Río de la Plata

The Río de la Plata is the broad estuary separating Argentina and Uruguay, but in Lucas Pereyra’s journey it is more than a stretch of water between two countries. Crossing it by ferry turns an urgent financial errand into a temporary release from ordinary life, while its changing horizon gathers memories of Magalí Guerra Zabala and the imagined Montevideo he associates with her. The estuary is at once a real border, a route around financial restrictions, and a space where escape seems briefly possible.

Estuary and Crossing

As the ferry leaves port, the shore falls away until only a fragment of coast and the faint outline of buildings remain. Pereyra feels immense relief at being away, even for a short time, and at having left Argentina. The vessel’s safety announcements in Spanish, Portuguese, and English make the crossing feel international; the later announcement that the duty-free shop is open gives him a wry image of freedom offered inside a journey shaped by restrictions. The water is already more than scenery: it separates the pressures of home from the possibility, however temporary, of going elsewhere.

The river’s name strikes Pereyra as especially apt when the water begins to shine in the morning light. From the moving bus on the Uruguayan side, he sees rolling fields and senses that the river is becoming the sea, though the sea itself is still only anticipated beyond the landscape. The distinction remains in motion: the estuary is not yet open ocean, but it carries the promise of something about to happen. That uncertain edge gives the crossing its emotional charge, holding departure and arrival in the same view.

A Border Made Practical by Money

Pereyra’s trip is driven by the difference between receiving his book advances in Argentina and collecting them in Uruguay. He had opened a Montevideo bank account in April; by September, advances from publishing contracts in Spain and Colombia were available. If transferred to Argentina, the dollars would be converted at the official rate and reduced further by tax. By withdrawing them in Uruguay and bringing them back as cash, he expected to exchange them at Argentina’s unofficial rate and retain more than twice as much. He knew he would be carrying more dollars into the country than permitted.

The crossing therefore makes the estuary part of a financial strategy shaped by currency controls. Pereyra is not travelling as a tourist: he wants to withdraw fifteen thousand dollars, repay money owed to Catalina, catch up on overdue bills, make repairs, and buy himself months in which to write. On the ferry, he imagines the cash loosening the hold of debt and depression, making projects possible again. The river connects two banking and currency systems, but it also marks the risky passage between a planned recovery and possible inspection at the border.

That risk is not abstract. Pereyra wonders whether the ticket clerk’s unusually lingering look might mean that people making same-day trips are being watched. Later, he recalls being followed and attacked when attempting to change money through an informal exchange contact in Buenos Aires; the episode exposes the dangers surrounding the unofficial market. On the return crossing, customs employees search him, his jacket, and even the ukulele he is carrying. They find no cash because the money is already gone. The same border that had enabled his plan becomes a checkpoint where its consequences are physically searched for.

The City Across the Water

Once ashore, Pereyra’s understanding of Montevideo is assembled from a small number of remembered streets and images sent by Magalí Guerra Zabala. Avenida 18 de Julio supplies the spine of his mental map: following it leads toward Ciudad Vieja and the coast, while other neighborhoods and landmarks occupy uncertain positions around it. He recognizes that this is not simply a map of the city as it exists. It is also an emotional map, built from recollection and mediated glimpses of the place where Magalí Guerra Zabala lives.

The contrast between water and imagined city matters. Pereyra has crossed a physical estuary, but he also walks through a Montevideo partly made from songs, videos, and longing. He associates the city with a song Magalí Guerra Zabala has sent him and with its image of an embrace at parting. The refrain stays with him as he moves through streets that are both actual and inwardly reconstructed. The river crossing gives that imagined place a material approach, but does not dissolve the gap between the city itself and the version he has made from desire.

Two Cities in One Horizon

At Plaza Independencia, the Palacio Salvo prompts another chain of associations. Pereyra connects it to the Barolo Palace in Buenos Aires, noting their paired towers and recalling the idea that the buildings’ lighthouses once signaled to each other across the Río de la Plata. Whether encountered as architectural memory or as a story of communication across distance, the image makes the estuary a link as well as a divide. The water holds the two cities apart while also giving Pereyra a way to imagine them speaking across it.

The coast further unsettles any simple boundary between river and sea. Looking toward the water with Magalí Guerra Zabala, Pereyra asks why it is called a river when it looks like the sea. She explains that the waters are mixed there: some days they appear greener and bluer, while on others they look brown and more river-like; the open sea is supposed to begin at Punta del Este. Her description echoes the earlier view from the bus, where the estuary seemed to be turning into something else. Neither account presents a sharp line. The water changes in appearance and meaning with the view, making transition a defining feature of the place.

Narrative Significance

The Río de la Plata gathers the journey’s practical and emotional crossings without resolving them into a single promise of escape. It carries Pereyra away from the immediate pressures of home, toward money he hopes will restore time for writing, and toward a city he has already invested with romantic meaning. Yet the return brings customs searches, and the imagined freedom of travel remains entangled with currency rules, danger, and loss. The estuary’s movement from river toward sea becomes a fitting shape for this unsettled passage: a threshold crossed in both directions, where possibility appears vividly but never becomes a secure destination.