Chilean and Argentinian customs process
Chilean-Argentinian customs
This post finds us at the border crossing on our way to Mendoza. As it seems to be a very inefficient process, there is lots of time to write about it! You enter what is like a large covered carwash with one booth containing the Chilean exit official and the Argentinian entry official. Everyone gets off the bus and follows the bus driver to you wicket, we were surprised there wasn't a rope for us to hold onto. They lead us to our wicket, and customs works in series, rather than in parallel, leading to everyone waiting when one person has an issue instead of moving them to the aide for a higher authority to deal with and processing the rest of us. The line stops very often as some people seems to travel with a nice signed letter stating something or other instead of anything we would identify as formal documentation, and the foreigners don't keep this slip of paper the chileans give you upon entering the country (they never tell you to keep it and it doesn't contain any important info not found in your passport). After customs everyone lines up in front of a long table and depending on what you look like they may ask you to open up your hand luggage, which they do a cursory look through, as if just looking because they're supposed to look. The one by one the luggage under the bus is screened and again, screening is stopped when they look inside a bag. We're not sure what they're looking for as they don't ask you to declare anything and not that many people could have items that they mistake for firearms or other dangerous goods. When you think we're on the move, the bus stops just outside the carwash building and the driver announces something in Spanish and waits for us to put money in a cup. Apparently this is for the person who put handled the luggage at customs? Something seems fishy, and it takes another half hour for the driver to return to the bus.
In the end, it seems like we could have gone and hung out in the bathroom for two hours and walked out into Argentina and no one would be the wiser.
This post finds us at the border crossing on our way to Mendoza. As it seems to be a very inefficient process, there is lots of time to write about it! You enter what is like a large covered carwash with one booth containing the Chilean exit official and the Argentinian entry official. Everyone gets off the bus and follows the bus driver to you wicket, we were surprised there wasn't a rope for us to hold onto. They lead us to our wicket, and customs works in series, rather than in parallel, leading to everyone waiting when one person has an issue instead of moving them to the aide for a higher authority to deal with and processing the rest of us. The line stops very often as some people seems to travel with a nice signed letter stating something or other instead of anything we would identify as formal documentation, and the foreigners don't keep this slip of paper the chileans give you upon entering the country (they never tell you to keep it and it doesn't contain any important info not found in your passport). After customs everyone lines up in front of a long table and depending on what you look like they may ask you to open up your hand luggage, which they do a cursory look through, as if just looking because they're supposed to look. The one by one the luggage under the bus is screened and again, screening is stopped when they look inside a bag. We're not sure what they're looking for as they don't ask you to declare anything and not that many people could have items that they mistake for firearms or other dangerous goods. When you think we're on the move, the bus stops just outside the carwash building and the driver announces something in Spanish and waits for us to put money in a cup. Apparently this is for the person who put handled the luggage at customs? Something seems fishy, and it takes another half hour for the driver to return to the bus.
In the end, it seems like we could have gone and hung out in the bathroom for two hours and walked out into Argentina and no one would be the wiser.
posted by Sara and Dave at 2/08/2012 07:45:00 p.m.
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