Groundhog Day

We left the gas station where we had spent  the night and were on our way by 8:15.  Indeed we arrived at the vet before they opened.

I have to say it was the fastest vet certificate encounter we have ever had. They wrote down Rusty’s details, his date of birth and microchip number and so forth and then copied mine from my passport, we paid $65 and we were done.

They were going to submit the form to the ministry of agriculture for approval and WhatsApp our permit to us. Sure enough by four o’clock we had the form which allows Rusty to cross Mercosur (Southern Market) borders for 60 days. That should cover Rusty to go to Argentina, Paraguay Chile (but not Peru!) without any more vet visits. Not bad.

So by 9:30 we were driving north to the town of Salto where we planned to cross into Argentina as soon as we got the certificate. And then the day went wrong.

It was a cold raw wet crappy day, the sort of day a man might want to drive with a hot cup of tea and no sooner did Layne fire up the electric kettle than the inverter monitor flashed a low voltage signal (not visible in the photo). Dammit.

We agonized over what to do but Layne was right and we turned around and once again aimed for Adrián’s workshop three and a half hours south. The thing was all the other screens were showing everything working perfectly, except for the inverter bizarrely showing low battery voltage. It was our last chance to make sure everything really is okay before we leave Uruguay. We had no choice. 

Somehow we had managed to use up our tollbooth tag almost perfectly but now with a journey back into Uruguay we had to add some more money to the account. I walked into the office at the toll booth, gave him my license plate number and in seconds I had added $20 for five more tolls. In Uruguay each toll is four bucks and you can’t pay by cash or credit card plus you have to buy a toll reader which you have to pay for and replenish with a credit card, or mess around with an online account. It works very easily in practice but I prefer to add money to my account in person at any toll booth. The roadside offices are open 24 hours to solve problems. 

Each time you go through a toll it shows your balance which makes it easy to know when you need to add money to your account.

The drive south was the usual countryside, rolling fields and forests bisected by a smooth asphalt ribbon:

Roadworks; maximum wait two minutes.  

Logging the monoculture forests. Not a tree left standing.  

Back at Adrián’s shop the investigation began and he got his laptop into the inverter like a doctor with a stethoscope.

We found two young Argentines who had stopped by to have a leaky shower fixed. An interesting young couple José and Geraldine. They travel with two dogs and work remotely for a US corporation so they speak fluent English.

They gave us useful information about places to visit in northern Argentina. He also told us we are privileged travelers in his country as there are high tourist areas of Patagonia where RVs aren’t welcome. With a short visitor season the two months of summer are focused on high spending hotel visitors. And foreigners in RVs get a free pass. Nice to know! 

José also told us about a low cost electronics shop in Paraguay which caught Layne’s attention as we want to get a new larger iPad. Our old eyes are struggling to watch movies in the tiny screen of our mini iPad…good knowledge we will act on later.  

As far as the low voltage problem goes Adrián tested everything and consulted with the Victron agent he deals with  and it turns out there is a software update to take care of the sensitivity to heavy duty use. Nice to know and as soon as Adrián gets the update he will install it. Today I hope, as we are ready to go. 

When you read this I hope we will be driving for our chosen border crossing five hours north from here. Please no more hold ups.