuff and bringing it back up to Brazil …. He knew we had nothing of real interest for them and that also we were returning to Uruguay in about 6 weeks tops…..to return to Europe.
He asked did we have the papers, we told him yes and that the ‘vehicle registration’ was logged in the computer. He said it should be ok then, if not he said we could be anywhere in Brazil, stopped by the police and sent back to the border crossing to get the papers and we could experience some serious grief.
Further down the road, about fifteen km we were actually stopped by police and what a fuss they made …. They held us up for about 30 minutes and in the end, all our papers (vehicle documents/licence & insurance) along with the entry stamp that we got, were all correct … they just let us go …. Frustration abounded …… we never really figured, if we had a problem, or they were just looking for money … we just played dumb and said nothing all the time. We realised that the guy in the fuel station really saved us serious potential problems …….
Anyway, with that done, we now quickly had to get used to all the ‘Portuguese’ signs and language after 2-2 ½ years of Spanish …. To read the road signs was not really a problem, but the sound of the language is definitely a hurdle ……
The roads are excellent even the ‘3rd level roads’ all surfaced … and on top of that … the distances that one travels to get from A to B is incredible in this country …… we also avoid the big cities like the plague … they are too big and always a big problem for the MANKAT1.
Our first big tourist event was to visit the ‘Brazilian’ version of the Missions …. We did this in a place called ‘San Miguel do Misseos’ in part really to compare with the Argentinian missions. This one was in excellent shape for a ruin, and an added bonus was that at 21:00hrs that night they had a night ‘Sight and Sound’ event at the mission itself and we really enjoyed that. However, neither Jan nor I understood what they were saying exactly but we knew it was about the Spanish/Portuguese and indigenous peoples all in conflict back in the 1600’s/1700’s.
As it turns out earlier in the day, a bus load of children arrived and viewed the tourist resort.. We got to know them and we ended up for about an hour letting them all come in and view the camper … three at a time then the teachers and parents. When the night show ended, they all left in their bus back to their home town (about two hours away).
We also discovered that when we crossed into the province of ‘Paraná’ that the hour had changed (Rio do Sul and Santa Catarina, were the same time as Uruguay) … we had some trouble in trying to confirm this … I asked some people, and like us, their mobile phone had the ‘up-to-date’ time, but their watches were on the other time zone … we notice that most Brazilians do not have English, a lot of the Uruguayans do….
We continued on further north and our next plan was to visit a nature reserve ‘Vila Velha’ a lovely park with most unusual rock formations and sink holes. Some lovely flora and fauna as well. A little treasure.
We skipped ‘Curitiba’, the local big city. Too big and we are assuming several million people, it would take too long to get into the city and back out again. We then went to Paranaguá, (using the southerly ring roads) the plan was to take a ferry out to the ‘reserve islands namely Parque Nacional do Superagüi’, however this place for us was a total disaster … it was a port city … huge, nowhere to park comfortably … After a horrific evening getting a parking place we stayed put. The next morning, we were up early and just left and headed back south. We travelled down to ‘Matinhos’ and took a ferry over to ‘Guaratuba’ and then re-joined the main southerly route south. We are now in a place called ‘Joinville’ where we plan to travel slowly back down towards Montevideo. We have only another 4-5 weeks left here on this continent, I will update you all, before we depart.
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