seat belts, swerving, and much much prayer.

planning our quick trip to uruguay had been a little hectic. we were back and forth between taking a bus or a taxi, changing our minds and then having to change them again, and a frantic dash to the bus station only to change our minds yet again. we did some calling around and decided on a taxi. the man on the other end of the phone seemed nice enough and he was the only one willing to do it for a decent price. so mr. jose whatever his last name was became our hired driver.

we decided to leave on a sunday night so that we could just drive through the night and hopefully sleep in the car. we packed and hauled our stuff out to the portico to meet our driver. what met our eyes was a car with a corner of the hood totally smashed in. he told us not to worry, that it looked worse than it was.

we piled all of our stuff in the "trunk" which also was a bit smashed in, and piled ourselves in the car and we were off. about 10 seconds later i discovered that there wasn't a seatbelt on my side. our driver talked non stop for the first three hours until we hit the border. it was the most painless border crossing i have ever had. we simply rolled down the windows, handed him our passports and then he stamped them and we were on our way.

it was after this that things started going down hill. the girl in the front seat started to sleep, and most of us in the back were dozing or sleeping as well. i was fairly alert and i noticed that our driver began to get really fidgety. it was one in the morning and i didn't know if he was just antsy or was getting tired. we soon found out that he was tired. at first he decided to make these weird sucking noises with his mouth, like he was trying to suck something out of his teeth. then he would whistle. pretty soon the radio was cranked. then the air conditioner was cranked. all during this time we were swerving ALOT on the road. i was fearing for my life a little bit and at one point was about to offer that I drive, and i don't drive stick. i finally had rebekah tell him that he could stop and sleep if he wanted. so pretty soon we stopped and he took a 15 minute nap. i didn't sleep like at all that night because i felt that i had to keep watch or something. all of us also distinctly remember being awakened from our sleeping/dozing at 3 in the morning from a very emphatic radio guy announcing in that special way they do down here that a goal had been made...

it continued on like this all night. the swerving, trying to stay awake, stopping at gas stations ( i have never in my life stopped at so many gas stations in one trip) and taking little naps. it was miserable. lauren was sick, rose and rebekah and i were sore and sleep deprived and desperate for the trip to be over.

we finally pulled into our final destination at 9 the next morning, 13 hours after leaving and many hours longer than we expected. but it was worth it and our few days there were pretty good with lots of walking and beach going. we fried ourselves, had some frustrations with our taxi driver once in town, but we also found a real cupcake shop! :)

when it came time to leave, we all discussed it and decided that our chances of living were better if we were to drive mostly during the day. so we left at 3 in the afternoon. so we all piled in again, hoping desperately that this trip back would be better. and it was for the most part, or so we thought. our driver decided to take a different route back. and he was like a nascar driver. we were going so fast and all the other girls were getting car sick, which is weird because usually i am the one that suffers from that. we made good time, but then the sun went down. and we finally figured out that our driver can't see. especially at night. our speed changed drastically and we started swerving. again. at one point we almost swerved into an oncoming truck.

we finally reached a border crossing, different from the one before. it was here that we discovered that the man at the border crossing on the way in HAD NOT STAMPED rose's passport. how does that happen when that is your one and only job at your station?! naturally she got in trouble for this and no matter what we tried to tell her, they were still mad. plus they said that her information was not in the computer because it was a different crossing. isn't it like a country-wide database? we were all just really frustrated. nothing comes easy down here. she got questioned, and we were worried that she might get deported, and then that WE might get deported because we are "students" here but not on student visas. but they didn't question too much and she ended up having to pay a fine and get this special notice to put in her passport. and to top it all of there was a young woman army officer that had major attitude with us at the next station. lovely.

we moved on and got out of uruguay but there was a lot more swerving and praying for our lives on the way. at one point to keep the driver awake we all had a very loud and animated conversation about the food we missed. (i would say on average our conversations here are about food 95% of the time).

it was with great relief and much rejoicing that we made it back to la uap and finally were on safe ground again.