The Struggle to Renew Our Visas

I promise that the dog in our main picture above is not photo-shopped. He/She was really there, and was not injured in the taking of the photo.

This post isn't going to have any connected pictures. It was tough enough to get through, much less being able to take pictures during. But I will describe to you our process this second time of trying to get our visas to be legal in staying here for at least six more months. Victoria has already explained part of it, but I thought it necessary to compile the adventure in its entirety. Enjoy our struggle:

To start off I'll explain the first visas that we received. For those that don't know much about traveling, when you enter into a different country you are required to have a visa of some sort. It's the country's way of regulating who is there and what they're doing. In our case with Ecuador, we received a tourist visa for 90 days just by coming. Everyone gets one. 

Since our goal was to stay here for a while we needed to go through the process of getting a longer term visa. So after our research we found out that a student visa was the cheapest, and it's good for the term that I would be studying. I needed to learn Spanish so I registered for classes at a school located in Quito that qualified us in getting a student visa. Killing two birds with one stone kind of thing. 

We live in Ambato which is two hours away from Quito, so whenever we need to register for visas, we have to travel to Quito to the school, and to the Ministerio to work things out. Each time we go, it costs $48 to take a VIP taxi round trip. These taxis are supposed to save time and take you from your door to the door of the place you need to go. We received our first visas and have had no problems while living here in Ambato.

First Trip

This second time, we needed to "renew" our visas. I finished 80 hours of Spanish training from Simon Bolivar school of Languages in Quito over a 6 month period and our visas were running out. 

We emailed the school and told them I wanted to continue my classes and that I would need to renew our visas also. We set up a time to go there with all the stuff that we needed and commenced our first trip to Quito. We spoke to the same people as the first time and we immediately ran into problem #1: Dates here (and most other places except for the United States) are written day/month/year, when in the States it's month/day/year. 

Needless to say we misread the ending date of our visas. The problem arose when we learned that you needed to reapply for the visa at least a week before the ending date. Yeah we were 4 days away from expiring. It started a little unease in us and the administrator at the school, but we were going to have to try anyway. We paid for my classes and they started getting all our paperwork ready. We knew that we would have to stay the night in Quito and that the next day the administrator would meet us at the Ministerio the next morning at 8:00 in the morning. 

We stayed in a hostel that we've stayed in before, the only problem was they didn't have a "cama de matrinonio." Basically, a bed that sleeps two people. So we received a room that has 3 twin size beds in it. 

Me being me, I said to Vic before we got married that no matter what, "We will never sleep apart as long as we were not out of town or something..."

Yup, I made good on my word by fitting both Victoria and I on a twin size bed bwahahahahaha. I'm stubborn I know. 

After our uncomfortable sleeping arrangement we woke up really early to get to the Ministerio before they opened. That's when the line starts building. 

This place gets packed immediately. You have to wait in a line to get a number to wait for a different person. Then when your number comes up you go speak with said person. 

After our long waiting was over we start to speak to the EXACT same guy that helped us with our first visas and we found problem #2. They passed a new law that you have to register within the city you are living in! And they passed this within the previous 5 months. 

NO ONE knew about this. Not us, not our school, no one. 

He denies us our application and tells us to go back downstairs to talk to Alexander someone. We found the line to wait to talk to this guy, and after our wait he told us that he would accept a letter explaining why we were in Quito registering (Profound idea guy...).We left and found a place with computers that we could type and print a letter that basically said, "We didn't know about the new law, my school was in Quito, sorry." And we typed it both in English and Spanish. Printed it, signed it, and walked back into the Ministerio. 

We waited to see Alexander again, then he referred us back to the first guy we waited to see. Waited for him, and gave him our new letter and he wrote some stuff on it, then highlighted the part where we live in Ambato, and gave us a ticket to go downstairs to pay for the application. 

You have to pay for the application AND pay for the visas (Yeah, i'm serious). This is all you can do in the same day. You take the receipt of your payment, go home, and wait for them to send you an email to return to give them your passport to put the new visa in. 

That was trip number one. $48 for the ride there and back, $1 for our profound printed letter, $60 for our application fee, $50 for our hostel stay with breakfast. Total without our other food...$149. 

Next Trip

Got an email saying they wanted to have an interview with us. WHAT? 

We get there at the date and time specified and wait another hour after our appointment time to see the guy. Where he says that the paperwork from the school is insufficient and doesn't mention that we live in Ambato and can take classes via Skype, and it be legit from their school's policies! IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH US! We can't change the school's policies! 

After conversing for a while the guy understood it wasn't something we could correct. We basically made an agreement that after 4 months, I would need to return to Quito and give them some sort of Certificate of a Level completion in Spanish. I don't know what that's going to look like but whatever.... sure. He gives us approval BUT we have to wait for the official email to give them our passports. Yup, another trip. 

Total this time? $48 for taxi. We ate and stuff but I won't include that. 

Next, Next Trip

A week later we get the email. We travel to Quito, wait in the first line, get a number, wait in the second line, hand the woman our passports and paperwork, and then comes problem #3. 

Now the first time we did this part, we handed in our passports in the morning and returned at 3:30 the same day to pick them up. 

Nope, not this time. 

She said, "Come back on Monday between 3:30-4:30." We asked her 3 times total if she was serious. We walked over to the next window and paid for our visas and then left. Total? $150 for the visas and $48 for the taxi.

