From Zarate to Colonia del Sacramento/Uruguay
According to Google maps, its about 6 hours to Karate from Buenos Aires with a taxi, train and on foot. The app Rome2Rio is more accurate in this case, calculating this journey to be 2 hours. The first 24km were travelled in a taxi for 10€, then 70km on the train for 40 Cent.
During the train ride, one of the other passengers asked me to close the window due to the stones. I went to close the window, wondering if I’d misunderstood him but a moment later there was a bang and a stone lay on the ground. Apparently the residents of the area we were driving through have a habit of throwing stones into the trains passing by, how nice.
The hotel was okay. Due to boredom, I took a taxi to and from a wakeboard facility, which cost me another 10€. It looked like a nice place for some wake-boarding, good obstacles but there is still a lot of work to be done, maybe it’ll always stay like that, I mean this is South America…
Zarate is a small city, however it does have a huge Toyota Factory. The unemployment rate is around 25%, according to the taxi driver. You can definitely see the poverty.
19th October 2018
I had an appointment at the Terminal at 9;30 this morning. The agent only came after I called him, telling him I was waiting. There were 3 other Germans and one Swiss guy who also had cars on the ship, waiting at the other entrance. It was a waiting game, at first we were parked in a cell like waiting room, then we were instructed to put on reflective vests and protective shields for our shoes, bringing our backpacks inside was also not advised as it may be lost. One of the other guys waiting with us was disadvantaged because he needed to take his daily medication which was now not accessible to him. We had been waiting for so long that his wife, a Spanisch women, started talking to the people in charge, telling them off in her best Spanish to the point where the man was allowed to go get his medication.
Once we were allowed into our cars, we discovered that two of them had been searched. There was nothing missing from one of them, the other one had all of cupboards unscrewed, the mounts were broken and three camps chairs were missing.
Emmazwo seemed to be okay, my bathroom door still mounted correctly. In the evening as I was looking for my sheets, it dawned on me that my sheets and duvet cover are now comforting someone else in Brazil. Blanket and cushion, everything from Ikea, still nicely wrapped, were apparently not needed.
This leads to the second entry on my ‘Lost list’,
- Sheet and duvet cover, 19th October, Zarate
20th October
After overnighting at a camping site close to Tigre am Lujan, I mounted my bike stand to the back of the car and went through the car to check everything thoroughly.
Every single cupboard was opened and searched. The kite was taken out of the kite bag and is now serving as a shopping bag.
All of my shoes are gone: running shoes, golf shoes, hiking shoes etc. My adapter to charge my laptop in the car is also gone. I’m not sure what else is missing but right now I’m missing 300€ worth of belongings.
I was planning to buy new bed covers at Ikea, sadly the closest one is in Miami.
I’m going to have to fight my way through the purchase of new covers in Spanish, hopefully this goes well…
The missing adapter is the worst, it was hard to find and buy in the first place.
Third entry to the ‘Lost List’,
- 4 Pairs of shoes, 19 October, Karate
- Kite bag, 19 October, Karate
- Electronic Adapter, 19 October, Zarate
The weather has drop around 15 degrees, my good mood has also dropped, I just want to get out of Argentina now. The arrival of Emmazwo has brought lots of excitement but straight after it (after seeing what had happened) came the bad mood which needs to be combated, immediately.
It took me about 2 hours to find the Ferry terminal to Colonia del Scramento/Uruguay in Buenos Aires. The entire harbour is a building site and the navigation was as lost as I was. Eventually a friendly Argentinian simply said ‘follow me’ and showed me where to go.
The ferry cost me 5500 Pesos, not necessarily cheap but Emmazwo is big and cost 130€
