The Redhead Takes On Bolivian Protocol
It was all worked out perfectly. That morning, we would check out at 9am and take our cold weather gear, boots, and souvenirs to the post office. By 10am we would have posted our packages home and have a few minutes to buy some snacks for our bus trip to Rurrenabaque, in the Amazon. Then, catching a cab to an unknown location of the bus station, we would arrive at precisely 10:30, exactly the right time to check in at the station office, load our bags, and be on our way to shorts and singlets weather, and an exotic jungle experience. Perfect.
It was nearly not to be.
At 9am, we dragged ourselves and our heavy mochilas out of a cab, one arm occupied by a bulky package, and the other, fumbling with change for the driver. The post office looked like an airport or train station; big, empty, and very official looking. We found the information desk in the corner and were directed downstairs to the international parcel area. There, the man behind the counter gave us a form to fill out in triplicate, and weighed our parcels. He quoted Julie the price for an airfreight after she said the word "boat" several times, and, after giving her the same quote the same number of times, he finally clued in that we wanted to send by boat. He then directed Julie to another room where everything was to be packaged. Julie went ahead while I told the man that I wanted the same freight for my parcel.
When I arrived at the packaging room, I was greeted by a woman behind the desk yelling impatiently, "¡Fotocopia! ¡Fotocopia!" and Julie shrugging her shoulders at me with a perplexed and ready to kill look on her face. I wasn't much help at all because I too could understand "fotocopia" but not what to fotocopia. With a measure of confidence that the woman couldn't understand English, let alone a flurry of English curse words, Julie let fly, "I fucking understand what fotocopia means, I just don't know what you want me to fucking photocopy because all you say is fotocopia, fotocopia!!"
"¡Fotocopia, fotocopia!"
Now, our Spanish wasn't so bad that we didn't understand "pasaporte", but she never said it. Obviously this woman was muy estupida, so Julie turned to her colleague behind the typewriter and demanded, "¿¿QUE fotocopia??" Finally, we learned that we needed two copies of our passports. I asked the loca one in broken Spanish where we could obtain these and, thanks to our recent Spanish classes, captured something about "across the street".
We lugged our backpacks back up to the main floor, and Julie stood guard over them while I got these fotocopias. With them in hand, we headed back down to the packaging room and steeled ourselves. The woman smirked when we passed the fotocopias to her, and we watched her place our packages in a blue tarp and sew it it all together with a coarse needle and thread. Interestingly, the photocopies of our passports which were so painful to procure ended up being neatly folded and sewn in with everything else! Julie turned to me in disbelief and muttered, "Why would my mum want two copies of my passport?" I shrugged; my stomach cramps didn't put me in a great mood and I didn't want to spend any energy trying or arguing at that point.
Finally! We thought. It's nearly over. But no...
The loca one behind the desk gave us more paperwork to fill out. We did so, but were reprimanded for filling out the sender section with our own details! Apparently, the way it's done is the sender and receiver sections are to be exactly the same. Julie was ready to stab her in the eyeball; it was not as if we didn't understand what she was saying, only that it made no sense at all. She taped the corrected forms to their respective sacks then asked us to write the same exact details yet again, this time in red Nikko on the sack. Julie, trying to find any little thing to get her own back, refused to use the post office supplied red Nikko and pulled out her own black one. Then, for their pleasurable company, they asked us for $b15 each, which we grudgingly handed over, keen to leave the room once an for all. I wonder what they gossiped to each other after Julie stalked out with a dismissive wave of her hand and a "¡Gracias, chao!" on the aggressive side of polite.
We thought we finally finished the painful process and took the sacks to the first counter. It was well past 10am by that point and we started to think that we could be late for our bus. The man wasn't there and a few loud ¿Hola?s finally brought him ambling over with his coffee and donut. He seemed pleasant enough and at least spoke English, but he didn't seem to understand that we were in a hurry. The final blow, however, was when he looked through the paperwork after reweighing our sacks... we were on tenterhooks, expecting our fortune to continue its current course. Something had to be wrong with the forms. Without taking his eyes off the page, he simply said, "¿Fotocopia?"
Deciding we were not going to make another trip to the fotocopia across the street, we instead surrendered our own copies that we carry around in case we lose our actual passports. The man was impressed with Julie's colour copy, saying, "¡Colores! Muy bien, bonita." Julie was less than impressed and pleaded, "¡Rapido, por favor!" He approved of all the paperwork and then reiterated the quote of $b308 each.
