The border towns of Chile Chico (Chile) and Los Antiguous (Argentina) face off somewhere between Northern and Southern Patagonia. Both have beautiful surroundings and small town charm, but serve mainly as gateway cities. I spent a lovely evening in Chile Chico, chatting with the senora of the hospedaje, a city councilwoman and ardent socialist, before boarding a morning mini-bus for Los Antiguos. On the way I chatted with a local guy who was crossing over to shop for flour and other supplies in Argentina--its much cheaper there. He asked about typical salaries in the U.S., the cost of my North Face jacket, and, with a look that said he would be very sensitive to my answer, my opinion of Chile. I evaded the last question, explaining that much of my time in Chile had been on the "campo" with foreigners.
Chile bid me adieu with no problems. Argentina stamped me through and bid me good trip. As I walked back to the mini-bus, however, the driver called me back.
"Oye," he called. "There is a new woman here who wants to check your bag. Usually they don't ask but she's new..."
"No problem," I said, hefting my backpack, which is by now a delicately packed behemoth, into the customs office. I had a few apples and a cucumber and said so immediately, not wanting to appear evasive and knowing they would not be allowed. Head's shook: "We have a plague of apples right now." Oops. Argentina, unlike Chile, does not fine for such indiscretion, but they certainly wag their fingers at you.
The real problem was the pills. My dopkit is full of them. When I left I took about 60 ibuprofen out of a large bottle and put them in a clear ziplock. I didn't anticipate a problem but now it is clear to me why it might not be a great idea. This anonymous, suspicious baggie full of Argentina-knows-what lent a certain suspiciousness to everything else: the bottle of tylenol, the ziplock full of antibiotics, the generic Mexican stomach meds, the multi-vitamins! That and sheer quantity. Several times I heard other guards ask the bag-searcher how many pills I had, obviously implying that if there were few, it would not be a problem. Her pained response, after a sigh, was "there are lots."
These two poor customs women, I'll call them Stickler and Amenable, were flummoxed. Pills abound and no way to identify them, and now a smug backpacker on his way to irate, indignant that his well-traveled pills would meet their fate in this forgotten backwater of a border town. I insisted that I was not parting with anything unless they could show me the written law. Amenable seemed to understand my displeasure and sought to ameliorate it, calling other offices for clarification on the rules and advice on this situation.
Meanwhile Stickler proceeded to dismantle the whole of my luggage. She held at arms length, pinched between the tips of cautious, condescending fingers, my collection of plastic baggies, my scraps of newspaper, my pieces of string, my packets of soup, my Argentine Playboy magazine (traded for my last New Yorker in a hostel, but just for language practice). I curtly identified each item, lingering close, exuding distrust.
My driver had already left once to take the other passengers across the border and returned to get me when I realized I had been at this border station for almost 2 hours. While Stickler insisted that I could not bring any medicine into the country Amenable was attempting to identify the mystery pills. There seemed to be a lack of agreement in policy. Despite the initial statement that transporting meds was not allowed, full stop, they were allowing me to keep the seemingly more "heavy" amoxicillin. Also, despite their contention that the ibuprofen was a problem because it was "loose" and unidentifiable, they did not have a problem with the open bottles of Tylenol and vitamins, nor with the several blue Advil PM (if anything the most dangerous of all) floating loosely in the dopkit itself.
Seeing the hour, I pleaded, although not desperately, that I did not have time, that I had a bus to catch and did not want to hold my driver any longer. Still, I had to wait. I realized that Amenable was trying to form a collective identity between us all, trying to foster a sense that all of us in that amateurish border station were in it together against the larger Argentine bureaucracy. I wasn't having that bullshit and maintained my emotional distance. She said we had to wait for a call from some other office, and offered me a smoke in the meantime. I coldly refused.
The much anticipated phone call was of no help, and at this point ouAmenable informed me, with complete apology, that she was going to the local hospital to see if they could identify the pills. I threw up my hands and almost screamed, completely amazed at the ridiculousness of the situation, and tried once more to say, I give up, let's pretend I never protested and you can have all my pills. "I can't," she lamented, "now we have to find out what this is."
I knew the driver was losing money--all he does is go back and forth with border-crossing passengers all day at frequent intervals--so I told him he could leave. He accepted my offer, kindly explaining how I could walk across the border and into Los Antiguos, and then, ever so sheepishly, told me he still had to charge me. "It wasn't my fault," he said with a shrug and some sort of squishing up of his face that was meant to convey sympathy. He had been nice to wait this long, but I was still a bit hurt by the desertion.
Amenable came back from the hospital with no luck and said they had to keep trying. Stickler sat at her computer, having been silent for quite some time. I could tell she felt bad about having launched this fool's crusade and, to augment her regret, I subtly played the part of dejected and persecuted innocent, far from home and all alone in an unforgiving place.
In fact, the place was supremely pleasant, and if I had to be stuck at a border crossing I could have done worse. Warm, with beautiful views of the Patagonian steppes through plentiful windows, I was quite comfortable and did not at all feel threatened. Having made my traveler's rights stand and having tired of doing so, I decided to read my book and wait it out in peace. Thirty minutes later my allied official waved me outside and said, "ok, we're done." When I asked what had changed she answered "nothing." She explained that they still could not identify the pills, but neither could they continue to hold me.
To top off the weirdness of it all, she offered me a ride to town in the customs department car, which I heartily accepted. She explained the recent problems they had been having with drugs, I explained that, traveling for an extended period of time, I had to be vigilant about my stuff. She said sorry, I said sorry, we chatted about this and that, I made it in time for the next bus South. I lost two apples, a cucumber, and more than 60 ibuprofens. Having made it across with the rest, I call it a victory.
Posts
that is some blog entry Jon
ReplyDeletekeep up the santiago style