Our Time in Paraguay - Leaving Argentina III

The driver dropped us off at the bus station in Ciudad del Este and we found a bus that was leaving for Camp 9 very shortly.  The price for eight seats was Guarani $232 mil ($232,000).  Dane was dumbfounded by the figure and went to find out what the exchange rate was since we only had Argentine pesos.  I can't remember what it was, but I think it was just over $200 pesos or around US$65.  Very reasonable in spite of the mind-boggling number of Guaranis Dane was quoted.  We bought tickets and loaded up.

The bus was comfortable and we all had seats for a time.  Like our final bus experience in Argentina, the bus stopped at several stops and picked up more and more people.  We guessed that people didn't usually buy seats for their children because the bus usher asked Dane to show him receipts for our children's seats on two different occasions when our children didn't leave the seats they were in as others entered the bus.  Eventually, entering adults just squeezed themselves beside the children.  A couple of the children gave up their seats when they became uncomfortable with this arrangement and joined Dane and I or one of their other siblings.  Four hours later we arrived at the bus station in Campo 9 and happily met our friend, Jonathan Shrock, who had expected us the night before. 

That night we stayed with the Shrock family, Jonathan, Rebecca, Ethel, and Adriana, so that we could visit with them for a time. Then the next day, we moved over to Matthew and Irene Myers' for the remainder of our stay.  We had a very nice visit with them all!!  We got to visit the Florida colony's community church and school.  We enjoyed a lunch with the elder John Myers family, and then later a dinner with the Samuel Bontrager family from the neighboring Luz y Esperanza colony too.  Our friends were very gracious and hospitable to us. We will have very fond memories of our visit with them and hope the Lord will allow us to see one another again sometime. 

Unfortunately, the day before we were set to head to Asuncion, Dane woke up sick and feverish.  By the end of the day, most of the children were sick as well.  We prayed about what to do and called the airport to see if we could reschedule our flight (this was during the height of the Swine flu scare).  The airline representative told us that if we were well enough to walk on the plane, then we could fly.  So seeing that it would cost us US$250 x 9 ($2250) to change our plane tickets, we made plans to leave the next morning.

Thankfully, the next morning, the Myers' took us in their community van to the airport four hours away so that we would not have to travel by bus.  When we reached Asuncion, it started pouring down rain and a flash flood ensued.  Cars were stranded in the road and water was running into the store fronts.  It was surreal.  Despite this, we were able to reach the airport and were even several hours early.  We said goodbye to our dear friends, Matthew and Irene, and just rested until it was time to board the plane that evening.

The time came to board our plane.  We proceeded to immigration where an officer asked Dane for our passports.  Dane handed them over and the officer took one look at our transitory visas and proceeded to call other officers over to look at them.  Where had we gotten them?  Where was our receipt for them, they wanted to know.  Ohhh.... The receipt.....Apparently the visas were not exactly legit.  And apparently one should always keep their receipt with them to prove a visa's validity. We had a lot of explaining to do and again pulled out all of our papers to be examined.  After much discussion, the immigration officials had pity on us and agreed to let us go if we would pay them for standard tourist visas (US$75/person) and kindly they would deduct the $280 we had already paid for the transitory visas (US$40/person).  The total came to US$245 more, and of course, we could only have them without a receipt!!  Since we didn't have any other options and our plane was soon to leave, Dane did just that and we boarded the plane for the long trip to Miami, FL.

To be continued.......

Crossing Borders - Leaving Argentina Part II

The next morning, after arriving in Iguassu, we went to the bus station to find a bus that would take us across the border, but every driver that pulled up and saw all of our luggage refused to take us.  We ended up hiring a private driver and then proceeded to the Argentine border.

Once there, we stopped at the border station and presented all of our Argentina DNI's (these are identification numbers similar to social security numbers), which should have allowed our whole family to cross the border freely since they proved our Argentina residency.  Our two little Argentine children were given permission to cross; however, for the rest of us, the immigration official wanted to see our passports and original birth certificates for our five children born in the United States.  This was a problem because we had given those birth certificates to the authorities to be put on file in Buenos Aires when we applied for our DNI's.  I presented photocopies of the originals that I had with us, but the official refused to budge.  After Dane pleaded with her for some time, she finally called a supervisor.  Thankfully, he reviewed all of our papers (DNI's for the whole family, U.S. passports for everyone, Argentina passports for Joseph and John, copies of U.S. birth certificates, and our Marriage License) and then allowed us to cross the border into Brazil.

