VISA Renewal: I love Bureaucracies :-(

My first 90 days of allowable time in Ecuador expired the 6th of December, also the Foundation date of Quito, and a national holiday here (See "Fiestas de Quito, Chiva!"). I had a feeling this coincidence in dates might be a problem, so I had visited the Migration Services office two times before I left town in early December.

The first time I went, I wanted to verify that the 6th of December was the day that I needed to extent the 90-day tourist VISA, and to find out if the office would be open the 6th of December. Upon turning over my brand-new passport (see "Path to a New Passport" entry), we discovered that the new number was not available in the computer system and that I would need to bring a copy of my old passport. I was assured, by 3 independent sources in the office, that Migration Services would be open the 6th, despite it being a national holiday.

The second time I stopped by migration services, with a copy of my previous passport, and to re-confirm that I would have no problems getting my 90 day extension. We were able to locate my computer files using the old passport, and I was once-again confirmed that the offices would be open and that I would be able to renew my tourist VISA the 6th.

On the 5th of the December I had to leave Lisa and Amanda´s Global Village group in Santo Domingo (see previous post), in Daniel´s capable hands, to return to Quito. This in itself was an adventure as there was a "paro" (stop) due to a "huelga" (strike) in between Santo Domingo and Quito. The bus I took, left late to start off, and then traveled via an alternative route to avoid the huelga, so that we arrived in 5 hours, rather than 3. By that time in the afternoon, everything had closed in anticipation of the following day´s festivities.

The next day, December 6th, bright and early, I arrived at migration services to find... That it WAS OPEN! Great. Except, it was only open for services I didn´t need. Extensions to VISAs would not be give ´til the following day! I was rather upset, and worked to argue the point that I had asked three people on two different occasions and all had assured me I could take care of the extension on the 6th. Although my insistence did not change anything, I was assured that I would not be penalized because I had no way of renewing the day my first 90 days expired. I didn´t believe this, but there was nothing else to do. I stayed in Quito another night.

Luckily, this time the information I received was correct and I was able to renew the next day and return to Santo Domingo where we were learning to cook, Ecuadorian style (see next post).