How to get kicked out of South America
It wouldn't have been me if I hadn't gotten home from South American by some insanely incomprehensible and dramatic method.
Ticket from Santiago (Chile) to Cusco (Peru) with a change in Lima. That doesn't sound complicated, does it? I think so. Everything is going according to plan, I'm at the airport all night as my flight is quite early in the morning. I'm waiting for the plane, sipping coffee and while I'm doing that, I'm planning Machu Picchu and Huayhuash trek, which I plan to do in Peru and which I'm looking forward to immensely. Everything is already nicely planned and it's coming together too beautifully, which (out of habit) doesn't sit well with me somehow. So what's the problem?
In less than 3 hours I'll find out what the problem is and how much it will change my trip. I'm sleeping through the flight from Santiago to Lima. Not that I'm comfortable sitting or sleeping on that plane (I think my back will be sore for another week), but I’m extremely tired. In Lima, another coffee kicks in and I bounce happily around the airport with my headphones on. That's when the amazing drama comes out of nowhere at passport control!
For three months, I was convinced that when I left Peru, they had given me the correct paperwork and stamps to leave the country. After all, they assured me of that at the border. "Yes, you have everything you need. Here is the border crossing stamp and here is the receipt of payment." Now I appear at Peruvian immigration again, but now I am told that the papers I received then are not the right ones.
We argue for an hour about how it is possible that I left Peru without the right stamp and now I dare to go back again. I try to explain that after all, they themselves closed immigration at the time because of political protests and gave travelers who were slowly running out of visas or were afraid to stay in Peru no choice but to deal with half the paperwork at the police and half at embassies and immigration in neighboring countries. However, the gentlemen act as if perhaps they don't even know about it and completely ignore all the problems associated with it.
They send me away from passport control with a note saying they will send me back to where I came from. Hmmm. Very nice people. I sit on the floor, quite scared, calling the Czech embassy in Peru. Fortunately, they understand the situation and are trying to figure out how to resolve it now at the border. The first option was to cancel my original entry into Peru (I have no idea how that works) but then immigration came back saying that it can only be cancelled at the Peruvian embassy, not at the border.
So I sit on the floor for the next three hours wondering how the hell it is possible that a Peruvian immigration officer tells me one thing and then doesn't acknowledge it. Eventually a lady comes over and tells me to sign some paper in Spanish, which I only later learned was something along the lines of a notice that I was not being allowed into the country.
I go through immigration with one of their workers and a gentleman from security and am told to buy a ticket from Lima to Europe right away. Why the hell to Europe? The point should be that I'm not entering Peru, not that I'm being kicked out of all of South America! The lady from immigrationes tries to get out of me where I live and I confuse her even more by answering that although I come from and have family in the Czech Republic, I live and study in England but that I don't actually have any accommodation there now and all my life is in my backpack which I can't get to now because of them not letting me go and get it. Everyone speaks to me in Spanish all the time, even though they must be bloody well aware that I can barely understand and even less able to answer. I hand them the Czech Embassy on the phone to explain everything and have them translate for me.
After maybe 15 minutes of the lady with the phone running off somewhere and apparently dealing with the situation with her colleagues, she returns my phone and the guy from the embassy tells me that I have 48 hours to buy a ticket out of Peru. They say I should try to delay it a bit because they think the information about me not being able to apply for an annulment at the border is not true, but they have to check somewhere else. All right, then. I'll let the lady know I'll look at the tickets and figure out what I can do to be out of here in 48 hours. What I didn't expect is for the lady to deny what she just told the embassy. She said I was supposed to leave today. "Excuse me? You told my embassy five minutes ago that I have 48 hours by law!" The lady continues to insist that this is not true at all and that I should buy the flight immediately.
Okay. Where am I supposed to go now? What the hell am I supposed to do? I can't go to Peru, I don't want to go back to Chile, and I also don’t want to end my travels and go back to Europe. Besides, I already have a ticket to Europe. Lima to Madrid in a month. The lady said I should try to rebook it now. I don't think so. I'm looking on Google Flights and typing departure: Lima, destination: anywhere and putting the search on the cheapest option. Bogota? Colombia? In all my years of travel, this is definitely the fastest research and brainstorming I've ever done. But it makes sense to me. I'll be leaving Peru, staying in Colombia for a month, and since the Lima to Madrid ticket has a connection in Bogotá, it's actually ideal and I don't have to change my ticket home.
The flight is tomorrow at 10:55, I'm asking the security dude (or whoever he is) if I can buy this ticket. The gentleman sends the information and flight details to maybe 5 other people and they confirm that yes, I can fly to Colombia tomorrow. So the ticket is bought and I only have one evening to find out what I will do in Colombia. At the same time, I'm still bummed that I can't go back to my beloved Cusco. So, with tears in my eyes, I write to all my friends in Cusco that I cannot come and my Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu is postponed.
I am quite amazed, however, at how quickly I was able to reprogram myself to a completely different destination, create a rough itinerary within two hours, and even find out that several of my friends will be going to Colombia as well so I can travel with them. Soon it will be midnight and I'm already listening to Colombian music and finding out where they have the best salsa and bachata lessons.
The security dude comes again, saying that he finished for today but that another guy will be with me now. The new gentleman starts talking to me and explains that my ticket is also confirmed by immigration, and he says that he will then hand over my passport to the security guard who will be on the morning shift and he will take me to the gate and the stewardesses will give me my boarding pass and everything will go like clockwork. Also they know about my backpack and send it to check-in. That would work, wouldn't it? Well, I was a naive idiot to believed him. The song VAMOS A LA PLAYA was already playing in my head and I could see myself at the hostel on the beach with a mojito in my hand.
