Vaporizadores in Uruguay

gangababa

Well-Known Member
Grammatically, the word ‘vaporizador’ can have two meanings, the device or the user of the device.

Today I am two weeks short of my third year in Uruguay, happily retired and living as an expat with my wife. Upon arrival here I had an DaVinci Ascent, an Arizer Solo and some cart pens, all of them now dead. Just prior to the pandemic, my wife returned from a trip to the states with another original Solo.

Uruguay? Isn’t that the country that first legalized cannabis? I am asked. Well perhaps, but the country has also banned vapes. There is much that I do not understand.

There are no pot-shops like north-America offers. My 40 grams is delivered each month but I do not make the ‘what-is-it’ choice. Nonetheless I can sit undisturbed in the park and use my vape, and going about in the city I can smell cannabis that others smoke. Paraphenalia, rolling paper, bong and grow room stores abound. I can be gifted grass like the surprise grams that arrived with my recent vape purchase.

We chose to come here because the laws allowed legal residency and I have access to cannabis via one of the three choices, (home-grow, farmacía, grow club.) We luckily connected with a club that (providentially) grows organic in the sun.

When first we arrived, I saw some vapes in ‘grow-shops’ and some have been offered via an online market site.
I have even purchased vapes from a Uruguayan vape vender’s business web site (choosing the cash at home delivery option); most recently a Boundless Tera. Vapes are expensive due to high duty and shipping costs. The Tera was $299.

However, when I ask about vaporizers in tiendas I am told that vapes can’t be imported and I learned that a 2009 anti-tobacco law outlaws vapes as electronic cigarettes. In March we learned that a change in the law will now allow ‘dispositivos electrónicos para (tobaco) seco’, which is to say, dry herb devices.

Hopefully the availability of new vaporizers will increase in the future. It would be nice to be able to buy from the world, USA excluded for absence of shipping systems.

The Vaporseni site currently lists 21 vaporizers of with twelve are sold out (agotado).

Now back to enjoying the balcony view of el mar, the sight of the yoga class yoginis in the park below and the taste of my old Solo stem heating in the new Tera oven.
 

el sargantano

Well-Known Member
Edit:
My tone was not correct enough (or ambiguous)
I don't want to sound too simplistic as the last post and think I can improve: I suggest your viewpoint should be refocused from electronic vapes to 'interactive' ones. That's on the disponibility premise on herb/devices.
Not my mother language, you know amigo...
 
el sargantano,
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gangababa

Well-Known Member
Well damn, I have been shopping around. Perhaps I do need to take up a torch.
It seems that suitable 18650 batteries are hard to find and pricey, $10-$20 a battery for Murata (Sony) VTC6 or Samsung 30Q or similar.
OK, so I checked the online sites pointed out by folk on the forum and find none shipping to Uruguay (I need 2-4 not 50).
I did find a lot of 'sold-out' listings for suitable 3000 mAh high drain (20^ amp). Canals can crack supply chains.
So, I try a Chinese mega site and find batteries and a Nitecore D2 charger and promised no(low) cost shipping, where not until the check-out am I informed that the batteries are a no go.

TiendaMia regularly ships items sourced from the USA, but don't try buying electric toothbrushes or Solo glass stems. Li-ion batteries, we shall see.
 
gangababa,

StillBiggerThanYou

Well-Known Member
My dad was from Uruguay, and I visited many times when I was younger.

Nothing quite like un asado, mate, and a bowl with friends/family.

I'm in miami, but I'm willing to help a fellow countryman out if you think there's something we could do to make shipping you items easier.
 

gangababa

Well-Known Member
I have learned that li-ion batteries are definitely not going to pass aduana scrutiny. I actually watched my TiendaMia shopping-cart page change before my eyes (I had been watching, maintaining, adding, deleting for days), from 'ready to go' to 'these items are prohibited by aduana in your country'.

Uruguay is a small country, the size of Arkansas, but is still bigger than me.

I actually (currently and in fact) had to go to aduana yesterday to retrieve my $18 U$ Storz & Bickel order of 5 screens and a cassette of 8 dosing capsules that fit in the Boundless Tera.
For previous 'compras del exterior' I was able to pay customs online and have the order delivered.

