The Secret World of Mate

PHOTO ALBUM 1: AIESEC Southern Cone Tour (link)
PHOTO ALBUM 2: The Secret World of Mate (link)

I went to see the sights in Uruguay with the AIESEC interns that were doing internships in Montevideo. This included two Americans from Yale, one Puerto Rican girl, one French girl, 4 Brazilians, and one girl from Spain all about 22 years old. All of them spoke Spanish very well. Just walking through the streets, you see tons and tons of people carrying their mate and their hot water thermos which is very cultural thing of Uruguay and Argentina (WIKIPEDIA MATE). It was quite frigid during those days considering it was in the middle of winter. We went to the sights of the grand palace where the legislative chambers and congress chambers can be found. Montevideo is on the ocean so it has some great views. One of the nights, the two Yale guys organized an English lesson in their apartment for all the AIESECers of Montevideo so that was interesting. These two guys were working for Non-Governmental Organizations in Montevideo doing planning and organizational development for their AIESEC internship. I spent a lot of time with the girl from Spain and the Brazilian girl during my 7 days in Montevideo.

For the weekend, we made a trip to Punta del Este which is kind of like Viña del Mar in the sense that it’s on the Ocean and it’s very very popular in the summer. I went with 2 of my Uruguayan friends, 2 Brazilians, and the Puerto Rican for the weekend. We stayed in a hotel for $15 for the night and went to the sights such as a hand monument sticking out of the sand, the casino, and a creepy park with tons of statues of random characters. It was quite the international crew.

As I was leaving the country, I was going on a ferry from Uruguay to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I went through the immigration at the port in Uruguay and the Uruguayan immigration officer demanded the slip that everyone receives when they enter the country. Considering that I never talked to an immigration officer when I was entering, of course I didn’t have the slip of paper that said I entered the country. I told her that it was the immigration officers at the border’s fault for not demanding to check documents or anything, but the immigration lady didn’t want to listen to my frivolous lies. She said that would be a $30 fine for having lost the paper which did not please me very much. Not only that, I didn’t even have $30 because I had done everything to avoid leaving Uruguay without Uruguayan currency so I didn’t have to change it in Buenos Aires which would mean that I would lose money. So I was leaving Uruguay with $7 USD cash. I also did not have a credit card because I lost that in January in Chile, so I had been using traveler’s checks for 6 months and I was still using traveler’s checks up until that time. It was about 12:00 in the afternoon, I was at the port with very little cash with the not so cheap ferry leaving in 40 minutes, and the nearest city to possibly change a traveler’s check was a 1.5 hour bus ride away. No good. I spent about 10 minutes arguing with the immigration lady trying to convince her that it’s the government’s fault that I do not have that sheet of paper with no avail. I could not miss that boat because that would mean I would have lost $100 (the cost of the ferry ticket). I had to go from person to person begging to collect the $30 sum to be able to leave the country. I had great luck with that (I have no idea how) and was able to collect the money fairly quickly because people were very kind. Finally, I could pay the sum to the woman and pass through, but that was only half of the problem. The Argentinean immigration man who decides who can enter Argentina and who will be denied was watching this whole event. So when I got to him, he asked to see my bus ticket to leave Argentina. I told him that I would buy it in Buenos Aires. He didn’t like that. He told me that he would not let me enter Argentina for not having an income source that would be sufficient to leave Argentina after being a tourist (which is a government regulation to avoid people entering Argentina and never leaving). I showed my traveller’s checks and my 1 year student visa for Chile which showed my source of money as well as a reason to leave Argentina which was finish my studies in Chile. He didn’t buy it at all with the reasoning that traveller’s checks were not a valid source of money and that if I couldn’t pay a $30 fee to leave the country, how was I going to buy a bus ticket to leave Argentina? He said that he would let me into Argentina with a transit visa which would mean I could enter only to get directly on a bus and return to Chile. This would have meant ruining my trip as well as causing great problems for the AIESEC conference in Tandil, Argentina that I was facilitating. I thought fast and decided to lie to the immigration officer saying that I had left my credit card at a friend’s house in Córdoba, Argentina and that she was meeting me in Buenos Aires with my credit card. So once I got to Buenos Aires, I would have a credit card and a source of money and all would be great. I was arguing with this guy for 10 minutes before he said “Get out of here” by stamping my passport and letting me pass. Through this event, I’ve come across a great way for a government to take money from visitors under the guise of a legitimate reason. When I am president of a country, I’ll get tons of tourists to come to my country, not give them documentation that they entered the country, demand it when they leave the country, and then fine them $30 due to the fact that they “lost” it. It’s brilliant!