An Open Border

Saturday morning we woke up in a gas station and Rusty was energetic enough we circumambulated the gas station before I brewed my first cup of tea. Then I developed a cunning plan. 

I wanted to have lunch in the border town of Rivera only 45 minutes away so I had a few hours to burn to avoid getting there early and sitting on the street so I decided to back up ten minutes to go back to the spot by the side  of the road where I had let Rusty rest on Friday afternoon. He approved heartily of my cunning plan. 

I’ve started in on a book by Buddy Levy, an author I like on the subject of the first Europeans to travel down the Amazon. Yes they were terrible conquistadors of course, but my experiences driving the Amazon give me an unusually high level of empathy for their troubles on that terrible journey.

If you are looking for something to read Webb Chiles has published a short story in four parts on his Internet page. Years ago he published a collection of stories titled SHADOWS and this story is from among them. It’s thought provoking and well worth your time. Here’s the link to part one:

https://self-portraitinthepresentseajournal.blogspot.com/2026/09/hilon-head-island-shadows-part-one.html

My reading was interrupted by some howling and crashing in the shrubbery alongside the road  and it was loud enough it woke Rusty. I looked outside. 

Boy howdy! Some cows were making a break for it apparently and cowboys were hollering to round them up. 

And Brian was posted alongside GANNET2 to stop the runaways getting into the road. 

I went to put the kettle in and in the time it took to do that everyone, cows and all were gone. Back to peace and quiet.

The drive to the Brazilian border was straightforward and my goal was the center of town at the International Plaza. 

The Brazilian town is Santa Ana Do Livramento (Saint Ann of the Deliverance) while the Uruguayan town of Rivera is to the south and they are separated by nothing at all.

To cross officially you have to hunt down immigration and customs offices and do your paperwork, otherwise you can come and go as you please. I pleased you have lunch in Brazil at a typical buffet restaurant  so I did.

It was the usual process of getting a card on which the servers note the weight of your plate and any drinks.

When you pay you get another card which you hand in at the door to show you paid. Pretty simple and it’s fun to be back even if just for a day. My Portuguese hasn’t improved but they could mumble some Spanish too.

Then it’s time to enjoy the border. Kind of weird but rather pleasant to sit in the park without walls barriers or stress.

The family below is stepping from Brazil to Uruguay. 

I’m practicing my selfie skills. I think I look smug. Getting better I guess, at least o don’t look pissed. 

Rivera downtown is not my kind of place. There are crowds and everyone (except me) had a plastic bag. 

How they police a city split in two like this I can’t imagine. 

I walked back to GANNET2 and I spotted a couple of useful stores as I got away from the frenetic downtown. One selling cheeses from across the country.

And the other a tailor and cobbler in one shop, a reminder things can be repaired and not just replaced.

Rusty got his city walk which he really enjoyed, circling around the block taking his time sniffing everything.

Duty free I think:

And then we got on the road. This is an empty part of Uruguay, it is really underpopulated, no towns to speak of just ranches and cattle and sheep and cowboys. And nowhere much to park for the night.

iOverlander doesn’t show much of anything up here:

So I drive for the abandoned park which I figured would take two hours to drive and there weren’t even any nearby gas stations for back up.

It’s pretty run down but it works for us. There was even a toilet that you’d not like to use but which worked fine to dump my porta potty. I think there were electrical hookups too but I didn’t test them. My batteries are fully charged of course with sunlight and driving. 

I fed the inevitable hungry dog that disappeared back to some miserable life in an impoverished farm house nearby and we settled in. Luckily Rusty hayes intruders coming into his life ordered no telling how many dogs we’d be hauling around. I do what I can for them. 

The plan is to get back to the beach soon, probably not Monday as it’s six hours away at least but by Tuesday I want to be back in well to do Uruguay looking at some waves even if it’s too cold (70 degrees air temperature) to swim.

A Disputed Border

 

In the photo above which I took yesterday afternoon, I was standing in Uruguay looking north past the border marker into Brazil, and Uruguay has claimed that field since 1851and still does and does not approve of the presence of this giant lump of cement, but I do. I love this kind of crazy map making madness so it was inevitable I would drive across Uruguay to check out the village of Masoller (pro: mas-oy-yer).

Friday morning saw Rusty leap out of bed promptly at eight when I  got up. One day of rest had been what he needed after a busy Wednesday and my goal yesterday was to reach the informal Brazilian border. 

The first border of business was to buy more tolls for my Uruguayan toll reader which is easy to do. I walked up to the office which is staffed twenty four hours and gave the lady my license plate.

Then I swiped my credit card to the tune of $40 and I had banked ten more toll payments in five minutes for use on Uruguay’s rather enjoyable main roads. 

