It took six weeks.
But approaching the port's storage yard rubbed out the wait. Now it was a matter of how she fared 5,573 miles of the Atlantic's temper tethered deep in Pluto Leader's bowels.
The call from the shipping company interrupted our conversation over café and cruasanes dulces. Crashing silverware on plates, laughter and Pichuco's "Barrio de Tango" muffled the sentences except for two words: vessel and arrived. We had work to do.
We stood up, gulped the coffee, grabbed our gear, paid and rushed out of Café Bacacay in Montevideo's old city with croissants in mouth. It was just past 10 in the morning, so we had a good chunk of the day to get all of the paperwork needed to release our 911.
First stop was Dirección Nacional de Migración, about an eight-block walk. This was the office of immigration inside Uruguay's Ministry of Interior building where we'd pick up the Certificado de Ingreso del Pais, the 911's immigration papers.
Burning time here was hell. Florescent lights, lines and the smell of bureaucracy brought me back to the reality that maybe this was a bad idea. Touring the country looking for a place to call home when the gray hairs took over could've been done with a rental car.
But no, there was a desire to do this with the sound of six air-cooled pistons behind us. The taste of different turf would be sweeter this way.
An hour later, me and my woman spilled back out into the herd of locals and tourists on Avenida Misiones. The summer sun felt good on the naked shoulders; it slowly pulled the anxiety by its thread from the top of the head. We were one step closer to freeing the old girl and our independence.
There was a possibility that we couldn't get all our papers in order in a day. The arrival of the ship was just that, the arrival. Uruguayan officials knew nothing of what was inside Pluto Leader's belly until the freight company generated the ship's manifesto declaring its contents. This information had to be passed over to the storage companies within the harbor where they'd assign a stock number to each item, which then becomes a file number for customs.
Pluto Leader was a RoRo (roll on, roll off) ship, a floating parking garage for shipping anything with wheels. Every container, car, truck, motorcycle or whatever else packed an engine, gearbox and axles would have to be started and driven off the boat onto land.
Never mind the time it took unhooking the holding straps from each machine, there would be dead batteries, flat tires and anything else ready to stall the process of disembarkment. This could take all day.
Industrial ships in the seaport of Montevideo, Uruguay.
The NYK Group took care of shipping the 911. The voyage from Port Newark to Montevideo peppered with a few stops would take roughly 32 days.
We followed the ship's course down in real time through a vessel-tracking website. For four weeks, we tracked a little green triangle's coordinates as it made its way down the Atlantic and across the equator until it reached the Rio de la Plata's mouth — and there it stayed.
For the next two weeks, the pixelated green triangle didn't move from its spot. It was moored, waiting for a longshoreman's strike in Uruguay's Terminal Fluviomarítima to reach settlement robbing nearly four days. It would take nearly 10 days for the backed-up flotilla that had collected off Uruguay's shores to fall into port and unload. By the end of the sixth week, our Pluto Leader yanked up its hook and spun its props toward the docks.
Receiving NYK Group's office in Montevideo Multimar Uruguay's call earlier in the day was a miracle. That was our second stop. We walked eight blocks back the way we came, down Avenida 25 de Mayo to Plaza Independencia 831, took the elevator up to the fourth floor and handed the clerk our Bill of Lading. They checked it, stamped it and kindly asked to pay a landing fee equal to four Michelin Sport Cups.
It was nearing 2 in the afternoon. The lines, the waiting, the stink of paper and ink, fidgeting and walking had sucked up energy. But with only three hours left before the port closed, hunger took the hint to wait.
We trotted back toward the end of the port where the Administracíon Nacional de Puertos was located. This was the Port Authority building and our last stop before we were allowed in the port storage yard.
Up until now, things went smoothly; being fluent in this unique dialect of Spanish made it so. But the advantage goes beyond processing information, it sparks casual conversation in waiting rooms. One in particular lent me some of his savvy.
In order to officialize extortion, bogus charges and tariffs are created to feed the bureaucracy; this one was called a port charge. It's based on two things, the weight of your car and the value. No way around the first one to be of benefit unless it’s a '68 911R, but the second one can be manipulated.
"Set the value unrealistically low," he whispered.
"Like, how unrealistically?" I asked. "USD$2,500?"
"What are you bringing in?"
"A Porsche," I hushed.
"Uff," he said raising his brows. "Don't worry, they won't have a way of verifying a number, but don't be stupid and low-ball it — get what I'm saying?"
My number was called. I got up, walked to the window, handed the clerk my papers, and then came the question.
"What is the value of your vehicle?"
My lips delivered it cold: "USD$12,000."
Pen to paper, a few thuds of a rubber stamp, a paper clip to hold the neat shuffle together, and I was on my way to the cashier's window to pay a fee that kept my day a good one.
It was 4:15.
I clasped my woman's hand and walked into port's yard. Ahead was a row of cars with open doors and trunks; their guts spread out on the cement next to each one. A cigarette and a shot of whisky wouldn't be enough in getting the heart to downshift a gear. We quickened the pace putting carnage behind us.
There she was, nestled in a group of freshly minted white Citroen vans and tufts of knee-high weeds. Like a lone red dot on a white canvas, the contrast had to be orchestrated.
Photography inside the port was prohibited, so we took this shot just outside the port.
And just like that, the scene was ruined when an official in starched uniform with a clipboard crept in with the sweet scent of marine diesel and brine.
The muscles of his face were paralyzed in a deadpan expression; only his lips and eyelids were spared. There wasn't to be any friendly exchanges, just orders. He looked over the papers we collected that day, our passports, looked at his clipboard and handed them back. His eyes flicked back and forth from the VIN plate to the clipboard, then he opened the driver's door, squatted down and peered at the odometer.
The door closed with a thwack behind him. He stepped back a bit, jotted something down, then looked at the polka dot wheels from under the brim of his hat and nervously coughed to disguise a laugh. The stern face returned as he approached to hand over the signed release papers and the Salida Temporal de Vehiculos, the 911's 12-month visa.
"Señor Deferrari, bienvenidos al Uruguay — welcome to Uruguay."
The pulse slowed, and the guard was dropped with an exhale. We got in, slid the key into the barrel, and with a twist to the first detent, lit up the gauges. The second twist whirred the starter and woke up the beast.
Scenes like this get the mind rolling a reel of calamity. By manufacturing the worst that can happen, it busies itself creating back plans and solutions — none of which happened. Although we wasted a good chunk of the day to get here, sitting in that snug cockpit erased all that.
Peering over the hood magnified the film of dirt speckled with sea spray, but, hell, she'd survived the late November seas sardined in that ship. The scent of 20-year worn leather, the chip on the windshield, the bite of a cold second gear synchro ... it felt like home.
The 911's haunches with a coat of dust speckled with sea water.