The day before, we had withdrawn a lot of cash to pay for our accommodation, bar tab, the Pampas trip and Spanish classes, and were given $b200 notes from the ATM. It was always a challenge to break any note larger than a 50, so we thought we'd take the opportunity to break some large notes at a big government building. Surely they would have the change that every hostel, bar, restaurant and cab driver lacked in the entire country!
Guess what.
He had the gall to nod approvingly at our notes and then suddenly pull out his change drawer, waving it in the air at us to show that there wasn't even a centavo in there. "¡No cambio!" he said in his irritatingly happy manner. We gave up most of our hard fought for small change to the ridiculousness of the post office, and gladly left the place an hour and half after we entered, even though we were the only customers the whole time!
With mere minutes to get to our bus, Julie and I quickly bought a handful of snacks before we hailed a cab. Fortunately, the travel agent had enough pity on us poor gringas who spoke very little Spanish to write out a note to give to the cab driver. He took us to a barrio outside the city center just in the nick of time. Or so we thought.
We checked in at the Trans Totai office, a task I thought was worth two minutes to check our tickets against their records and give the thumbs up. No, nothing was simple. Not only did our tickets to Rurrenabaque need to be re-issued for some unknown reason, but so did our return tickets. Truth be told, the re-issue of our tickets took less than some four minutes, but our return tickets would take the next hour and a half. The reason for this was that the main office had the "La Paz" stamp. No, no, it couldn't be handwritten or re-issued in Rurrenabaque! So we hung about the entrance, Julie giving her famous hard glares (met with apologetic "Uno momento, senorita, ¡por favor!"), while my efforts extended to a conscious exertion of my presence as I sat on the step watching the bus be loaded. Tyres, several doors (or the walls of a shelter), speakers and massive mattresses and carpet, all went on the roof.
Finally, an official looking man, presumably from the main office, arrived with a set of keys. He unlocked the desk drawer, took out the "La Paz" stamp, stamped our return tickets and signed them. What we had waited for is a mystery, because when we were leaving Rurrenabaque with those tickets, they were re-reissued anyway!
It was nearly not to be.
Julie Versus The Post Office
At 9am, we dragged ourselves and our heavy mochilas out of a cab, one arm occupied by a bulky package, and the other, fumbling with change for the driver. The post office looked like an airport or train station; big, empty, and very official looking. We found the information desk in the corner and were directed downstairs to the international parcel area. There, the man behind the counter gave us a form to fill out in triplicate, and weighed our parcels. He quoted Julie the price for an airfreight after she said the word "boat" several times, and, after giving her the same quote the same number of times, he finally clued in that we wanted to send by boat. He then directed Julie to another room where everything was to be packaged. Julie went ahead while I told the man that I wanted the same freight for my parcel.
When I arrived at the packaging room, I was greeted by a woman behind the desk yelling impatiently, "¡Fotocopia! ¡Fotocopia!" and Julie shrugging her shoulders at me with a perplexed and ready to kill look on her face. I wasn't much help at all because I too could understand "fotocopia" but not what to fotocopia. With a measure of confidence that the woman couldn't understand English, let alone a flurry of English curse words, Julie let fly, "I fucking understand what fotocopia means, I just don't know what you want me to fucking photocopy because all you say is fotocopia, fotocopia!!"
"¡Fotocopia, fotocopia!"
Now, our Spanish wasn't so bad that we didn't understand "pasaporte", but she never said it. Obviously this woman was muy estupida, so Julie turned to her colleague behind the typewriter and demanded, "¿¿QUE fotocopia??" Finally, we learned that we needed two copies of our passports. I asked the loca one in broken Spanish where we could obtain these and, thanks to our recent Spanish classes, captured something about "across the street".
We lugged our backpacks back up to the main floor, and Julie stood guard over them while I got these fotocopias. With them in hand, we headed back down to the packaging room and steeled ourselves. The woman smirked when we passed the fotocopias to her, and we watched her place our packages in a blue tarp and sew it it all together with a coarse needle and thread. Interestingly, the photocopies of our passports which were so painful to procure ended up being neatly folded and sewn in with everything else! Julie turned to me in disbelief and muttered, "Why would my mum want two copies of my passport?" I shrugged; my stomach cramps didn't put me in a great mood and I didn't want to spend any energy trying or arguing at that point.