So actually, even though I had my ticket confirmed by immigration and the airport, they had 18 hours of knowledge of my flight and destination, and I have a valid passport, I still hear the sentence "well we didn't accept you on this flight" when boarding. Excuse me, do airlines now pick and choose which clients they take with them?
Even though the flight attendants have spoken great English with previous clients, they only speak at me in Spanish (why I guess?). So I use a translator (since I'm too frustrated to translate it myself) to find out what they're up to.
"The ticket is purchased and I have a valid travel document, immigration and you have known for over 18 hours that I would be on this flight. So why are you telling me 5 minutes before departure that I can't board?" So now they are saying that it's a different airline than the one I flew in on. Which doesn't make any sense to me anymore. First of all, since when does one have to fly only one airline? And second: why didn't they tell me that last night when they approved my ticket? When I ask about how they will refund my money if they don't accept me on board, the lady says that "you have to sort it out directly with our office, but I don't know if they will give you anything if you cancel the moment the plane leaves". BUT I’M NOT CANCELLING ANYTHING!
The next eight hours consisted of me crying in panic every now and then, trying to get information from the securitarians or imirgations (I didn't get any), they always just swore to me that it was just a minor approval problem and that I would take the evening flight to Bogotá (there is zero truth to that either) and endless calls to the embassy, where the gentlemen were even more confused about the whole situation than I was.
I was told to find out immediately from the securist which supervisor I or the embassy should communicate with. The security informs me that everyone is busy and can't talk to me. Suddenly I find out that the fact that they confiscated my passport is illegal and that they should give it to me immediately or tell me their name so that the embassy knows who is holding my passport. The man tells me that he will not give me the passport or give me his name and when the embassy wants to communicate with him over the phone, he tells me that he will not talk to any embassy either.
No mě klepne. Jeden z kolemjdoucích si všimne mého histerického pláče a po krátkém rozhovoru namítá, že přeci když špaňelština není můj rodný jazyk a nemluvím plynně, mám přeci ze zákona nárok na anglický překlad. Co na to imigrační a sekuriťáci? Zavolali na něj ochranku.
I'm starting to feel like I'm in prison here. I can't go anywhere, I don't know what's going on or what to do, and nobody wants to tell me any information. I have no choice but to wait for them to tell me something. However, I still hope that the evening flight to Colombia will work out.
5 hours later: "We're sending you back to Santiago", the security guard announces while leading me to the gate. "But we want to see your ticket from Santiago to Europe or we won't let you on board. The plane leaves in 15 minutes so hurry up!" I don't know whether to cry or laugh at this incredible absurdity. I'd rather not even argue about why the hell I'm being sent back to Europe and quickly look for a ticket.
I probably don't even need to mention that a last minute flight halfway across the world cost me everything I had left on my card. So before I officially buy it, I tell the flight attendant that if by some ‘accident’ they end up not letting me on board again, I'll be completely out of money, and I'll be camping at this airport for the rest of my life. She and the security guard suddenly don't understand what I mean for a moment. "I'm a student and I travel with a backpack, do I look like I have money?" I add and they let me on board with a very surprised and confused expression.
Many weeks later, through several conversations with people from South America, I learned that they had probably set me up for three days of hell at the airport because they expected me to offer them a bribe and they would make some money. Well, they really couldn't have picked anyone better than a girl with messy hair, dirty shoes and grubby clothes. If anyone at the airport at that moment looked like they were traveling as cheap as possible, it was probably me. Maybe it wasn't until I told them I was broke that they decided to let me go.
However, the flight to Santiago was not the end of the drama. Even though they assured me (as always) that my other backpack was also checked and would fly with me, what didn't happen? I'm in Santiago and the backpack is nowhere to be found! It's almost midnight and I run halfway across the airport to the airline's information desk to find out where my backpack is. This poor guy at the info service had to listen to my whole dramatic and tearful story.
"Yeah, they left it in Lima, but don't worry I'll have the backpack sent here on the very next flight. What time is your flight to Europe?"
"Tomorrow at 10 a.m."
"That's when it should be here. Come by in the morning around 7."
I'm a little scared to believe it will work out (well, are you surprised?) but that's all I can do. So I'm about to have my third or fourth night at the airport (I'm so confused and tired that I don't really know). Almost all the chairs and benches are occupied and I try to sleep on the floor for a while, but the ground is so cold that I can't even fall asleep. In any other case, I would pull a sleeping bag out of my big backpack but since my beloved backpack is in another country, I don't have much choice but to try not to freeze.
To my relief and amazement, they did send me the backpack and for the first time in the whole trip I am glad that I can carry the twenty kilos on my back. However, there is a slight problem: in a few hours I'll be flying to Spain and I have no idea what to do next. Should I fly straight home? Do I even have the money to buy another last-minute ticket? What if I work or volunteer in Spain for a month and then fly home with the original ticket that was supposed to follow the one from South America? I've been looking aat various volunteer projects through Workaway to see if I can get anyone on at the last minute. In addition, I get texts from friends who are studying in Spain, saying that they are in Granada and that I can stay with them for a while. And by complete coincidence, I got a call from a family looking for a nanny, and they're from Granada too! So that’s it: a month in sunny Granada and then home!