Next, After the Next, Next Trip

Monday comes, and we set up a taxi ride at 12:00pm. They call us back and say is 12:40pm okay? We say yes. The guy comes at 1:05. 

When you take these taxis they take other people too, like a carpool. There is a girl already in right front seat, we get in, and then we go pick up this older woman that has half her house in bags that are put into the trunk. Right when she gets in, she starts complaining about him being late. Understandable, cause I was thinking the same thing. Then we are off to Quito. The time is approx. 1:30pm.

We get to Quito and drop off the first girl. Traffic is heavy and its raining. The older woman said she was going to North Quito, but even after being questioned twice, would not give the specific area, just North Quito. Peaks my curiosity a little. We come to the end of a road where the driver says that one way is where we need to go and the exact opposite way is where the older woman needs to go. It's 3:15 at this point. The older woman complains again about the guy being late and expresses her need to get to her destination. I'm thinking out of respect for my elders, "Yeah okay we still have plenty of time before 4:30, she can't be that far away." 

WORST IDEA I HAVE EVER HAD! 

We drove 30 MINUTES in the wrong direction. It's raining, traffic is bad, and this woman doesn't even know the correct directions to, what we would soon find out was HER HOUSE! After getting lost in finding a certain road, when we did find it, we stayed on it for forever. We kept going and going. Each minute that passed I got more and more mad. Victoria was about to explode. I'm holding her hand and rubbing her leg to try and calm her. 

By the way, the first girl was sitting in the front passenger seat, which means this older woman, Vic, and I are squished in the back seat for the entire trip. 

We get to this woman's house at 3:45. She then needs to unload her half-a-house from the trunk, in the rain, and pay the driver. She and the driver get her stuff out and then we have to wait for her MAID to bring her the money to pay for the ride. Yeah, I'm freaking out, and Vic is developing a case of inner tremors.

We leave the woman's house and start our way back into the center of town. It's raining, and the older woman had given directions to a main highway that she thought would get us there the quickest. 

Ha, problems #3-50. 

Did I mention it's raining? The car's defroster is broke so all the windows are white including the windshield, we get stuck behind a bus trying to do a U-TURN, an ambulance comes through traffic, AND there is a wreck on the highway that everyone has to stop and look at. 

I was hopelessly laughing at all the stuff that was happening to us. Victoria is freaking out because she is seeing it as impossible to stay in Quito for another day. Jethro (our dog) was still back at home. I was problem solving to work it out because time was ticking away, and I knew if we didn't get to the Ministerio by 4:30 we weren't getting our passports and visas. We literally get out of the VIP taxi 4 blocks away from the Ministerio, because traffic is stopped, and run the rest of the way. Victoria does not run, mind you.

We arrive at the Ministerio at 4:35pm to find two guards at the front. The guard proceeds to tell us, "You're too late." Victoria started getting worked up and explaining that traffic was bad, so he told us to go to the guy at the front desk. 

We run over to him in which he says, "No, you're too late." Victoria proceeds to tell the man that traffic was bad and it's raining. So he says hurry quickly upstairs to see if anyone is still there. 

We run over to the stairs where we encounter 4 guards that proceed to tell us, "No, you're too late." 

This is the time that Victoria explodes into the greatest dramatic Meryl Streep performance I have ever witnessed in my life.... ever. And it was in the worst Spanish I believe I've heard. It consisted of:

1.) We waited in the street for an hour. (No idea what that even means)

2.) Please (which was probably said about 15 times); and
3.) You don't understand.

All of this was spoken on that thin thread between crying and not crying. At the moment she was starting to break down, the woman officer was like, "Go, go, just go upstairs." 

You might be wondering where John is in all this? Why hasn't he said anything? 

I was watching the greatest moment of my wife's acting career being portrayed with a gusto never before witnessed by Ecuadorians. I totally sat back and watched as Victoria played the hysterical gringo in panic mode without the words to describe her feelings. Many of you would say, "How rude John, why would you allow Victoria feel like that?" Because..... her episode was working flawlessly hahahaha. She was going from one point to the next because no one wanted to deal with her.

We get up the stairs to find the EXACT same guy that has helped us each time. The guy that was going to deny our application form at the very first visit. At which point he said, "No, you're too late," after looking at his watch. 

Victoria and I knew that HE knew that we were from Ambato so we brought up the point immediately. He thought for a moment and then turned around, grabbed a box, set it on his desk, took the receipt I had in my hand, flipped through two files, pulled OUR file out, handed us our passports with our new visas, and told me to sign a paper. 

That's it? That's all he, and we, had to do? 

He was about to tell us to return ANOTHER day because he didn't want to do this 25 seconds of work? 

Many, many bad words were rushing into my head, but immediately left when I realized the feeling of ease that Victoria would be experiencing in the coming moments. We had our visas and passports, and the mission was accomplished. 

As we were leaving, I thanked all those people that Victoria had verbally vomited on, and we exited the building. The only thing left to do was to get a ride back to Ambato, which wasn't that stressful.

Grand Total for our "renewed" visas experience? $443 not including other foods and things.

I want to thank all of my family and friends that read this. We wouldn't have been able to do this without you. It's amazing to be able to look back and see all the God ordained moments that allowed for this to even be possible.

We are legit legal for the next 6 months. Hopefully after this I will be fluent in Spanish completely. (Most of you would argue that I'm not even fluent in English...)

May we continue to glorify God Almighty who is worthy of all honor and praise.
Soli Deo Gloria