We went right through the Brazil border without having to stop (you have to travel through Brazil for about ten minutes to get to Paraguay by this route).

Then at the Paraguay border, Dane had the driver stop at immigration even though we could have driven by it so that we wouldn't have any problems when it came time to leave the country (we were under the impression that with our Argentina DNI's we obtained MERCOSUR rights that would allow us to cross in and out of MERCOSUR countries without having to buy visas; however, I think someone forgot to tell the people working the borders this :( )  The official at the Paraguayan immigration informed us that despite our DNI's, those of us who were U.S. born would have to have tourist visas (US $75/person) to be in the country and that we could obtain them at a Paraguayan embassy, which happened to be closed that day.  Dane showed the gentleman our plane tickets and explained to him that we were just passing through Paraguay to visit friends and then would be flying out from Asuncion in three days.  With some pleading, the man kindly let Dane buy transitory visas for US$40 a piece that would be good for eight days, but they would come without a receipt (if only we had known what that meant at the time).

To be continued......

Leaving Argentina

We left our farm in Argentina, as scheduled on October 16. It was very hectic there at the end, as you can imagine. Dane tried to finish up many projects those last weeks (the road, hydroelectricity, highlifter pump, new barn, etc.), so those last few days were a whirlwind of activity. We had Ralph, our friend who is buying our farm, there with us until just a few days before we left. He was a big motivator in Dane finishing as much as he could.

The evening before we planned to leave, Dane took all of our luggage (17 - 44lb bags, 8 carry-on backpacks, and two computers) to town in the trailer and left them at a friend's house since we would not have been able to fit in the truck with it.

The next morning, we headed to the bus station in town to find a bus to Iguassu, a town bordering Brazil and Paraguay. We thought that if we went this route than we could easily find a bus to cross the border to Paraguay and then on to Camp 9, where our friends in Paraguay live, without having to change buses several times or having to go all the way to Asuncion and then back to Camp 9. Dane found one bus leaving at eleven A.M, so we bought tickets thinking that we would be at our destination in Paraguay by that evening.

After leaving us at the bus station, Dane headed across town to get our luggage and found that he had left the key to the trailer with us, so he returned to us and then headed across town again. In the meantime, the bus was there loading and filling fast. The children and I watched in amazement as more and more people ascended the stairs onto the bus.  Dane and our friend, Raul, arrived just in time, as the bus was scheduled to leave, to throw our luggage underneath (in the luggage hold).

The bus was so full that we wondered how we would fit in it. And when I say full, I mean full! As we stepped in on the stairs, Raul told the children, "Empuje!(which means "push") so that we could all fit in and they could close the doors behind us. Our children wouldn't push the adults around them, so Raul thinking the children didn't understand his Castellano, told us to tell the children to push in English. Thankfully, we did manage to get in with minimal pushing and much excusing; in fact, since I had baby John, I was quickly given a seat.

Then off the bus went and proceeded to stop every few miles from Obera to Iguassu to let people on or off.  The driver was even kind enough to stop and let a drunken man relieve himself a couple of times.  What could have been a 41/2 hour trip to Iguassu lasted for eight hours! Unfortunately, we had been in such a rush to leave that I didn't pack any food with us and Dane had given the rest of our cash to the bus usher for all of our extra baggage. The children hardly complained though, as everyone was so anxious about our trip and the upcoming visits.

We arrived in Iguassu that night too late to find a bus to take us across the border into Paraguay, so we got a hotel room and enjoyed a meal at the bus station.

**** Normally buses are World class in Argentina, and the preferred way to travel. This bus line was the exception and will be avoided in the future.

To be continued.............

 

We arrived in Kentucky on October 25, 2009!  I know it has been a long time in coming, but I hope to have a post up soon describing our last few months since we left Argentina.