Clint vs. Peruvian Immigration, Part II

So these two immigration dirtbags have just told me that unless I want to go all the way back to the border and get a passport stamp, I'll need to show up after hours to illegally acquire my special stamp. This, as you can imagine, was slightly disconcerting.

By the way, while you're reading, you should listen to this song by Milton Nascimento. Saw him live recently here in NYC and he has some great stuff. He's Brazilian and Paula e Bebeto is the name of the song. And after that, have a listen to Jorge Ben's Quem cochicha o rabo espicha. Never seen Jorge Ben live, but he has great music. No pictures in this post, just music.

I left the immigration office feeling a little worried. I didn't know what to do, but I knew that I wasn't going to pay these dudes anything. On my way in to the office, I had seen a piece of paper with information for all of the embassies in Lima. After leaving the office, I remembered that information and decided to take advantage of my American citizenship! I had also noticed that there was a U.S. consulate in Cuzco. I wrote down the information for both offices and went to make a phone call. I told the guy at the phone place that I needed to make a local call. We called, no one answered, and then he told me that the consulate was just a few blocks away. I made my way over there, met the security guard out front, explained everything to him, and was happy to hear that the consul was on her way over as we were speaking.

The consul arrived and I quickly realized that I had made a very good decision. She is Peruvian, but lived in the U.S. for a while. Great lady. She rolled her eyes at what the immigration officers told me and immediately called the national immigration office to get authorization to give me my passport stamp. She talked to someone, got the authorization, wrote a letter for me, and took me back to the office where I had just left. I was so relieved that things were going well.

It was great getting back to the office and seeing the looks on the faces of the guys who wanted to cheat me out of my money but were now realizing that they wouldn't get a dime! The consul went to talk to someone, the person in charge of the office, but we found out that she was out sick. The dude who kept telling me he wanted to help me was the guy in charge. His assistant was next in line. They acted like they were cooperating but were actually giving us a lot of hassle. At first, the guy in charge was out of the office deporting some South African for dealing drugs. Meanwhile, the other guy said he couldn't do anything because the other guy had the stamp.

The guy in charge came back and seemed happy to help. In reality, he just wanted me to pay him a little money, and now was being a real annoyance while acting as if he was helping. He said he would give me the stamp, but he needed a verification from the national immigration office. Fair enough, that made sense. He said that a phone call would not be ok because it could anybody on the phone. Only fax. Well, idiot, it could also be anyone on the other end of the fax line, but whatever. We called and the office said they would fax. Something weird happened, which seems to be the axiom of faxing, and instead they emailed the office.

All of this took a while because we were waiting for the fax, and then the email, and then there were also other people coming in and out with their own issues. The consul told me that if the boss had not been sick, we would have been in and out. So this guy finally got the email, sat down to read it, and said that it was enough for him to give me the stamp. However, I would have to pay the entry fee at the bank. This was legit; I wouldn't be paying them, it was at the national bank and everyone who enters has to pay. It may have been a good thing that the bus left the border without me getting out because I had no money and wouldn't have been able to pay there.

All of this took us up to about 11:30 am. I had been working on this stuff for over 2 hours. The dirtbag officer told us to go to the bank and then bring back the receipt for the payment of the fee, and then he would give me the stamp. He then said that he was going somewhere at noon. The consul asked if he would be there in the afternoon. I can still remember the tone he used to say "A veces atendemos, a veces no." Dirty! Basically he was saying "Maybe we will, maybe we won't." So the consul told him not to go anywhere and we ran out of the office to head up the street to the national bank, hoping to pay the fee and get back to the office before he left.