At the begining of my time here in Chile, I silently derided the many people I heard about who had ran into problems with their tourist visas. The process was so straightforward that the most complicated thing about it was believing that it could, indeed, be that simple. I had returned from my first 'visa run' across the border back on June 7th and simply penciled September 7th into my calendar for my next trip. In late August I bought a plane ticket after realizing that my next 'visa run' was going to be right on Caitlin's birthday. A fast trip there and back wouldn't steal my whole weekend so I made the investment. When I got to the airport and walked right up to the customs gate, I was already patting myself on the back for such a smoothly planned trip... this was going to be painless! My first sign of trouble was having not printed two copies of my boarding pass. As I approached the customs agent, I asked him if that was going to be a problem. He took one look at my passport and told me that I had bigger fish to fry.
He sent me to their main office where, after a conversation with the supervisor and a translated phone call to confirm with Caitlin, I left the airport to go back to my apartment. At this point, I was a mixture of emotions and none of them wanted the backseat. The officers were claiming that I had overstayed my visa and that I needed to go to an office that wouldn't open until Monday to figure the situation out. Doing my own math on the way home, it appeared that if you started counting from 12:00AM on June 7th that my visa was overdue by about 16 hours. Also, I realized that I hadn't counted on July and August both having 31 days when I made my original plans. That moment was nerve-wracking. There were moments when I felt that the language barrier was preventing me from getting what I needed and others where I was scared that I'd be heading back the US before I had planned. After a flurry of phone calls with Caitlin, her program director, and our boss at ING...it became clear that I had gotten the Chilean bureaucratic shaft. So, having been shafted in such a fashion, I waited until Monday and reported to the extranjeria. This is the immigration office for the International Police. This place is like the DMV on steroids. Not only do you get a deli-style number to wait in line with, but you start this nonesense at 7AM by waiting in line for the doors to open. Cait and I got there juuuuust in time to go to the back of the line as it had already snaked up 6 flights of stairs. When my number was called, I plead my case to no avail and instead had to face the dark face of the International Police. "Don't do this again" "Take these papers, you have ten days to leave the country and come back"
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattttt???????????????????????
You're telling me that all I had to do was apologize and hear your stern warning about not screwing up on your inane method of counting again? I had a ticket...I was TRYING to leave!!! You could have let me leave and then yelled at me. I was trying to LEAVE!!!!!
Ahhhhhhhhh....ok. So, I bought a bus ticket for the next weekend and set out to get back to life as usual. When Saturday arrived, I was again, so proud of my plan and the efficiency in which it was going to let me metaphorically have victory over this stupid Chilean system. I arrived early to the bus station and was enjoying an ice cream when the call to board the bus arrived. I was the first in line, and the chipper look on my face devolved into furious frustrated rage when the bus driver told me that I didn't have the correct paperwork. Didn't he know that i had cancelled my busiest day of classes just to sit at the Chilean DMV from hell? Didn't he know that the 10 notorized, stamped, and signed legal sized papers I was carrying were all I needed...what else could I possibly need?? I immediately got out of line and called my boss Andrés. Now this guy is what we like to call....a fantastic human being. In the course of 5 minutes, he had hung up with me...called the International Police...received confirmation that the bus driver didn't know what the hell was going on....and then called me back. I put him on with the incompetent bus driver, who let me on the bus and away we went.
As we pulled away from the Argentinian border, I looked at my
new visa with some serious joy. I was free of that filthy paper and it's accompanying bad mojo. I even broke out a package of reeses peanut butter cups to celebrate and shared one with the guy from California sitting next to me. When I arrived in Mendoza, I headed off to spend my two hour wait buying alfahores and wine. Returning just over an hour later, I settled in with my book and waited for the bus to arrive. Not seeing anyone waiting or any bus for that matter, I went to go talk to a security guard. THERE'S A TIME CHANGE?????? I missed the bus? THERE'S NOT ANOTHER ONE ALL NIGHT????? Oh puta la wea!
And so began the process of deciding whether or not to cry. At this point, it just didn't' seem like I was supposed to win at this game. I had plans the next day and found no excitement at the idea of sleeping in the cold of the open bus station. One of the security guards told me that the buses sitting nearby were heading to Santiago, but that it was a private charter. I asked the drivers if they had any room for me and they shut me down faster than I could have dreamed. Standing in front of this bus, trying to will the bus drivers to take pity on me as they did their business, I decided to try another tact. I found the leader of these Argentinian soccer teams and asked him...he told me to ask the drivers. Damn. Begin round II of staring at the bus drivers. About 10 minutes before the buses left... and with my wits at their ends... my wits and wills were rewarded. One of the managers asked me if I still needed a ride and after greesing some palms, I had myself an overnight bus ride...back to Santiago.
They dropped me off north of the city about as far my apartment as is possible. But at that point...it was Chile....I had a new visa... and all I had to do was get home. I took a bus, crossed a highway, took another bus to get to the metro. The metro took me to one last bus... which deposited me at my apartment. Done Deal. What a cluster.
Santiago is ringed by the Andés but as a result is also situated in the middle of a number of hills. A city with hills doesn't sound all that exciting but they're isolated from the rest of the valley plain that Santiago sits in. This arrangement gives them the roles of cell tower and religious monument bases, as well as permanent oases for the city's residents. In the last two weeks, Caitlin and I have visited both of them. Cerro San Cristobal has a HUGE statue of the virgin mary on top and Cerro Santa Lucia sports a more secular approach with Greek gods and Spanish conquistadors. San Cristobal is known for it's hiking, inclined cable car, zoo, and the requisite ice cream that you'd expect at the end of a long walk up a hill. Both provide a great view of the city though and are a nice way to 'get away' without putting in too much time.