Finally! We thought. It's nearly over. But no...
The loca one behind the desk gave us more paperwork to fill out. We did so, but were reprimanded for filling out the sender section with our own details! Apparently, the way it's done is the sender and receiver sections are to be exactly the same. Julie was ready to stab her in the eyeball; it was not as if we didn't understand what she was saying, only that it made no sense at all. She taped the corrected forms to their respective sacks then asked us to write the same exact details yet again, this time in red Nikko on the sack. Julie, trying to find any little thing to get her own back, refused to use the post office supplied red Nikko and pulled out her own black one. Then, for their pleasurable company, they asked us for $b15 each, which we grudgingly handed over, keen to leave the room once an for all. I wonder what they gossiped to each other after Julie stalked out with a dismissive wave of her hand and a "¡Gracias, chao!" on the aggressive side of polite.
We thought we finally finished the painful process and took the sacks to the first counter. It was well past 10am by that point and we started to think that we could be late for our bus. The man wasn't there and a few loud ¿Hola?s finally brought him ambling over with his coffee and donut. He seemed pleasant enough and at least spoke English, but he didn't seem to understand that we were in a hurry. The final blow, however, was when he looked through the paperwork after reweighing our sacks... we were on tenterhooks, expecting our fortune to continue its current course. Something had to be wrong with the forms. Without taking his eyes off the page, he simply said, "¿Fotocopia?"
Deciding we were not going to make another trip to the fotocopia across the street, we instead surrendered our own copies that we carry around in case we lose our actual passports. The man was impressed with Julie's colour copy, saying, "¡Colores! Muy bien, bonita." Julie was less than impressed and pleaded, "¡Rapido, por favor!" He approved of all the paperwork and then reiterated the quote of $b308 each.
The day before, we had withdrawn a lot of cash to pay for our accommodation, bar tab, the Pampas trip and Spanish classes, and were given $b200 notes from the ATM. It was always a challenge to break any note larger than a 50, so we thought we'd take the opportunity to break some large notes at a big government building. Surely they would have the change that every hostel, bar, restaurant and cab driver lacked in the entire country!
Guess what.
He had the gall to nod approvingly at our notes and then suddenly pull out his change drawer, waving it in the air at us to show that there wasn't even a centavo in there. "¡No cambio!" he said in his irritatingly happy manner. We gave up most of our hard fought for small change to the ridiculousness of the post office, and gladly left the place an hour and half after we entered, even though we were the only customers the whole time!
Julie Versus The Bus Company
With mere minutes to get to our bus, Julie and I quickly bought a handful of snacks before we hailed a cab. Fortunately, the travel agent had enough pity on us poor gringas who spoke very little Spanish to write out a note to give to the cab driver. He took us to a barrio outside the city center just in the nick of time. Or so we thought.
We checked in at the Trans Totai office, a task I thought was worth two minutes to check our tickets against their records and give the thumbs up. No, nothing was simple. Not only did our tickets to Rurrenabaque need to be re-issued for some unknown reason, but so did our return tickets. Truth be told, the re-issue of our tickets took less than some four minutes, but our return tickets would take the next hour and a half. The reason for this was that the main office had the "La Paz" stamp. No, no, it couldn't be handwritten or re-issued in Rurrenabaque! So we hung about the entrance, Julie giving her famous hard glares (met with apologetic "Uno momento, senorita, ¡por favor!"), while my efforts extended to a conscious exertion of my presence as I sat on the step watching the bus be loaded. Tyres, several doors (or the walls of a shelter), speakers and massive mattresses and carpet, all went on the roof.
Finally, an official looking man, presumably from the main office, arrived with a set of keys. He unlocked the desk drawer, took out the "La Paz" stamp, stamped our return tickets and signed them. What we had waited for is a mystery, because when we were leaving Rurrenabaque with those tickets, they were re-reissued anyway!
Will there be a new section called
ReplyDelete"Julie versus...." ?
It would make a nice little series....heh heh.
Say 'hi' to Julie for me!
lotsalurve lara.
What an absolute nightmare! I would of been like Julie- minus the swearing of course. Thanks for the updates!
ReplyDelete