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Published: August 9th 2007
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Where can we start this one? It had to be done, another extension of our visas, and as we'd head into the countryside, where no immigration offices would be available, we were prepared to do it earlier in La Paz. "Visa extensions without hassle", as the guide book said. But we were expecting the worst, just to make sure we weren't too optimistic. Also, we were preparing our spanish to explain why we were doing all of this almost 10 days earlier than required.....
Day one.... surprisingly, all of this was accomplised in a single day, so no day 2 !!
Anyways, Monday morning, 8.40am, ok we're 10 minutes late at the door, but still first ones in. Security guard at the door, in poorly pronounced spanish manages to explain in his third attempt that we need to come back a bit later, no-one's working yet.... never mind, head out for a nice fresh juice (which they do well here, and cheap too). Head back later within half an hour.
Noticing on the way back into the office, that there's a second migration office 50 meters down the (closed for traffic) road.... a bit confused now if we're at the right door, but form a chaotic queue inside anyway. Still no-one at work yet.
After about 20 minutes of waiting (must've been 9.30am now) a whole horde of men come out of a room in the split level building, and in the general confusion a new line is formed in front of a small desk. Line progresses surprisingly quickly, I hand in my passport, simply filed on a stack, and were told to come back at 5.30pm to pick it up. So far so good. Bin's passport is treated with a bit of confusion, being pulled towards another desk, and a small form is filled out and attached to the passport. Then, being pointed towards the other migration office ! A-HA, so there is a simple reason for the second office!!
So, to office no. 2 we go. Big crowd inside, many windows, many long queues, surprisingly, most people are locals. Turns out ID cards and passports are issued here as well. We get pointed from 1 window to a second and then a third, information window, where another piece of paper is made up. Then back to window no 1 for having another file made up, stickers added to passport, payments... surprisingly, one person is doing a lot more work here than all people in Sucre together. Back to window 9, even bigger surprise, the man speaks English, and even better, is WILLING to continue in English. All's well so far, very well, and we're well ahead of target !
"OK, no problem, come back on Wednesday after 5.30 pm to pick up the passport"........ That would be 2 days later, and we'd more or less planned to meet Jen and hurdle down the death road on mountain bikes that day..... Tuesday was May first, labour day (so of course no-one works).
"Any chance you can finish the visa extension today"?
"No, only if you need to leave La Paz sooner"
AHA, brain starts kicking in, heard the same thing in the morning with an Israeli guy, who was asked to show a ticket.
No, we'd have to show a ticket for departure. If we did so, they could do it all within the one day. Paying extra for faster processig wasn't an option.
You may already know where this is going......
In the next 2 hours we sped around town to buy a ticket. Originally we'd told the guy we were going to Rurrenebaque, north, so we headed by taxi (8 Bolivianos = $US1) to the bus terminal, where we were greated by many people yelling for attention to sell tickets for any destination, but not Rurrenebaque.
Brain kicks in again, who cares about the destination, let's just buy any ticket.
So here's the other funny bit, we tried to buy a ticket for Wednesday morning, but were refused as you canĀ“t buy it so far in advance !! Now you'd think any company would only to happily sell you a ticket for the exchange of hard cash. No, not here, the first turned us away, the second would only sell us the "ticket" scribbled on the back of a luggage tag...... Not sure if this would be expected or accepted by immigration. Anyway, for 23 Bols (that's just under 3$US) we got a ticket to Oruru, and that's heading south, where we'd just come from.
So, back at immigration, with our English speaking friend (very well dressed by the way), and of course a frown from his part at the ticket (didn't ask for the destination, or why only a ticket for Belinda was shown). Here's another pleasant surprise, he HIMSELF said that "they didn't want to give you a real ticket in advance, did they"?? All good so far, and he talks to the boss who approves of doing the work that day !!
High fives outside the office, out of sight of the office, of course !
A small detail at the end of this chapter is that when we got back after 5.30pm, the 2 queues in the office were very very long, and luckily we could get in the gringo queue, which actually moved, a bit anyway. We actually queued twice, as our first appearance at the window the man told us to wait ten more minutes, so to the back of the queue we went. Had company from a swiss couple, who scared us that they'd been waiting since the Thursday of the previous week. But the Gods of rubber stamps were with us, and we did succeed by 6.30 ! Just in time for the movie to start and a beer beforehand!
So, with a few cunning plans, and about US$4 of extra cash, we managed to expedite the immigration machinery in a way unheard of by (Bolivian) mankind !
Final score: Bolivian immigration 1 - BandR 1
A draw, a good result, we can part as good friends, well, sort of anyway.............
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