12-01-2006 Hearty welcome to Argentina
Sarian Soledad and Gige on the ferry to Buenos Aires
We left the first 200 km behind us. Gige, Soledad and I left the ferry and drove right into the arms of the Argentinean costumes officer. She stopped us and made it clear that it was impossible for a Brazilian car to enter Argentina without a Brazilian inside the car. Furthermore the Uruguayan trailer caused problems. After she said that, the lady took our papers and left. She came back some minutes later and told me I had to help her to fill in some papers. She had found a solution: 'Ley 804/84'. I don't know what the law says but 804/84 is our magic number. It allows us to stay in the country with all our equipment for 9 months. More than enough!
Relieved we picked up Susana (Romo) who had just arrived from Spain and was waiting for us. We were approximately 200 m away from the ferry when the police demanded us to stop. He said it was impossible to drive with a Uruguayan trailer. He went back and forth to his car where his colleague was sitting. Probably to discuss their strategy. (Because – and naïf me, did not realize this until Gige pointed this out to me – they were after our money.) They decided to go for the 'good cop – bad cop act' and he told us that his partner wanted to take the trailer to the police deposit. He did not see any problem with the car, but the trailer would be confiscated.
Unfortunately for the guy Gige was at her best today. She argued with the guy that we had already discussed the matter with the customs officers and that we even had a paper to prove that under law 804/84 we were granted to stay in the country with all our stuff. We had this beautiful paper and the police man simply declared the paper invalid because it had just a carbon copy of a signature on it. Gige stayed calm and polite (but people that know her a little bit could already tell she was about to become dangerous :-) ) and told him that she was getting out of the car to walk back to the customs office to get a new signature. The guy had definitely not counted with this firm attitude and left disappointed.
The car was too high to enter on the ferry
Very bad weather caused delay of the ferry departure
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