This time I had to take a bus to a different town in a different state (granted only about 20 miles), walk to aduana, follow the five process steps, repeating some (saw one man three times), waiting at each window and struggling through the Spanish. Thankfully my wife had rescheduled her day's work and come along as a translator.,

Although everyone was nice and the system well organized, like most things here it was 'take a number and wait to be called'
I was at customs over and hour before walking back to the bus stop to return home after wife and I got coffee at Starbucks (some things are bigger than countries).
With bus fare, customs duty and other charges, my $18 order finally cost me $55 to bring home.
BTW, the dosing capsules work nicely in the Tera and will actually fit in a Solo oven.
Thanks for offering assistance, @StillBiggerThanYou
 
gangababa,
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gangababa

Well-Known Member
My partner, and her carry-on, went home to the States to visit her mother and sister, so we made it a shopping trip thus she returned with two extra checked-bags. A pricey visit badly timed to this years cold winter storm. Since some things are unobtainium here, we did some internet shopping and shipped to sister, see.
I'd like to think I now have the only Tinymight vape in Uruguay. I do have some batteries I can trust, and two long church-warden pipe stem for use as DIY vaporizer mouthpieces.
 

GetLeft

Well-Known Member
So why Uruguay instead of, say, Ecuador? Nicaragua? Portugal? Just curious.
 
GetLeft,

gangababa

Well-Known Member
So why Uruguay instead of, say, Ecuador? Nicaragua? Portugal? Just curious.
Legal cannabis, enuf said. Additionally democratic, inclusive, recently progressive and liberal after the dictatorship, and relatively easy legal residency is possible.

Though my partner visited and said that Quito, Equador had several good Vedic vegetarian restaurants.
 

BabyFacedFinster

Anything worth doing, is worth overdoing.
Legal cannabis, enuf said. Additionally democratic, inclusive, recently progressive and liberal after the dictatorship, and relatively easy legal residency is possible.

Though my partner visited and said that Quito, Equador had several good Vedic vegetarian restaurants.

@gangababa, congrats on living in such a beautiful area. Uruguay has seemed very appealing to me also. We have talked about living there for 2-3 months during our winter months (January thru March) once we retire. I have only watched videos of the coastal areas, but we really like the beach areas around Punta del Este. Although it looks like many others have already flocked there for the beauty and nice weather.

Glad to hear you got your hands on a Tinymight. It is an excellent flower vape and should serve you well. You will need to have a supply of 18650's as the vape is a battery hog and requires regular charging and swapping out batteries, but it is worth it. I use an external charger and swap between two batteries so there is always one ready to go when needed.

As mentioned by others, I would recommend having a dynavap so you have a backup vape if your battery units fail.
 
BabyFacedFinster,
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gangababa

Well-Known Member
@gangababa, congrats on living in such a beautiful area. Uruguay has seemed very appealing to me also. We have talked about living there for 2-3 months during our winter months (January thru March) once we retire. I have only watched videos of the coastal areas, but we really like the beach areas around Punta del Este. Although it looks like many others have already flocked there for the beauty and nice weather.

Glad to hear you got your hands on a Tinymight. It is an excellent flower vape and should serve you well. You will need to have a supply of 18650's as the vape is a battery hog and requires regular charging and swapping out batteries, but it is worth it. I use an external charger and swap between two batteries so there is always one ready to go when needed.

As mentioned by others, I would recommend having a dynavap so you have a backup vape if your battery units fail.
I have lived here for near five years and have never seen the country, only the city streets and parks and playas of the city of Montevideo.
January is the beginning of the tourist season; Argentinians, Brazilians, Uruguayans, and the rich flock to Punta del Este and the Atlantic coast beach communities. This weekend at a border crossing between Uruguay and Argentina there was (not uncommon) a five hour long line of cars entering Uruguay.

Along with the Tinymight, I purchased two extra Molicel P28 batteries and I do keep my 2-bay Nightcore charger busy.
 
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