Arriving in Uruguay

Before entering Latin America’s most expensive country, we made the most of stocking up on the cheaper side of the border. We stocked up on the most important things in life; cat food, wine and fuel. I’d read that this border was pretty relaxed and I wasn’t really expecting the camper to get searched. Nevertheless, I made a cursory attempt to hide a few bits. I didn’t hide the eggs though, a decision I’d soon regret.

It was only a twenty-minute drive to the border, crossing the huge bridge that spans the border river, the Río de la Plata. It was pretty quiet and there was no wait while we got our passports stamped out at immigration. We drove a few metres and only had to wait a few minutes to be seen by the aduana. I got sent over to some booth on the opposite side to get our paperwork for Argentina signed out. Meanwhile, Lee was dealing with the border agents. Apparently it was all gravy until they saw the eggs. Then they wanted to search us properly. They found the 5kg bag of cat food I’d shoved under the blanket. Apparently you can’t bring in cat food, which is weird enough in itself, but then they naturally wanted to know if we had cats.

While we had ample time to do it, we didn’t want to pay for the paperwork and we’d thought we’d blag the border. We only had one cat bag at the time, as we had got rid of the other bulky rucksack a while ago. We had therefore tried to put both cats in their beds when we left the supermarket on the Argentinian side. They don’t really like sitting very close to each other though and Aimee smacked Lexi in the face and tried to escape. I had built a clothes wall between them and the main space, but Aimee had already dug her way out once. We put her back, stuffed every little hole with socks and hoped that if we drove a bit, they’d both calm down.

So there we were at the border with our bag of illegal cat food, eggs and the potatoes they’d also now found. They weren’t happy with us. They demanded to know if we had pets… “No,” we said, “we just have this huge bag of cat food, but it’s not for us, it’s because we’re going to volunteer at an animal sanctuary… honestly.” We offered to give them all the things we weren’t allowed, but they shook their heads, telling us there were cameras. I’m not sure why that mattered if we were the ones doing something wrong, but anyway they motioned at us to go and walked off.

We decided to make a speedy getaway before they changed their minds. Ruby decided that this was the perfect time not to start. That annoying starter issue that had been plaguing us since Córdoba reared its ugly head at possibly the worst moment. We sat at the border furiously turning the key over and over. Ruby rewarded our efforts with nothing more than a solitary click. After what seemed like an age, she finally fired up. We really needed to get to the bottom of that problem, it had a knack for happening at the worst possible time.

Now we had made it through, we had just a couple of days left of June. We had agreed to be at the animal shelter on the 1st of July. Fortunately, Uruguay is a relatively small country and it wasn’t that far to drive to the capital city. Despite the fact we didn’t have long, we’d have time to stop off at a couple of places. The sun was now fading and so we headed down to Carmelo on the coast. Despite the fact that we had driven 400km to get here, Buenos Aires was now just 60km from us across the river.

We had a couple of days to kill on the drive across to the capital and so the next day we moved on. We picked a spot beside a small laguna on the outskirts of Colonia del Sacramento. It was pretty chilly here and we enjoyed the luxury of just being able to turn on the heating and cook ourselves a meal. This wasn’t the only luxury for us here. As we camped out on the side of a tiny laguna with the whole place to ourselves, we realised that it had been a while since we had a nice wild camping spot all to ourselves. We spent the next two days making the most of being alone in nature, with the cats running around. We knew that the next few months were going to be a bit of an adjustment for us all.

We now had the final drive to the capital. We passed through two more annoying toll booths that couldn’t read our number plate properly as we headed towards the city. We drove through a landscape that, to me, looked like very English countryside. Rolling green fields surrounded us on all sides, either populated by familiar livestock or great swathes of grain. Tractors chugged along beside rather English-looking hedges and the only things that hinted we were not right back home were the Spanish road signs and the fact we were driving on the other side of the road.

After a few hours, we reached the outskirts of the capital. As with any city, it took longer than you’d think to navigate through it. We parked up close to where we were supposed to be and sent our host, Jessica, a message as we didn’t have the actual house number. After a few minutes, it became apparent that we needed to pop around the corner and there was our host waiting for us. We introduced ourselves and the cats and met her two dogs, Coco and Millie. Then we jiggled around the cars, parking Ruby in next door’s gated driveway. The original owner, Jessica explained, had passed away some time ago and with the only living relatives in another country, she was still allowed to use the drive. Apparently, despite the rather nice houses that lined the street, there was a lot of crime in the area and Ruby wouldn’t be safe parked outside.

With the van next door, we went inside the house to meet the cats. Jessica had seven of her own, with countless others up for adoption or semi-feral in the process of being tamed. I must admit that a rather overwhelming smell of cat wee hit us as we passed through the front door. Clearly, keeping a safe place for all these animals, many of whom were not house trained, required a lot of cleaning. Before we got stuck into that though, we needed to get ourselves and the girls all set up.

Jessica showed us to the spare room, which would be ours for the next few weeks. We spent the afternoon moving our things across and getting the cats settled in.

We decided that we would keep them in the room for a few days at least; it would be a bit of an adjustment for them to move from Ruby into an unknown house full of other cats. That evening, we cooked dinner in a proper kitchen and started to get our bearings.

