A report on URUGUAY
URUGUAY: We must say a short word about Uruguay since we travelled through it on our way back to BA, Argentina. We believe that most travelers take the coastal route which is very scenic. But we took the inland route as it was somewhat shorter, recommended and we thought the weather might be better. At the border town one looks for immigrations and customs but they are actually about 1 k south of town. The paperwork here is so simple that it can be confusing especially after some other border crossing in South America. Then there is not much to see until the capital. But we had a flat tire about 50 k south of the border crossing. In a small village we found a `gomeria'. The owner and a friend were enjoying the evening mate but put it aside to repair the tire. This put us two hours behind schedule, into the dark and so at the next town, not on our simple map, there was a hotel. This hotel had no sign, it's about one half block south of the police station. We would have taken anything but surprisingly this was better than basic. It even had cable TV, a newly rebuilt shower and was clean with secured parking in the courtyard. Because our front tire (we had three patches on the tire and one on the tube) was quite bad we took the ferry from Montevideo to BA. We were somewhat worried about the Argentina Aduana but had to beg the ones in Uruguay to take our paperwork. This was a mistake not only because Argentina did not care but the aduana at the port in Uruguay tried to scam us out of 5 eros saying it was a fee. A fee for what? They did nothing. So, we being so stupid and not speaking any language, they finally threw their hands up in disgust and let us pass. Since our moto was already on the ferry we thought the gamble in our favor.
ARGENTINA CUSTOMS: When we arrived in BA, Argentina, they were not interested in any paperwork from Uruguay and gave us 8 months without asking.
For a full report including Argentina and Brazil goto TRIP IN SOUTH AMERICA
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