Three Countries in One Day

The alarm’s melody permeated my dreams at 4:45 a.m.  We abandoned the comfort of our beds and twenty minutes later, everything was packed and ready.  I looked across the drive and saw lights in the conference room.  Maybe someone was there getting ready for breakfast, I thought to myself.  Maybe there would be coffee. 

“I’m going over there,” I told Charlie as I pointed to the lighted conference room.  I quickly crossed the driveway in the drizzling rain, with my Bible and notebook in my hand. 

View from the balcony of the conference center.

No one was there.  Teabags and hot water were available, though, so I made a cup of tea and sat down to praise the Lord as I watched the dawn lighten the sky.  Although it was misty and overcast, I marveled at the beauty surrounding me.  I listened as the waves pounded the shore and birds called to each other as they flew overhead.  I thanked the Lord for letting us come to Uruguay.

Before long, a small navy blue SUV arrived.  Anibal Fornazarich, our Uruguayan missionary to Argentina, was at the wheel.  Tied to the top were small suitcases covered over by a blue tarp.  I joined them and helped Charlie take our suitcases to the car.  When they were all loaded behind the back seat, we clambered in next to their teenage son and took off.  A few miles down the road, we heard the tarp flapping loudly.  We stopped and retied the part that had come loose and continued on.

After a while I fell asleep.  The short night was catching up with me.  When I awoke, we had left the city of Montevideo far behind and were surrounded by farmland and sheep and cattle ranches.  If I had forgotten where I was, I might have thought I was in Wisconsin or Ontario. 

“When we get to Rivera” Anibal explained, “we cross over into Brazil.  But it’s a soft border.  You don’t have to worry.  You won’t need a visa.”

When we arrived in Rivera, we wound our way through the city, heading toward downtown.  We stopped at a stoplight.  María, Anibal’s wife, pointed to busy boulevard in front of us.  “This side is Uruguay.  That side is Brazil.  We are now in Uruguay.”

When we crossed to the other side of the boulevard, and María started to laugh.  “And now we are in Brazil.  You could cross back and forth between Brazil and Uruguay many times in one day here.  In fact, most people shop on the Brazilian side because the prices are cheaper, regardless of where they live.”

Brazilian gas was definitely cheaper than Uruguayan gasoline, so Anibal filled the tank, paying with Brazilian Reales.  Then we passed the main plaza in the center of town.  On one corner stood a Uruguayan flag.  On the other flew a Brazilian flag. 

When we left town, the signs along the sides of road in Portuguese let us know that we were still in Brazil.  We drove for almost an hour and made a turn onto another highway.  We passed a sign in front of an unmanned building proclaiming, “Customs and Immigration”.  Evidently, we were returning to Uruguay.

We headed to a home in Uruguay’s northern town of Artigas.  There a group of believers gathered for a service.  What a privilege it was to meet them.  Even though they have no pastor right now, they continue to meet together.  They were excited to hear from a pastor for the first time in a long time.  They “ate up” what Charlie taught.

We left Artigas and passed back into Brazil.  We found a Brazilian steakhouse.  At 10 p.m., it was still the dinner hour, so the restaurant was busy.  We declined the service of “meat on a stick” since the buffet was large without it.  Otherwise they would have kept bringing us steak and chicken from the rotisserie until we were stuffed.  Not only did we not need that much food, we were in too much of a hurry to get to our destination to spend enough time to enjoy such gastronomic delights.

At 11:30, we left the steakhouse and drove back into Uruguay.  We drove on through the darkness, over bridges where the moon shone on the lake.  I wished I could have seen the landscape in the daylight because I could tell that it was beautiful.  I looked in the sky for the Southern Cross but I did not find it.  Two hours later, we approached the Uruguayan/Argentine border.  At the border, the Uruguayan office was closed.  Anibal knew, however, that we needed to document our exit from Uruguay since we would be coming back into Uruguay in order to fly back to the U.S.  If we did not have the exit stamped, we would have to pay a fine.  He got out of the car and asked a policeman what to do. 

“Oh, there is an office open ahead,” he said. 

A mile ahead, a sign indicated where we needed to go.  We got our passports stamped exiting the country.  A couple miles later, we passed into Argentina.  We got out of the car once more and headed into the immigration office.

“Have you paid the reciprocal fee?” asked the agent.

Fortunately I knew that he was talking about the visa and showed it to him.  (Argentina charges the same fee for their visa as the applicant’s country charges for an Argentine to obtain a visa, so instead of talking about a visa, he asked about the fee.)  Our visas from five years ago were still good, so he stamped our visas and we were once again on our way.

Just before 3:00 a.m. we arrived at the hotel where we were staying.  We rapped on the door for several minutes before the night watchman arrived.  We set our alarms for 7:00 a.m. and were so thankful to be able to stretch out in bed.  The long day was over.  Tomorrow was already here.  It was time to get some quick shut eye.