Escape from Ecuador

ok, so i actually was working on this blog before and then my computer froze and it erased everything. so as a matter of principal i refused to retype my work, however, i realize now that you may perhaps be wondering what became of me.

well i'm alive and back in the USA!

just barely though. turns out when i went to the country they entered me under my missionary visa (i used to live there hence the visa) they neglected to tell me this though. here i thought i was happily traveling as any other american citizen when in truth i wasn't, i was being slowly drawn deeper and deeper into their deceitful web of bureaucracy and red tape.

To explain the situation that exists in Ecuador would take far to long, but basically when someone living in Ecuador, either a national or an ex-pat, or someone living there with a visa, would like to leave, they then need to take their censo (ecuadorian id card) and their permiso de salir (small piece of paper valid for one year, costing aproximately $12 when obtained illegally through a travel agent as i had done, that states the holder of said paper is allowed to leave the country) with them to the airport. at the airport they pass through the immigration line, show their valid passport, their censo, and their permiso de salir, and then are waived through.

to get back to my story, it was saturday night and i was back at the airport for my second attempt to leave the country. this time i was making excellent progress as i had my ticket and there was no delay in tonights flight. i felt as though it would be smooth sailing from then on. i was wrong.

i had gotten to the airport a bit later than the recommended time and so, was the last person in all the lines. there i was, standing in front of the immigration officer. i hand him my passport completely unaware that there could be any kind of problem, after all i was an american citizen. that american passport is like a golden ticket when traveling in and out of countries. then suddenly the officer turns to me and asks if i speak spanish, i tell him some, and he says to me while holding up my visa "where is your censo, where is your permiso de salir?" and i tell in, in bad but completely understandable terms, i do not have them because i was only here for 2 weeks on a medical mission trip.

he then tells me "you can't leave ecuador"

WHAT?!?! i think he must be joking, or at the very least looking for some kind of bribe, but he calls another officer over to verify the fact with them that since i have an ecuadorian visa that is still valid i need to have my censo and permiso to leave the country

i think, that's it, i know how hard it was to get those papers in the first place, a task to difficult to be attempted twice, especially now that i wasn't even living in the country. i might as well start looking for an apartment and resign to the fact that i was going to have to live here forever. then i decided to call my ecuadorian friend in one last desperate attempt to leave. so i call and i frantically tell him "THEY WON'T LET ME LEAVE!!!" and then had the cell phone over to the immigration police.

i don't know what exactly was said but in the end my friend put his mother-in -law, who evidentally knows importnant people in the immigration world, on the phone and whatever she said was persuasive enough for the officer to hand me back my passport, tell me i was in huge trouble if i tell anyone about this, and then waives me through.

so i made it back, got back on sunday and then monday morning was back at work. today was laundry/taxes day and i'm proud to say that i got both accomplished. i know from previous experience that it's not a good idea to let clothes that had been previously worn in humid weather while riding a donkey through knee deep mud sit in a closed suitcase for too long.