Ok so about a week and a half ago I entered Peru. For some reason I was really out of it that day. I have no good excuses, just wasn´t paying attention. I took the bus from Copacabaña to Cusco. When we got to the boarder the driver collected our passports and took them to get stamps. When he handed them back he kept talking about changing money. Since I had already changed money I got on the bus, without really looking around (my mistake). We must have been parked outside the Peruvian boarder office -- which we had to go into ourselves -- I figured it was up the street -- they so often are. So after aout 30 minutes I realized that I had missed the boarder office and knew my first day in Cusco was going to be fun. We arrived at night, I found a hostal and decided not to worry until morning.
The next morning I woke up early and went down to the immigration office in the morning to ask what I had to do. The lady told me to pay a fine at a specific bank and then to copy out a letter that was attached to the wall of the office (there were about 6 of them all for different purposes) and to change the details to fit me. It basically said why I didn´t have a stamp. Fine. That letter then had to be noterized. I asked if that was all. She said yes. I confirmed again that I did not need to come back to the office, she said I didn´t need to. Ok. Paying the fine $4 was easy. The letter needed to be typed before it could be noterized -- fine. It all got done -- yea. I could stop worrying, but of course as I got closer and closer to the Peruvian-Equadorian border I got worried again.
Last night I got on a bus for Equador. We crossed the boarder at midnight. I knew from the guys expression that I had a problem. I told him what had happened and he said that I should have gone back to the office and gotten an entry stamp after the letter was noterized. I told him I asked about that. he did not seem impressed with the worker in Cusco. The peruvian boarder guard told me to come with him. We walked the 50 meters to Equador and he asked them if I could enter Equador if I didn´t have a Peruvian entry stamp -- the guy said no -- yikes! The Peruvian boarder guard asked me what time it was -- I said 11:50 -- he asked if I could wait for the next bus in 30 minutes, because there was a shift change in 10 minutes. Not sure what was going on, but seeing that he was going to help me I said sure. So I took my bag off the bus and waited.
While waiting he told me that the worst case senerio would be having to return to Cusco to get the stamp. I was devistated by that news -- since that would take at least 4 days round trip and I didn´t have time for that. At this point I was very happy that I could do all of this in Spanish. I was also happy this was happening in Latin America, where as a girl all you have to do is smile and the guys will try their best to help you :) I told the guy that I was in a hurry and could not go back to cusco -- I knew he would help. So the next bus arrived and the shift changed. We went back to the Peruvian side and he stamped an entry stamp for a few days earlier and an exit stamp for that night. Then back at the Equadorian side the new boarder guard was happy and he stamped my passport -- yea -- I will never miss a boarder crossing again -- what a hassel!
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