Sorry wrong day- come back tomorrow!

Arguing with bureaucracy is pointless no matter where you go. We had a devastating ten minutes in the Brazilian consulate yesterday. Although we have been enjoying ourselves immensely, at the back of our minds we have been sweating the fact that the visa required to join our already paid for cruise was not in hand when we arrived in Chile. We made that nasty drive in Santiago's web of crowded, busy, one way and pedestrian clogged streets in order to apply for our visa, then had to drive back to our secluded wine country retreat and wait to return on Wednesday to pick up the passports we had relinquished to the Brazilian authorities and the accompanying visa. So, after a sleepless night on Tuesday, we showered and dressed at 5:20 AM and left our hotel for the 2 1/2 our trip to Santiago. We were told to arrive precisely between 11:00 and 12:00 to pick up the documents, and not having any idea of commute traffic, we arrived at 8:30 to make sure we didn't miss it. Familiarity with Santiago helped, and we drove right to the very spot we had parked previously with little trouble. We spent an hour having coffee and a pastry, the breakfast offering at a little sidewalk cafe. This $1600 breakfast ($3.20 US) turned out to be coffee with a piece of lemon cheesecake. Not exactly health food, but a sugar and caffeine buzz to rev us up for dealing with the Brazilians.

As soon as the consulate opened on the 15th floor of a downtown office building we were standing in the hall outside the locked door of the documents office. One by one those of us in line in front of this closed door would ring the buzzer and be admitted singly to have our bags and pockets checked, handed a paper number from the dispenser at the reception desk, then be admitted to sit in one of the twelve chairs in the waiting room. As your number was called you went to the front of the room where you took a chair in front of a glass window to talk to the official on the other side of the glass, handing across the necessary paperwork through a small slot in the counter. Six officials on the other side of the glass when all desks were busy spent considerable time with each applicant, reviewing the applications and supporting documentation, and in the case of our first visit, sending us out on various critical errands such as depositing our application fee in their specific bank and returning with a stamped deposit slip. This time we waited anxiously for number 8 to be called. I had additional paperwork with me to further clarify some questions they had about the validity of our flight reservations out of Brazil at the end of our trip. We were ready.

The officials on the other side of the glass appear to sit in some sort of status positions. On our previous visits we noticed that the women officials always changed seats when the men arrived, relinquishing the center seats and sitting on the outside chairs. The men appeared to be the bosses, as questions of paperwork validity were always discussed with them before a decision was made. With our luck, the biggest, oldest and most bored bureaucrat, sitting in the center seat called number 8.

We handed him the receipt for our passport and he left his chair to go in the back. After several minutes he came back empty handed and returned our receipt to us. He pointed to the date at the bottom of the receipt and told us we were a day early- we were to return on the 17th. Mike told him that the women who had processed our application had counted out to Wednesday on her fingers, so here we were, on Wednesday. We aren't entirely sure he fully understand the discussion, but he arose from his chair and went in the back, returning with an English speaker we had not seen previously. By this point I was near tears which usually are wasted on bureaucrats, particularly women, but I could not imagine another sleepless night and five hours of additional driving. I explained that we had a misunderstanding with the woman we worked with and that it would be very difficult to leave and return the next day due to the driving distance. She didn't look convinced, but she disappeared into the back. Big tough guy told us to sit back down and wait by pointing to the waiting room. We sat there in utter frustration. Fifteen or twenty minutes later she returned to the window with our passports in hand. Apparently they were ready in the back and the big guy had missed them. Relief that felt just as good as hitting the ATM jackpot!

We were too keyed up to do anything but jump back in the car and head back to our wine country retreat. Even after the ride into town with dark and commuter traffic Mike took the wheel and got us out of the big city and onto the country roads. It is probably a testament to his worry about my driving that he always offers to drive. Highway driving in Chile is not like at home or in the relatively-similar-to-home roads of Spain. First of all, bicyclists are allowed to ride alongside the two lanes of traffic moving in each direction. Furthermore, the long distance buses pick up and let off riders at bus stops on the side of the road, so pedestrians are standing all over the side of the road. If you are trying to get somewhere on the East side of the road and your bus lets you off on the other side of the highway, you run across two lanes of traffic to the center divider, then wait for a clear spot and run across the other two lanes. Although not many of them try it twice, there are also dogs making the trek across the lanes of the road on which cars and trucks are doing 120 km per hour. If all of that is not bad enough, the roads are clogged with trucks that look like they were packed by the set designers of the Beverly Hillbillies. No wonder Mike prefers to drive! He has managed to get us back and forth on those roads with no near misses.... an unbelievable driver.

I will write later about the food and wine, so tune in again.

Adios (Chileans don't pronounce the s at the end of words that have an s, so take that into account when you read my Spanish)
Love,
Deanne