Arrival in Uruguay

I'd decided that it would be "easier" to fly to Buenos Aires. I left Phoenix on the 21st of November. It's quite a long trip to get this far south of the equator.

I arrived in Buenos Aires by way of Atlanta on time at 8:35 am local time on the 22nd. It was a very smooth entry into the country... baggage arrived very fast, customs and immigration formalities were quick and most importantly there was an HSBC ATM machine in plain sight right outside immigration.

The lady in front of me helpfully advised that she'd not seen anyone get any more than $300 Argentine Pesos from the machine. (It's about $100 USD) No big deal, I wasn't going to spend that much in cash in the next 6 hours before the ferry boat left for Montevideo.

I know better than to flag down a cab in Argentina. It's not a good idea. Too many unofficial cabs on the streets, its potentially risky. The risk is not high but its there. I went to a kiosk in the Ezezia airport and prepaid a "remise" (a curious South American Spanish word for "limo") with a credit card. That way there is no negotiation about fee, no re-negotiation about fee upon arrival, no gimmicked meter to wonder about... it's just a better way to travel.

I loaded my bags into the car - the driver had opened the trunk - and off we went. Generally in this part of the world when you pay a fixed price (or whats on the meter) that's all you pay, tipping is not customary. Thus the driver is not going to go out of his way to help you load your luggage, unless you're elderly or female. Then other cultural norms kick in... :)

I turned on my cellphone. Supposedly T-Mobile would roam in Argentina and Uruguay, although certainly not cheaply. Strangely, the price of roaming in Argentina and Uruguay is the same as that of roaming in Mexico. Having seen the bill already from a couple of cross-border trips to MX I knew not to use my phone like I was at home :)

I made a couple of quick calls - a friend in Phoenix to let him know I'd arrived. Mom. My friend Ale in Montevideo to let her know that I was pretty definitely going to be on Buquebus (the ferry between BsAs and MVD) arriving 8pm Uruguay time.

The cab ride in heavy traffic was otherwise boring so I played with the phone. Seems T-mobile has it programmed to prefer Telefonica although the phone would register no problem on the other networks. I put it back on Telefonica because I'd read that the other networks were voice-only, no data or SMS roaming features.

We arrived at Puerto Madera about an hour later - that's the name of the Buquebus terminal. Having collected all my bags and shlepping them into the terminal I verified that my e-ticket was all I needed (Buquebus has a web purchase site that's just a little quirky and I would not recommend it to non-Spanish-speakers). They had no lockers for storage of luggage so it looked like I was trapped there for the day. I sort of wanted to go over to the Avenida Florida pedestrian mall but no way was I going to do that with a huge quantity of baggage. May as well have a big sign on me saying "rob me," doing that.

I camped out in the cafeteria part of the terminal. It was 10:00 AM and they were filling the steam table with the food for lunch. Actually it was pretty much filled. I asked the cashier if I could get lunch but was told no, not til noon. Ok, no problem. She was very gracious about letting me stick my bags out of the way behind the cashier's station though.

I got the limited offerings available - a couple of pre-packaged salami and cheese sandwiches, orange juice, yogurt, and a tiny little (to my American eyes) cup of diet coke.

On my next trip south I will make a point of bringing a very large plastic cup with me, the little dinky drink glasses that everyone has just don't work well.

I decided to be adventurous and not take the cheese off the sandwiches. It actually was pretty tasteless as cheese go, in other words tolerable. The cafe had wifi so I was watching the Macy's thanksgiving day parade via slingbox from the USA. After I got bored with that I started people watching. Very easy to spot the Americans: there is an utter lack of english-language signage about where to buy tickets and they all had a "deer in the headlights" expression. I wandered about with my bags for a bit establishing that the earliest I could check my bags was a couple hours away.

I decided to kill time in the travel agency part of the operation. It was the sole area that was air conditioned and it was probably about 25 degrees and humid that day. I was just reading my copy of The Economist and waiting. Several Americans walked up to me with that deer in the headlights look and said "Are you American?"

"Yes."

"Well I took a number but I'm not sure what it'll sound like when I get called and I need a ticket for the trip to Montevideo."

"You're in the wrong place. Go out of here, past the cafeteria and into the big hall. They sell tickets in a small window immediately to the left of the Banco Republica de Uruguay. It's not well marked, look for a sign that says 'ventas'"

This conversation was repeated at least 5 times with various confused tourists while I read my magazine in air condtioned comfort.

Finally I could check my bags. Off they went, gone. I was down to my very heavy backpack (I think on my next trip I will find a way to carry only the macbook and not both the mac and the thinkpad.... way too heavy...) and my nifty Sanrio Badtz-Maru messenger bag. As you pass into the departure lounge you clear Argentine and Uruguayan immigration controls. American passport out for the Argentines and Uruguayan cedula showing residency for the Uruguayans. Bang, done. My passport was still stamped by Uruguay but with the notation RL inside the stamp (i.e. legal resident, no limit).

The trip over was uneventful. It's like being on a plane but everyone is talking on their cellphone for most of the way - the boat is very close to the Uruguayan and Argentine coasts. Mobile coverage is just a little "too" good. The experience of being inside a "plane like" environment with all the cellphone chatter makes me strongly against the authorization of US air carriers to allow cellphone usage on flights!

As we got closer to Uruguay my phone registered on Movistar. Actually after leaving Argentina my phone was not showing network names - just five digit numbers to indicate the network. But I digress. I called Ale to let her know we were almost there.

The boat arrived and it felt profoundly weird to be stepping off that boat and onto land, onto Uruguayan soil once again. Arriving this time under much different circumstances than my departure had been. The bags finally were disgorged from the boat and Uruguayan customs chose not to do any further examination of my stuff. I exited customs and looked around the familiar terminal. It had not changed a bit.

Ale was waiting. She was frantic as she'd just had a minor car accident and needed to deal with police and insurance etc., but as we drove around to find the closest Junta de policia to the accident location I noticed something profound.

Very little had visibly changed.

That was not necessarily true, but the visible reality was there was DAMN little change.

We found the police office and awaited the insurance adjuster. Globalization is everywhere - the company was AIG - we were parked right off of the street where the interdepartmental buses pass out of Montevideo. It was VERY strange to see the TPM bus headed for Pando... I'd been on it SO many times. The COPSA bus headed for Salinas and Atlantida... I'd been on IT so many times. And they'd not changed a bit, same buses really.

After the hour long process of getting a police report and the insurance paperwork done - Ale was near inconsoleable about the whole thing - we finally finished. Throughout the process it was clear that neither the cops nor the insurance guy spoke english so I cheered her up with random comments in English.

It was finally quite dark (9:30 pm) by the time we made our way over to her apartment where I would be staying for most of my time in MVD.

Why was I there? I have a business here in Arizona with a client who needs a complicated software development project done. Life came full-circle (karma, really) to bring me back to Uruguay to make use of the contacts I'd made on the first somewhat-ill-fated sojourn... I was returning as an investor, a client. A quite different experience. The following days would definitely bear that out.