Border Crossings

**Apologies in advance for the lack of pictures in this post.  When we cross borders, we're usually too busy trying not to have nervous breakdowns to play tourist.**

Border crossings.  In a nutshell, here’s how it always goes: For several days prior to the crossing, we make ourselves sick with worry.  In our minds, the country in which we are currently is a safe-haven of beauty and charm, and the country to be entered is an ugly, gang-ridden homicide capital with nothing but muggings and strife to its name.  We’re sure of this, each time, despite the fact that our fears prove unjustified at each crossing.

Logistically, we prepare ahead of time.  Do we have passports handy?  Car title and registration, and photocopies of each?  Dog certificates, and copies of those?  Driver’s licenses, and copies of those?  Copies of all other miscellaneous scrap paper in the van, just in case?  Check, check, check.  Deep breath, and it’s time to go.  

But first, actually, let me say a word about the photocopies.   At each border, there is a photocopy shop charging criminal prices.  But no matter how prepared you are, you have to use these guys, because the copies you’re required to have must have the latest stamps.  That is, the stamps you only receive at the border.  So, for example, if you have a copy of your passport with the Guatemala entrance stamp, that won’t get you through the El Salvador border.  You need a copy with the exit stamp, and the only place to do it is this rip-off shop at the Guatamala departure station.  Similarly, because El Salvador wants a copy of your cancelled Guatemala car permit, you have to copy it after it’s been stamped cancelled – in other words, again, at the border.  So these smug copy guys sit there raking in the cash, and there is nothing to be done about it.

Back to the most recent crossing, into El Salvador.  We pull up to Guatemala’s border compound in the rattlevan, blasting my new “city and border crossing” mix of loud, confidence-boosting music.  Ignoring the “helper” guys gesturing at us, we follow the vague internet advice of a fellow van-traveler and park in the lot to the right of the immigration building.  Parked.  Club on.  Dog left for car-guarding.  And then, of course, the first official wants to see the physical van after all.  So we pull it back around.  (Thanks for nothing, anonymous fellow traveler on the internet.)  And on to the immigration window of the building  for passport business.  Stamp, stamp.  Make photocopies of stamped passports, and on to the next step: cancelling the car permit.

As it turns out, the necessary "cancellation" stamp – the physical stamp itself – is missing.  That's the entire explanation – missing.  The woman in the car office shrugs with a smile and gestures to the line of people sitting in chairs around the office.  “All these people are waiting for the stamp, too,” she says.  “We don’t know when it will be back.  Maybe half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes.”  “Where did it go?” I ask.  “That’s the problem,” she explains, smiling a little sheepishly.  “We just don’t know where the stamp is right now.”

Chuck goes in search of orange juice while I wait in the air conditioning with the others.  Eventually, after twenty or thirty minutes, the stamp appears, the stamp is used to cancel our car permit, we make the necessary and expensive photocopy of the stamp, and we're on our way.

We breeze through no-man’s land to El Salvador’s border compound, where, again, the immigration window is no problem.  I simply explain to the lady there that we are tourists headed for the beach while Chuck buys spicy peanuts from a nearby vendor.  Five minutes later, immigration is done.  But now, the parts we always dread, exiting and entering: cars and dogs.  

I walk down to the car department, two doors down from immigration, and approach the window.  A special window marked for tourists. Or, as I now understand it, a special window to let the officials know who to ignore.  In large font, printed 8x11 pages proclaim that car permits are free and implore tourists not to pay money to any government official.  More formal posters, ratty with age, denounce corruption and declare the government’s intent to combat it.  These things, contrary to design, do not instill in the tourist a sense of confidence.

Sexy.

So I approach the window.  Sitting at a computer well away from the window is a guy who looks like a slightly fatter, surlier version of Kenny Powers.  

He sees me and turns back to his solitaire game (or so I imagine).  Minutes pass.  No one else is in the building.  There I stand, multiple copies of each necessary document neatly in hand, and nothing happens.   I’m determined to be patient.  He loses a solitaire game and curses at the screen.  A fly hovers around.

After a while, a Salvadoreño approaches the non-tourist window.  Kenny heaves himself out of his chair and slouches over, his untucked, beige, government-monogrammed polo shirt darkening under the arms.  The fly buzzes.  The citizen describes the contents of his truck and gets his stamp.  I wait, vowing patience.

More minutes pass.   Finally , Kenny comes over and asks my business.  I explain.  I also tell him we have a dog and ask where to get her passport stamped.  He tells me that happens next door in quarantine and gives me a form to fill out for the car permit.  Then it’s back to solitaire for Kenny.

Chuck and I fill out the form, combining our Spanish and car knowledge to get it done.  Then Chuck goes back outside, and I wait for Kenny.  But Kenny is in no rush.  I wait.  And I wait.  I watch the clock.  20 minutes pass, then 30.  Finally, another official comes into the office.  Saved! I think.  This guy’ll help me!  But no.  He looks at me and starts desultorily tapping at his keyboard.  He helps another Salvadoreño truck driver with a permit.  He looks at me again.  I fight impatience. 

Finally, Kenny heaves himself out of his chair and comes over.  I show him the form.  He grunts and tells me I have to go to the dog quarantine first.

Of course.  The dog quarantine FIRST.  That’s why he handed me the car permit and told me to fill it out before and said nothing of the order in which to get things done.  But, patient and good-natured, we go to do the dog permit.  (The easiest border entry yet for Lena, actually – stamp, stamp, done.)  And then it’s back to Kenny.  His comrade is helping another customer so I call to Kenny, “We went to the quarantine! I’m back!”  He looks up and then back at his solitaire game.  Minutes begin to tick by again.  I fiddle with the form, making little unnecessary adjustments to wording and clarifying my poor handwriting.

An hour and a half have passed.  It’s hot, the fly still buzzes.  I’m starting to be thirsty.  And then, finally, a third official comes into the office and even appears to notice me.  She comes over.  She asks my business and I tell her.  She nods and takes the form over to her desk, where she copies my filled-out form onto the same exact form, in her handwriting.  This takes 10 minutes.  Then, after a quick trip out to the van for an inspection, she hands the form – in her handwriting now – to the second employee.  (Kenny seems to want nothing to do with me anymore.)  That second employee copies the form into a computer and prints a computerized version of it.  (Same form.  Same information.  Third version.)

Finally, after receiving a few stamps here and there and making a quick trip to the photocopy shop (forever and always), we're on our way, legally present in a single country, with all the stamps and forms to prove it.  At least for now.  

Next up, maybe: An Ode to Volcanoes.