Andes mountains, Ecuador.
Arrived in Guayaquil at 10:40 and took a cab to the Registry office.
First visit: What a zoo! How to get through all those people and how long will it take?? ... thankfully we saw a sign that said "Extranjeros" (foreigners) pointing downstairs - what a relief! We went down and there was hardly any line-up!! We presented our passports and visitor visas to the registry guy. Is this okay, can we get it stamped? No, we need a letter written ... but we live in Cuenca we explain. He writes the letter for us on his computer. Relief!! Are we finished now? No.
Road block:
You need to get photocopies of visa and certain pages of your passport, plus buy a #5 envelope for each person. Where can we get this done? Go to the corner outside and down the block. Off we go. We found the photocopy place and got our copies but they did not sell envelopes. Go down another block and they sell envelopes. We found the place, bought envelopes and back to the Registry office.
Second visit: Here are the copies, envelope. Everything okay? No. There is a $10 fee per person and they gave us each a bill to pay at a specific bank which I can't remember the name of. You must go to this bank and make a deposit. And we also need to buy legal file folders for each of us. Off to the bank. Greg got in the line-up with all of our bills. The security guard came up to Greg and said you need a deposit slip and gave him one ... thanks! Greg fills it out, gets up to the teller and it is wrong. Bank tellers do not help you here, if you get it wrong you go to the back of the line and start over. We needed to do a deposit slip for each person, fill it out properly and put the passport # on each deposit slip. The security guard helped us and all three of us went in the line-up. Stamp, stamp, stamp x 3. We thanked the guard and off we went to buy the folders to the same place we bought the envelopes. Back to the registry office.
Third visit: The registry guy assembles all of our documents in the file folders we provide, clipping them to the envelopes and taking our passports. Come back in one hour.
Pit stop:
McDonalds. Big Mac never tasted so good (Greg), a taste of home. And air conditioning. Heat unbearable.
Fourth visit: We have to sign the registry book and collect our passports which have been stamped as well. Now, we are told we have to go to the Cuenca office and get our Censo cards. It's not over yet. Back to Cuenca Immigration office.
Pit stop:
Ecuador Bethel for one night. (Post about this later).
Thursday morning - back to Cuenca after four hours through the mountains. So, now to get the 2nd part of this process done, the Censo card. Friday morning, off we go to the Immigration office in Cuenca... again.
First visit: Thankfully, it is only about a 10 minute walk to the office. We go in and of course there is a line up. We just stand there, learning our lesson from last time and do not sit and wait. We tell one of the 3 employees there that we want a censo card.
Road block:
We are told we need a photo, photocopies and of course, the very important legal envelope to hold it all. Off we go to get photos. Of course we only need one photo but the least you can get is 8. That will be $3.50 per person. On to get photocopies. We decide to photocopy everything we have just to be on the safe side. And we bought the envelopes.
Second visit: We get back to the Immigration office with all documents in hand. There is a big line up. It is 10 o'clock. We are given a number, #17. We wait. They close at 1 p.m. for two hours for lunch. We wait some more. At 10 minutes to 1 our number comes up and they process our censo cards, that will be $4 each please (they do this amazingly quickly because they want to go for lunch). By the way, only 1 of the 3 employees there is able to do the actual processing of cards. The other two just answer questions, stand guard with a gun and staple forms. We met a guy in the line up who spoke English because he lived in New York for 10 years. He helped us with all the confusion going on and Greg placed a Family book with him because he was getting a censo card for his future wife who was from Venezuela.
We finally got out of there about 1:10 with the coveted Censo Card. Now we can stay the extra 30 days!!! Was it worth it?? Vale la pena? Well it took 3 full days plus a pound of flesh/stress off each of us so the answer would be NO. We would have come for 90 days if we had known. But they tell you nothing at the Ecuadorian embassy in Canada. Live and learn. Well at least it is behind us. And we were told that if you don't have the card when you leave you pay a $200 fine each.
Thursday morning - back to Cuenca after four hours through the mountains. So, now to get the 2nd part of this process done, the Censo card. Friday morning, off we go to the Immigration office in Cuenca... again.
First visit: Thankfully, it is only about a 10 minute walk to the office. We go in and of course there is a line up. We just stand there, learning our lesson from last time and do not sit and wait. We tell one of the 3 employees there that we want a censo card.
Road block:
We are told we need a photo, photocopies and of course, the very important legal envelope to hold it all. Off we go to get photos. Of course we only need one photo but the least you can get is 8. That will be $3.50 per person. On to get photocopies. We decide to photocopy everything we have just to be on the safe side. And we bought the envelopes.
Second visit: We get back to the Immigration office with all documents in hand. There is a big line up. It is 10 o'clock. We are given a number, #17. We wait. They close at 1 p.m. for two hours for lunch. We wait some more. At 10 minutes to 1 our number comes up and they process our censo cards, that will be $4 each please (they do this amazingly quickly because they want to go for lunch). By the way, only 1 of the 3 employees there is able to do the actual processing of cards. The other two just answer questions, stand guard with a gun and staple forms. We met a guy in the line up who spoke English because he lived in New York for 10 years. He helped us with all the confusion going on and Greg placed a Family book with him because he was getting a censo card for his future wife who was from Venezuela.
We finally got out of there about 1:10 with the coveted Censo Card. Now we can stay the extra 30 days!!! Was it worth it?? Vale la pena? Well it took 3 full days plus a pound of flesh/stress off each of us so the answer would be NO. We would have come for 90 days if we had known. But they tell you nothing at the Ecuadorian embassy in Canada. Live and learn. Well at least it is behind us. And we were told that if you don't have the card when you leave you pay a $200 fine each.
The prize - Censo Card.
2 comments:
Wow, you had quite the time! Keep those Censo cards forever, emboss them in gold!
Looking forward to hearing about Bethel.
I loved reading this. Laughed out loud, hope that is ok, while I sit in my comfy computer chair. Is anything dealing w/politics easy? No. We only got a taste of that, when we had papers given to us on the plane to fill out before landing and go to airport immigration(no English speaking workers) w/passports of course, sign a new card to keep w/us always, and need to have when we leave the country, or else you have to go to immigration and pay to get one before you leave, as a couple of Canadians we met at the airport found out. Your experience was far more lengthy. ttyl.
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