Santiago Blues

Aug 16, 2008

I left Ecuador the same way I came in, on Taca airlines, but this time I flew south to Santiago and I was instantly thrust into a land I had never seen.
The disorientation began at customs when they informed me that I had to go back to pay the reciprocity fee, a fee Chile charges americans because the US charges Chileans a visa fee. I had my 30$ US ready to pay this fee as I had been instructed in Ecuador. When I got to the window, however, the official told me it was 130$. So I went back to customs and had to get a police official to escort me to an ATM machine so I could withdraw more money. Now of course I had no idea of the exchange rate which it turned out was about 480,000 pesas to one dollar. Now try to work out how much you need to pay the 130$ fee when you are jet lagged at what is now 3am in the morning. And then try to work out if you need to put in the figure with the zero¨s after the decimal point, or without and it pretty much just cranked my brain to a full stop. So I withdrew about 30$ the first time and the second time I actualy had the police official typing in the amount because I couldn{t work it out.
So then we traipsed back to the fee lady who told me I would have to go upstairs to change the chilean pesos into american dollars. I looked at her despairingly and asked, ¨I am in Chile and I have to change the chilean pesos back into american dollars to pay you?¨ Yes, was the answer.
I had now been in the aiport customs-reciprocity fee area for an hour and there was not another passenger in sight. With each transaction I was actually regressing slowly back toward the plane and I wondered if there was ever a point when they just made you get back on the plane and return the way you had come.
As I turned to take the pesos to the changing person the lady cleared her throut and said I could pay 30$ US and the rest in pesos as an exception. I nodded numbly and she took my cash in two different currencies and I was ushered back to customs. WHen I finally got to the empty baggage claim area they were just carting off my backpack and I was able to rescue it before it disapeared forever. The Taxi deposited me at the Happy House Hotel and I finaly hit the sheets at 4:15am.