He planned every detail meticulously.
In early October this year, Pablo Laurta rented a cabin in Salto, a small city on Uruguay's north-west border that is separated from Argentina by the Uruguay River. For ten days, he practised rowing. He hid his car. Then, on 7 October, he entered the kilometre-wide river in a canoe and paddled across to the Argentinian city of Concordia.
That night, the 39-year-old Laurta called an Uber driver he knew from Buenos Aires, and offered him around $1,100 to drive five hours north to pick him up and take him nearly ten hours west to Córdoba, the central Argentine city where his ex-partner, 26-year-old Luna Giardina, lived with their five-year-old son.
