When Néstor was planning his visit, I asked him to apply for a double-entry visa. After all, I have been here for 4 months and have yet to visit another country, which is a shame considering the close proximity of Poland and Lithuania. So he paid the extra money ($131 single entry; $232 double entry) and I got busy planning a short trip. After asking my friends, searching online, and visiting a local travel agency, I decided that the best option was to stay one night in Druskininkai, Lithuania, which is known for its "sanitoriums" (saunas/spas), and then travel to Vilnius so we could see the Old Town. I made the reservations and bought our bus tickets, so we were all set to go. That was until the U.S. Embassy told us the bad news: The checkpoint our bus was going to use was not an “international border crossing.” This means that only Belarusian and Lithuanian citizens can pass through. Funny that the travel agency didn’t warn me about this. What made matters worse is that the crossing we could use (M11) would turn the 1.5 hour trip from Grodno to Druskininkai into closer to 10 hours, not to mention that we would have to make a huge circle and backtrack, which neither of us wanted to do. (Double click on the photo above and you'll see what I mean.) Time for Plan B, which was to skip Druskininkai and just go to Vilnius for 2 days. This made more sense as it was a straight shot from the M11 crossing. Sounds easy enough… but when we went to the bus station we were told that the bus only departed on Tuesdays and Sundays, and we needed to go on Thursday! Another option was to go back to Minsk (3–4 hours on a marshrutka) and then take a 4-hour train to Vilnius, but we had just come from there and backtracking never sits well. Our last ditch effort was to rent a car and drive ourselves, but this idea was shot down when we were unable to find a car rental office in Grodno. Toward the end we even contemplated walking or skiing across the border!
We were both frustrated and more than a little disappointed at our failure. After investing so much time and energy it was hard to let it go, but we both felt better when we finally decided to hang out and relax in Grodno. I should add that we later found out that we could’ve taken a marshrutka to Vilnius, instead of the bus, and they depart for Vilnius everyday! Then again, who knows which border crossing they use. Like Néstor and I said, "It was not meant to be." Maybe there was a reason we were not supposed to go on this trip?
