Immigration Hijinks

In an attempt to save money, I booked all of my travel in round trip segments, thinking myself pretty sly and that I would get into Buenos Aires in time to have a little asado. I planned my trip to catch my flight back to the states from BA by coordinating a round trip, BA—Lima—BA. I would get into BA with about 5 hours to spare plenty of time to go into town, eat and get back to the airport.

It all seemed to be going swimmingly and then the radicals in Peru decided to put on a transportation strike but that just meant that I had to go to Lima a few days extra to be there in time to take my flight to BA. The strikes did not affect Lima. They are still going on, by the way.

I did need to be back by Saturday to give my High Council talk in Albuquerque. Not a problem the way things looked. I froze in Lima because of the humid cold about like San Francisco in February. I just bundled up and wore my long johns the whole time I was there.

On Friday morning, the 13th, when I had scheduled the beginning of my odyssey, I went to the airport, with plenty of time to catch my flight. I don’t place any stock in bad or good luck stuff and never think about it, but perhaps my thoughts have changed.

I had no problem with the airline, LAN and got my boarding pass. Then I paid my airport tax and wandered up to the immigration/security area. Full of confidence, because I had all of my papers in order, I made my way in and stood in line. I looked around and the place was practically empty and then I got to the counter. Now, nothing says officious bureaucratic nonsense like Peruvian Immigrations. The agent said, "You have not paid your foreign residence tax.”

Now there is a lengthy explanation to make about this. Peru has no work visa only a residence visa that says I am a Peruvian resident who can work (No matter that I don’t live there, it works that way) and every year we have to pay about $400US to keep that visa up. We also have to pay my work taxes in Peru and show documentation that I am up to date on that payment every time I leave Peru in order to get out.

The payment of airport taxes in Peru has to do with the inherent schizophrenic lack of trust that the government has developed thanks to years of internal corruption and everyone’s attitude about it. The government doesn’t trust the airlines to collect the taxes and pass them up the line like they do in the states so they make you stand in another line to get a little sticker that two people check on your way through security to make sure that you paid the tax to get the little sticker. Back to my problem, this foreigner’s visa tax is one that costs $20US and is due before the end of March but no one had mentioned it to me including our lawyers who pay the taxes for us.

The immigration personnel including the boss insisted that I could not leave. They said it was impossible that I didn’t know. I responded that it was impossible that no one ever said a thing until then, this was my third time to leave since March. In short, they were your basic knot heads and despite my talking like a Peruvian uncle, I could not change their attitude. They told me that I would have to pay the tax before I could leave and that the bank where I would have to pay it would not open for three more hours, meaning that I would miss the flight. I gathered my things and left. I withdrew myself from the flight and found the American agents to get them to re-schedule me which they kindly did. Then I went back to my hotel who had not given away my room! Then I napped until the bank opened. This is one of those public banks and I called the lawyer first. She averted me to the fact that there would likely be a fine of $40US because of late payment. Then she said, paying the bank is only half way, you have to go to immigration to get the little sticker that goes on the back of the visa… More little stickers!

The Spanish word for this is, “Engorroso,”…I love that word because it just is such an onomatopoeia, like the big tolling bells and the little tinkling ones in the Poe poem. You can put so much feeling into saying, “¡Puchaaaa! ¡Ayyyy, queee Engorrrrossso!” and it feels just as good as swearing and you didn’t have to say anything bad.

In the end, it took all day and then I called the airline to verify that I could get out and they told me that for changing the route, it was going to cost me $1,900US! I asked him if it made sense to him that a $20 tax should result in a change fee that was more than the original round trip ticket… and he responded, “Yes sir, it makes perfect sense to me. I do these kinds of things all day long…” He kind of reminded me of John Candy in Planes Trains and Automobiles, "Yes officer, I really do..." when he gets pulled over in the burned out car so I let it ride. Yet another innocent soul who got in my face but I chose to wait and talk to a real person in the airport… I had some concern but in the end the agent at the counter had much more on the ball than the chap on the phone and I didn't pay the change fee. I don’t know how to explain this but when male telephone agents with the airlines help you…well, they don’t really help you... It is a kind of reverse sexism I guess but the women always seem to know what they are doing, inspire confidence etc. and the menrarely do.

