Finally got the cars today! A day to celebrate? Maybe, but we still
don't have our "stuff."
Here is what happened on the 21st: We all got up at 8AM and Kai and I left the hotel to go to CANTV which is the place you go to make phone calls. You don't use coins in the phones here since the coins are only minted in values of 500, 100 and 50 Bolivares. (680 Bolivares=$1) Bs 500=73.5 cents, Bs 100=14.7 cents, Bs 50=7.35 cents so instead of coins they got smart on this one and use cards. You buy a card for Bs 3,000 (about $4.44) and insert it in any phone. The card has a little gold chip on it and when inserted, the phone grabs it and holds it till you hang up. You talk for as long as you want and the money spent is automatically subtracted from the card and the phone shows how much money you have left in a little windowpane on the phone. The problem is that most of the phones are near the street (no such thing as a phone booth) and you can't hear well so we always go to the phone company two blocks away and get a card with a number on it and go to the appropriately numbered booth and sit down with our phone numbers and dial as many numbers in succession as we want and talk as long as we want. When finished, you take the card back to the desk and pay for all the calls you made. Also, there at the phone company, you have a very good connection�.well, most of the time anyway. Except last Sunday of course when there was no electricity for most of the city for most of the day: therefore there was no AC, no phone and no internet café.
So far, we have made it 2 blocks. Then we call the girls called 'tramitadoras' who do the paperwork (tramites) for getting the cars out of the port. We have worked 4 days with them doing paperwork 8 hours each day (except for siesta which goes from 12 till 2). We call them on their cell phone and we get no answer because they haven't paid their bill and their cell phone isn't working today.
Then we walk to one of the two internet cafés (JB Ciber Room)
that we have found here where there are a bunch of computers in a room
with AC (Thank you Lord) where you "rent" the computer for
an hour for Bs. 1,500 or about $2.22. We go to yahoo and get our messages
which we have to save to disc since to read them there would cost money.
We want you to know that we really appreciate your messages!
Then, since we have to translate a list of the contents of our box that
is still in the port so that they can try to extract money from us,
we go to a site called "Babblefish" where you can insert text
and then select the language you want it translated into and hit enter
and it's done. Then we print it out for Bs. 300 a sheet.
So then we go to the office of the place that was supposed
to handle all the paperwork but which in fact has only produced one
paper saying that another company and hence these girls would do all
the work and ask how we get in touch with the girls. They call the office
the girls work from in La Guaira and find out they are at the port waiting
for us. We hurriedly get a taxi back to the hotel to get Les so we can
have all three drivers there and hopefully get all three vans out at
once. We rush in a taxi to the port, meet the girls, walk to the place
where the vans are and arrive at 11:15. Guess what? Siesta in the port
area is from 11 until 1 so we are 15 minutes late and have to wait till
1PM. Screwed again. Outside the port at the aduana, siesta is 12-2,
the stores mostly close from 12-3 and inside the port, they close from
11-1. Now, how's that for uniformity?
So we find some scrap paper pulp sheets on the ground, find a place
in the shade, lay the paper pulp down on the concrete and sit down to
wait�something for which we have had much practice lately. So far we
have gathered perhaps 10 signatures of people and as many rubber stamps
on our volumes of paperwork which now numbers at least 50 sheets. A
friendly man allows us to go look at the vans. The carpets are tracked
inside with boot prints which appear to have been dipped in oil and
then rolled in grit. Every switch has been turned on and the radio in
my van has been left on for three weeks. Kai's and Les's water pumps
were turned on and so both their batteries are dead. Our van luckily
starts up so we will have to jump the other two to get them started
but the friendly guard tells us we can't do it right now. We have to
wait till 1PM� so we wait.
1PM comes and goes and the only difference is that there are now more people crowded around a desk that is set outside in the shade of a stack of truck sized containers that are here at this part of the port. Nothing is happening. I ask what is missing from our papers. I ask if we need a drop of God's blood on our thumb to put on the paperwork. Here in this most Catholic of countries, no one laughs. Finally we are told that the guardia national (police) have to sign the papers and that after that, the owner of space where the vans are parked has to sign and that after that the guard of the gate (a rope stretched across the entrance) has to sign and after that we have to go to the exit of the port where we have to obtain yet one last signature and one more stamp from the guardia national.
It's hot and nothing happens. Then without anything happening, a guard tells
us that we can start our vans and move them up to the rope so we hike
back to the back of a big parking lot to where the vans are. Along the
way there are thousands of bales of paper pulp stacked along the side
all the way to the sky. Some have been there so long that they have
turned brown. Others have collapsed because of the weight of the rain
that has soaked into the pulp. There, just on the other side of the
wall is the ugly seven story concrete fortress called 'the Aduana.'
Evidently, all this paper pulp is used to make the mountains of forms
necessary to keep the country awash in paperwork. Even though there
are thousands of bales sitting outside in the rain unused, thousands
more pass by us on trucks to be stored in some other area of the port.
We try to start the vans but two won't start. We talk to a security
guard who borrows a 19mm wrench from a mechanic for us so we can remove
the spare tire to get to the jumper cables that we have. It works for
Kai's but not for Les's which, after about 45 minutes, we finally get
started. We move up to the rope and guess what, wait. Finally,
another fellow appears and he is the one who has to fill out our exit
papers for us. That done plus two more signatures and three more stamps,
we finally head out. We drive to the other end of the port where we
are surrounded by big trucks and noise. Since we are stopped in a line
of trucks, I turn the VW engine off so it won't overheat. When I try
to start it, due to the roar of the trucks all around, I can hear neither
the starter nor the engine so I turn it off. Trucks start to cut in
front of me. I try to start it again�I can't hear if it is running or
not. It isn't. Billy has decided that now is the time for a silent moment.
It won't move so we get out and start to push it toward the exit gate.
Any way out of this hell hole is OK with me. On my other trip to South
America 11 years ago, I remember I had to have my neighbors Gene and
Louise push start my VW in WV to get it going on my 25,000 mile adventure.
Why not a repeat of that here getting out of the port of Puerto Cabello?
We finally got it going fast enough to push start it and coasted up
to and through the gate. After all of us had made it that far, the girls
got the final signature and we were on our way!!! Whoppee!!! After four
days of work, it's almost anti-climactic.
I had promised to take the girls out to eat so when I asked them where they wanted to go they surprised me by saying McDonald's. So off to McDonald's around the back of Puerto Cabello we went. Right down the same road we had traversed behind Omar Cirinos, the policeman who led us to Patanemo the day of the robbery. Today it smelled exactly the same as it had that day - a mixture of rotten fish, infectious waste and sewage.
McDonald's in Cumboto smelled better. None of us had eaten all day so we were ravenous enough for 6 people to put away 12 drinks and as many sandwiches plus the girls wanted us to buy four 'Caja Feliz' (Happy Meals) for their kids. Then out to the vans. I offered to take them home but they said I would get lost on the way back so Will gave them money for a taxi and we came back here. We just barely fit into the garage with only inches to spare.
I had given my sister JoAnn our phone number so she called to let me know
that Les's lost carnet was coming along well and that she was going
to put the final stamps on it that night and that it would be sent out
FedEx tomorrow (today) for around $58.
Exhausted, we watch a little TV and go to bed.