The day started out gray and overcast and we got our apparently daily dose of rain…

But as the day progressed the sun came out and we found ourselves in a 70-degree day with blue skies dotted with big puffy clouds. Uruguay continued to look green and fresh with farms ranches and forests dotting the rolling countryside. An easy three hour drive except Rusty needed his breaks so we took a bit longer. 

Herewith a few pictures of the road north. 

Mono culture forests: 

There are hills in the far north as we shall see: 

I pulled over here to make a u- turn back to a turn out I had passed where I planned to have lunch and let Rusty enjoy some grass. 

I got the third degree at a police checkpoint somewhat to my surprise. I was pulled over and presented my drivers license and registration and then the senior cop cane aboard very politely asking permission and looked through our drawers and cupboards and fridge. I’m assuming it was curiosity meanwhile his young sidekick chatted away with me telling me he grew up in Brazil and speaks Portuguese and is learning English. The encounter has a slightly surreal quality to it, very friendly and so forth and they even posed for a photo.

I actually enjoyed the chat a measure of how much I miss a co-pilot perhaps.

By around four o’clock I turned left off the main highway onto a much less smooth road going west toward the goal, which it turned out was a thousand feet up in the rolling hills of the north.

About six miles from the village of  Madoller there was a wild camp marked in iOverlander so I figured it would be a good idea to check it out.

The west side of the river was indeed impossible to reach in a delivery van so I turned around and returned to the main road. I’m much easier in my mind fording large puddles now we’ve got rid of the low slung second alternator. 

We had a thousand foot climb up to the mesa on which Masoller sits and the drive was accompanied by warning signs invent seen in a while warning about staying in gear and being aware of steep hills. It was short and thus rather fun as a change from the flatlands. Keep your car in gear:

If you look at the photo below the dotted lines outline a 50,000 acre field, about ten miles deep across the middle to Masoller following the red line. It’s called the Rincon de Artigas (Artigas Corner) and it was created by a diplomatic error. 

In 1851 Brazil and Uruguay signed a treaty confirming Uruguay’s independence while establishing its borders. Around Masoller they agreed the border should be Winter Creek (Arroyo de la Invernada) which was unfortunate as they did not establish which creek exactly was the border. Uruguay’s creek by that name lies across the top of the triangle while Brazil’s follows the lower part of the triangle. Google accepts there is a dispute by marking the border as a dotted line but Brazil doesn’t care. They aggravated the Uruguayans by building a giant cement marker at their chosen southernmost spot.

Rusty was standing in Uruguay organizing the local dogs while I was in Brazil waving my camera around. The right hand side of the street is Uruguay, the left is claimed by Brazil. 

No one lives in Brazil here but the Shell gas station is Portuguese because Shell has no franchises in Uruguay. Beyond the gas station are a few Brazilian houses in the village of Albornoz. The whole place is quite weird especially when you consider how neurotic the US has become about border walls. This place is wide open. 

I put out a pile of food for the dogs and stuffed my privileged princelibg back aboard GANNET2 and went off to see if they were selling gas at Brazilian prices, half that of Uruguay. No such luck but their billboards are in Portuguese. 

I discovered to my relief the attendant spoke Spanish so while she filled me up with the usual $8:45 a gallon regular gas I quizzed her about life on the border. 

The shirt version is that they are Uruguayan and though the border runs down the street it doesn’t make much difference to them. We feel forgotten by the government she said sadly and you can see why. I unfortunately forgot to ask for a picture so this was the best I managed. I need my wife to stick her camera in their faces. 

Masoller is also known for a battle fought in the vicinity in 1904 effectively the last battle of a prolonged civil war between the Whites or Nationalists and the Reds also known as the government forces.

The rebels were retreating and decided to face down the government troops in the village figuring if they lost (again) they could leg it across the undefended border into Brazil and escape their pursuers. 

And in fact that’s what happened and the government troops stopped at the line unwilling to create an international incident with Brazil. 

Mind you just last year Uruguay wrote a stern diplomatic note protesting the construction of windmills on territory they insist is disputed land. The note doesn’t seem to have put off the Brazilians as you can see:

And life in Masoller trudges along no credit to the enlightened government in Montevideo which limits itself to firing off diplomatic notes about nonsense. 

The place seems like it could use some investment. 

It left me feeling rather saddened by the condition of the residents. 

I got out of there. 

On the way back to the main road I gathered across the plain which sits at an altitude of 1200 feet which is I suppose good for wind generators. I checked out the other possible wild camp and found the approach to that one was also pretty much washed out. 

I gave up and drive to the Ancap gas station on the highway and asked to park among the logging trucks. Rusty are ate a huge dinner and passed out. And so did I after I wrote this.