The next day, Jessica showed us some of the ropes. Every day the litter trays needed emptying, the floors cleaning and all the food and water bowls topping up. Today, someone had done a huge wee that had gone all under the sideboard. Someone else had gone to the toilet on the sofa. We got stuck in. As soon as you cleaned up one mess, another one appeared. After a few hours though, we had definitely made an improvement.

The afternoon was spent removing everything external from Ruby. Jessica and apparently one of the neighbours too, were very concerned that although we were parked behind locked gates, we were going to get robbed. Ourselves, we weren’t that concerned, but as we were parked in someone else’s space, we didn’t want to cause an issue. If everyone else would be happier if we cleared out the van, then so be it. We spent a good hour unloading the roof rack, taking off the bikes and stacking everything in the large outhouse in the garden. It had been barely five minutes before a dog weed all over the lot. Good job it was all in weatherproof boxes.

Slowly, as the week passed, we got to know the cats. There were a lot of names to remember after all and some of them looked nearly identical. As ever, we remembered the troublemakers first. Ariel, named after the little mermaid as she was born with swimmer syndrome, was an odd little cat and made herself memorable to me by swiping me across the face. Turns out she doesn’t like her ears being touched and I learned the hard way. I couldn’t hold it against her though because generally she was a proper sweetie. By the end, we had nicknamed her “Peanut” because her body resembled the shape of one.

Lee’s favourite had to be Bessie. She had been born with some form of brain damage and you could tell that a few wires were crossed up there. She showed her affection by biting you while purring and if you were cooking, she would be in it. She was the main reason we had to wash out the entire litter tray in the kitchen every morning, but according to Jessica this was actually an improvement. When she was younger she hadn’t been able to use it at all. Lee has long said he wants to rescue disabled cats, so this was a tiny taste of that.

Bessie wasn’t the only one. We also got to know Quasi, short for Quasimodo. I have never seen a cat built like this before. He reminded me of our old neighbour’s French bulldog, he really did have shoulders and he was a big boy. He was missing his tail and one eye from a lifetime on the streets, but he loved nothing more than climbing into our bed and howling until he got complete and undivided chin rubs.

It wasn’t just the cats we got to know. Jessica’s two dogs, Millie and Coco, were obviously used to the frequent comings and goings. At the time we were there she was also looking after someone else’s dog. He was a young but large boy called Lukas. If I knew more about dog breeds I’d tell you what he was, but as it stands all I can really describe is his behaviour. He was totally untrained and full of energy. Even a 6km walk down the seafront did little to calm him down. We tried to take them for daily runs around the local park to burn off some steam and encourage him to wee outside, but it was all a little in vain and we were happy to see the back of him after the first week.

Aside from our cleaning duties, we also went out and about. I accompanied Jessica to the local slum. It was like stepping back in time. If you ignored the road with its constant stream of electric cars and focused behind it, you’d see a completely different story. Back there, higgledy-piggledy houses were built from what others had thrown away. A weird mishmash of timber, metal and concrete held together with wire, fabric or whatever else was available. Horses and carts were the transport here, to-and-froing from the dump with whatever might still hold some value. They would empty their contents on the floor and then others would begin to sift through the detritus. Things that could be used to build with or be sold were removed and the rest left behind. A new load dumped on top. And so the ground here was just a trampled mass of whatever no one could possibly want. In this, children ran around barefoot and animals skulked in the shadows.

Jessica was acquainted with the people here. They often drove through and any animal lucky enough to be on the street outside was scooped up and taken away to a better life. Inside, Jessica tried to persuade the owners to look after their animals. Persuading them to sterilise them was one thing, medical care a whole different conversation. We saw a dog desperately in need of a vet. The “owner” shrugged, they couldn’t care less if it lived or died. We took some photos of it to send to the vet.

Jessica helped raise money so that vets could come out here and treat animals that otherwise would receive no medical care. Then she asked if there were any animals she could take.

A sly look crossed the woman’s face. Maybe one or two, she said. She shouted across the yard and her son came over. Like his mother, he too had a lazy eye and was dirty head to toe. He must have been about seven years old. His mum asked how many kittens he would give away. He wiggled from foot to foot, enjoying the game.

“One!” he said.

We tried to persuade him to part with some more, but he giggled and stuck to “Uno!”.

At least we could have one, I suppose. He returned with it shoved down the front of his jacket before chucking it into the back seat of the car. Jessica berated herself for not bringing a cat carrier, so I ended up with it swaddled in a towel on the front seat. Luckily, he was a bit scared but in no way interested in hurting me. A sweet little boy. Jessica reckoned they had at least six more in there, but without them giving them to us, we couldn’t do much.

We stopped off one more time and this time when we got back in the car, the cat was nowhere to be seen. We drove back home and Jessica put a trap in the back footwell with some chicken to try and get the kitten to come out. As night fell, he showed no sign of moving. I ended up headfirst in the passenger footwell trying to prise him out from under the front seat. While he was terrified, he was very good-natured and I managed to extract him and bring him inside. He was put in the Cat Room, designated for new or sick cats, where he promptly hid inside the sofa bed. We named him Julian and over the next two weeks I spent my time luring him out and giving him lots of love. He was such a sweet little guy, I hoped the more sociable he became, the easier it would be to rehome him. As is common knowledge in shelters, no one wants the black cats.