Terranova Expedition: Equador/Colombia Border

We left Cali, and took a leisurely couple days to make our way through the bottom part of Colombia, before reaching the border with Ecuador. This part of South America (heck the entire continent so far), is beyond beautiful. Twisty windy roads through the greenest mountains you could imagine. The farmers here really have to work for their crops, as the entire countryside is either uphill or downhill. There is no flat land.

As we rolled into our first border in 6 weeks (yes, we've been in Colombia for 6 weeks), we were directed to a modern building, where we first had to turn in our motorcycle paperwork.

There was a small line of about 4 or 5 truckers all waiting, so we settled in for what we thought might be the standard few hour wait. To my surprise, all the people in line parted, and ushered us to the front. There, a friendly customs agent took our motorcycle papers, and quickly stamped us out. Elapsed time: 2 minutes.

With a smile on my face, I left Troy with the bikes and went into the immigration building to have the Passport stamped out. I waited in a line of about 2 people, and within 30 seconds was again at the front, where I dutifully handed my passport to the friendly officer who I expected would glance at it and stamp us out.

10 seconds… 20 seconds.. 30 seconds… he's looking at my passport, checking the computer, back at the passport…. I'm starting to wonder what's going on. When we arrived, we made sure to get extended stay visa's that matched the motorcycles. 70 days. Since we had only been in the country 45 days, we were well within the time on our visa's.

So now, after about 5 minutes of waiting, my guy was now on the phone, and there was another supervisor in the booth with him. He now had my passport, and was looking at it, then back at the computer screen.

I was trying my best to look uninterested, but finally I asked "problema?".

"Si, problema…" was the reply.

"Uh oh."

"Transito… expired".

Huh?

I tried to explain that I had a 70 day visa, just like my motorcycle.

"No… expired."

Both of them, now were looking at my passport together, and they had someone at Immigration Central on the phone… 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes. Finally, they hung up the phone.

In their best English and my best Spanish, it worked out to:

"Your Visa is expired. You had a Transit visa, good for 3 days in Colombia. You have been here for 45 days. You need to pay a large fine.".

"Uh Oh"

We went around and around on this point for the next 15 minutes… me patiently explaining that the error was not my fault, I had requested the same amount of time on my passport Visa, as we had on the Motorcycles. The problem wasn't that they didn't understand, the problem was they didn't seem to be able to do anything.

"You need to pay a large fine"

The head supervisor invited me to the back, and got someone at Immigration Central back on the phone, this time someone who "supposedly" spoke English. The problem was, it was really loud in the building, he didn't speak very good English, and the only thing he told me was what I already knew:

"No Visa. Big Fine"

"How big a fine?"

"$267,000 pesos'"

"Ugh".. (about $150.00 dollars).

So I went out and told Troy the story, looked at his visa, and saw his also had "transito" stamped in. We then realized that at the immigration window when we had arrived in Bogota, I had gone straight straight through, while Troy had been dragged aside to a second window to be interrogated more; in the end he had been let through by a guy who spoke good enough english and told him he had 60 days…

SO there was a difference! Troy's had "Transito" on it like mine, but the officer had also written "60 dias"… 60 Days on the import stamp.

When the customs guys saw this, they really knew we weren't making this story up, so they huddled together for another few minutes, then came out and told us what they had in mind. No fine… and he showed me his iPhone where he had translated from Spanish to English the word "Collaborate".

"Huh?" "Collaborate?" What the heck does that mean?

"Collaborate?" I am "Collaborating". What else do I need to do?

He asked me if I was ever coming back to Colombia. I thought for a minute and said… "Hmmmm… Yes, to see Vanessa. ;)

I guessed the "collaborating" was now off the table, so I pulled out my trusty and useful "I don't understand", and shrugged my shoulders.

We went back to the office, sat down, he huffed and puffed a bit, pulled out his stamp, stamped my passport, changed a few lines in the computer, did the same with Troy's, and handed me back both passports and shook my hand.

That was it? 45 minutes of official shaking of heads and official phone calls, and he fixed it in 10 seconds.

We now had our export stamps, officially updated in the computer, and no "collaborating" money had changed hands.

I tossed Troy his passport and off we went, free and legal out of Colombia.

Ecuador has a streamlined, and very modern process, our passports were stamped in a couple minutes, and the Customs guy was pleasant, and the paperwork for the bikes was straightforward and efficient. We were through in under an hour, and into Ecuador.