Anyway, my new little sticker worked and I managed to escape the grasping clutches of the little Latino pencil pushers with their petty adherence to bureaucratic nonsense. I managed to get home to the lovely dry heat of New Mexico and the tastes of green chili and the comforts of my home…

More of the Aerolineas Argentinas – The Cattle Car Company

On this trip, I had yet another opportunity to observe this paragon of Argentine efficiency. Belonging to the Argentine state, a thinly veiled version of Italian disorganization, they have previously destroyed, not scratched, dented or marred, two of my indestructible bags. They have made me miss international connections, resulting in my sleeping on the airport benches, stuffing myself with Argentine asado and generally suffering abuse, some self inflicted but unnecessary and all resulting from the company’s ineptitude… The list is actually impressive, but I am synopsizing.

Nothing in the following account actually surprised me but it seemed charmingly anecdotal in a retrospective way that bore relating here. From Salta, I had to fly to Buenos Aires to take my flight to Lima and suspecting that something might run afoul, I took precautions to fly the night before and stay in a hotel in BA. While working in the office the secretary came to me and said, “Your flight will be thirty minutes late or early…” Since early could mean I might miss it, I bustled to the airport.

She had booked me on a flight that came from B A and returned directly…supposedly. The day before there had been a strike and so things were in a typical state of disorder. Now it takes 2 hours to fly from Buenos Aires to Salta so when I got to the airport, supposedly with no more time than an hour to check in, imagine my surprise when the AA agent told me that the flight was delayed 2 hours! This meant that the plane had still not taken off from BA yet and certainly had not when they told Zulema that I had to hustle to the airport. It takes less than 30 minutes to get to the airport from the office. Still, no problem, I would be in BA by eight pm, in time to eat dinner and get to the hotel, I thought.

The flight landed at 5:30 pm, 2½ hours late and the passengers left the plane. We stood there looking out at the tarmac. No one moved… Then, stevedores appeared and began to remove more luggage from the plane. Suddenly another group of passengers emerged inexplicably onto the tarmac. They began to mill about among the luggage, apparently indicating their own. Then mysteriously, the stevedores loaded the luggage back into the plane and the passengers re-embarked.

Recall, that the plane was to be a simple return flight to BA now because here things get a little strange. At no point did an agent appear to tell us what might be going on. Left to speculate, all manner of theories uttered forth from my newly acquainted travel companions. We stood in awe and wonder, mostly wonder honestly.

Once all of this ended, they herded us with smiles and without a single word of explanation. Told to hurry and get stuff put away we settled in among the mystery passengers. Once situated, the purser came on the intercom, “Welcome ladies and germs. The travel time to Jujuy will be 25 minutes…” I had never been to Jujuy and would have liked to go to say I have been there but this added a full hour and a half to my flight. One of the exiting passengers told me that he had started trying to get home to Jujuy from Mendoza that morning at 6am! Gads Zooks! You can drive it in that much time.

Numb All Over...Again!

Once upon a time, when I first discussed moving to Peru a friend told me that she could never do something like that because she hated “Mexican food…” At a later date a family member told me that her sister lived in Costa Rica but it wasn’t all that bad because she spent time mostly with Americans and did not deal much with the “Mexicans.” I wanted to tell her, that is probably because they are Costa Ricans and not Mexicans, but bit my tongue. These two commentaries have set the stage for my perception about the failure of North American schools to impart an understanding of geography and a world vision to the rising generation. Indeed, both of these people are grown adults with college educations and so forth.

