Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Know Before You Go
So I got royally screwed by someone at the airport, and I just found out today. Before leaving, I knew that every person who enters Chile has to pay $100 (US) reciprocity fee, because that is what the US charges a Chilean to enter. In everything I read, it said that I had to have this fee in cash and pay it at the airport. So I followed these directions and paid the fee.

What I didn´t know, and what no one told me, was that the visa application fee that I paid counted as the reciprocity fee. None of the other scholars paid this fee a second time in the airport. Only me. But someone told them.

Even more, the person that I paid it to would have had to know that I wasn´t supposed to pay it since they saw my visa at the airport, thereby signifying that I had already paid this fee. When I gave them the money, they didn´t staple anything in my passport like I had thought they might, but I just figured that this was how they did things and no one passed through customs without paying.

No, what I later discovered it that when tourists pay this fee, something IS stapled to their passport, but since I had a student visa, I wouldn´t need proof of paying the fee since my visa was proof enough.

So basically, the person in the airport probably pocketed my money and now I am out of $100.

Lessons Learned:
1. People are quick to take advantage when they know that others are at a disadvantage.

2. I realize now that this is a country of receipts. It is illegal to leave a store without a receipt. You can´t throw it away while you are inside. You get a receipt for everything. And everything official has to be stamped like five million times.

En final- Know before you go.

posted by Rebecca @ 2/17/2004 07:58:00 PM