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......