Anyway, I imagine that much of North America is unaware that this is winter in South America and that it is not all Mariachis and Salsa bands playing on sunny beaches. It is cold here and I am freezing. It is not the tyrannical, mind numbing cold that turns the landscape white with snow and frost like in the Midwest of the United States. But it is cold. When I first went to Tintaya the cold seemed quite supportable, coming from the -40degrees of Ely, Nevada. However, I have adapted to the change and now, when it is 25 degrees, I feel it. Well, I have thinned down so I don’t have the protective layers I had before and I am not really safe when I go home due to my need to adjust to my wife’s attempts at getting the temperatures in our car or house below the point where all molecular motions ceases but still…

A freak snowfall in the project area has ruined the chuñu were (freeze dried potatoes) that the campesinos had laid out in their fields. They live on this all year round, us it in soups and just eat it boiled. Since chuñu constitutes their absolute mainstay, you can imagine the disaster.

What happens here, that makes the cold unbearable has to do with a strange thing. No one heats anything here. Houses, no matter where you go have no heat. In the Altiplano where people actually succumb to the cold and die of exposure, they just bundle up, run around in rubber sandals and snuggle. And then, the attitudes come into play… If you go from a warm building to the cold, you will die. If you drink cold drinks or eat ice cream in the winter, ni hablar! When we spent time in the hospitals here you never got ice chips. They would put a thermos with warm water by your bed and caution you about intake of anything other than puke warm water. I got to where I would kill for a frosty coke.

Hence, when I came from the chilly regions of the Altiplano this time, riding with a group of Peruvians, I paid attention. They ardently resisted turning on the heater in the truck in order to avoid the impact of getting out of a warm truck into the freezing cold or maybe they are so freaked out by possible dust that this prompts them to close all vents which of course doesn’t work because dust never sleeps. It invades everywhere so you get to be cold and dusty! I mean, they outfit trucks heaters to heat for crying out loud! Peruvians battle breath frost with scrapers and rags rather than turn on the defrost button. It is like a “Who’s toughest,” (“Quien es mas macho,”) competition everywhere you go in Peru. They have a fascination with the cold and their relationship to it like puritans with abstinence or something. On the way, the other driver, when I wasn’t looking he would turn down the heat and when he looked away, I kicked it back on. It was positively maddening. I have gone to Lima to get out of the way of the strikes that are starting tomorrow and threatened to keep me from making my flights home. Here it is that penetrating cold you get next to the ocean and I go around just as bundled up as in the Sierra, all this while it is 128degrees in Baker, California!

Technical Incompetence

I got an e-mail from a person I was unsure about having met but kind of thought I recognized the name. It consisted of an invitation to join a web page thingy. curious about the message, I opened it and began to poke about and tried to find out about the person who sent me the original message.

I don’t know how much you know about these things but you wind up having to sign up to see what it is all about. Anyway, I signed up and since I never read all of the instructions and just try stuff out. I ignored a very important part of the message. Apparently, and I am still unsure how the question is posed, and I can’t even use the excuse that it was in Spanish since it asked what for my mother tongue. At some point in all of this it apparently asked me if I wanted to send a message to all of the addresses in my Gmail address book. I swear to you that I had no idea that this little stupid act could have such vast repercussions. Nor was I aware that I committed the tiny, insignificant act. Nor did I have a clue that I have 806 addresses in my address book.

Yes my friends, I sent an invitation to all of the 806 addresses out there. I have spent much of the past few days explaining to people I have not spoken to in fifteen years why they got an e-mail from me out of the blue with no message other than the invitation. Not many technophobes out there can compete with this one I would wager!
Now, there is an upside. A lot of those addresses have languished and I have not had contact with many people I care about and have been gone ten long years from many associations I once held dear. A lot of those people have written to ask, “What happened?” That has resulted in some more lengthy notes.

One comical response was a friend who told me that she was, “Technically incompetent,” and she deleted my message from her spam by accident. Irony has always tickled me. Happy for her, her technical incompetence saved her from my level of ineptitude. I had to laugh. What else are you going to do?