In that entry we want to explain how to pick up a vehicle from the port of Montevideo without having an agent.
We were lucky because it toke us only 6 hours, we have heard that some people need a few days…
The first thing we did was go to the office of KMA, where Belgaco tell us to go, there we gave the Bill of Lading, we paid a lot of money and we get return the Bill of Lading with an authorization to get the car outside from the port.
Then, we went to the customs, where it’s needed:
Bill of Lading
Passport copy
International driving license copy
Original car papers
Car insurance
And migration certificate
We didn’t have that last certificate so we had to go to the migration office to get it. There we had to wait like 2 hours…
We went back to the customs, and they told us that we had to pay another tax in another place, the import taxes in the ANP building. The value of this tax is the 5% of the vehicle value and since no one checks that, we recommended you to lower the value as much as possible, and you will save a few dollars!
Another important thing is that all the paper work you have to do, muss be paid in dollars…
We went back to the customs again, that time it looks that everything is good and we can enter to the harbor terminal to get Cactus. We went to the entrance and we were not allowed to enter without an authorization that of course we didn’t have… We call Rilcomar, the company who unload and was gathering cactus, they make an authorization for us and 30 min later we were in. And there was Cactus!!
We went to Rilcomar, we gave them all the documents and surprise! Another paper was missing… the control of charge (Control de carga y manifiesto). We went to the corresponding office, get the paper and finally we get the keys from Cactus! Was almost ours!
The last step was to past another aduana control, where they wanted to control all the documents again and they wanted to check the car. A really nice woman deal with us and she only glance over, she did not open any closet or check the back side… (but attention it could be that they make exhaustive controls!)
And finally the three of us were official and legal in the country and the adventure could begin.
About the travel we changed the route a bit, we meet a lot of people and following his advices and typs, we couldn’t miss the Uruguayan and Brazilian coast. So we headed north-east, till Florianopolis, and now, we are going to Iguazu water falls!!
