Originally published June 7 2009
Forty-Eight Hours in Ecuadorian Customs: How to Make New Friends in South America
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) I recently decided to bring my family dog to Ecuador. This turned out to be one of the most fateful decisions of my life, leading to an experience so bizarre and fascinating that I feel compelled to share it publicly. But to understand why, you first have to learn a little something about the culture of Ecuadorians.
The people of Ecuador are warm-hearted, friendly folks. They'll help you change a flat tire on the road or chase down your stray cow that's wandering onto the highway. They are grounded, Earthly people who have survived for countless generations with virtually no technology whatsoever: No electricity, no cars and no internet.
All this changed in the last decade or two with the increasing wealth of the country and its investment in automation technologies to increase operational efficiency. But if there's one glaring fault to be found with the Ecuadorian people, it is their strange obedience to numbers on computer screens, and if those numbers don't show up, or they aren't right, that little section of the government grinds to a complete halt and the person operating the computer declares nothing can be done until the numbers on their computer screen somehow change.
This fascinating cultural quirk became frustratingly apparent to me when I attempted to clear my dog from Ecuadorian customs in Quito. Although the paperwork was completely correct (USDA forms filled out, vaccination paperwork signed, everything was notarized at the consulate, etc.), the Ecuadorian customs computer systems weren't working properly, and there was a logic glitch besides.
What logic glitch? My dog was brought in as "personal effects" (personal effectivo), meaning she belonged to me and I wasn't required to pay any kind of import duties. But because she was too large to be transported in the cabin of the plane, she was flown in as "cargo," and according to Ecuador's laws, all cargo is subject to import taxes.
The "value" of my dog was set at zero (a number that I'm sure would have annoyed Roxy if she knew such an insult had been hurled her way). The problem with zero is that you can't calculate a 12% import tax on zero, because the result is just zero. And since it couldn't be calculated, it couldn't be paid, and that meant a certain spreadsheet cell on a computer screen in the Ecuadorian government couldn't turn from red to green. Until it turned green, I found out, Roxy wasn't going anywhere.
That's when my wife and I started camping out at the customs offices in Quito -- and this is where the story takes a fascinating twist...
Behind the bureaucracy, they're real people
In all, my dog was stuck in customs for something approaching forty-eight hours. For the first 30 of those hours, she was confined to her kennel. But the people working there, I soon found out, took great care of her in terms of bringing her water and feeding her the dry dog food we had taped to the top of the kennel.
After these 30 hours went by, and the customs officials working in the warehouse saw my desperation in trying to get Roxy set free, they agreed to let me talk her for a walk around the customs patio area. This was a huge improvement, and my wife and I eventually ended up walking Roxy for probably twelve hours in all, all while waiting for the right numbers to change on some computer screen in the customs offices.
Here's the important part in all this: As we were walking our dog, our interactions with our dog became an education to the customs workers. They watched us, with smiles, as we hugged our dog, and fed her chicken meat from the airport restaurant, and asked her to perform simple dog tricks (shake, lie down, sit, etc.). Very quickly, they came to understand that our dog wasn't mere cargo... she was a member of our family! And unlike many local dogs that are just mean street dogs, our dog was something very different. One of the forklift operators even managed the courage to get her to shake his hand. He smiled and immediately went back to work.
Meanwhile, I had hired a local taxi driver (Jose) to run me around town, chasing down various officials whose signatures were needed on various pieces of paper in order for the computers to update their screens. At one point, I needed the signature of an official from the Minister of Health. But he was in a meeting and wouldn't be back until the next day. When I asked whether he had an assistant who might sign the papers for me, I was told he was the only person who could sign them. When I asked who would sign them if that official somehow died in a freak accident, an assistant signed the papers for me just to get me out of their office.
That night I visited the customs warehouse at 9 pm, as they promised me access until eleven. I brought half a dozen bottled juices with me, handed them out to the working crew, and walked Roxy across the patio, in the dark, before heading back to my own hotel for another sleepless night.
Reaching the breaking point
The next morning, thanks to the warm-heartedness of the customs director, Roxy's captivity was upgraded from her kennel to a much larger holding cage: A roughly ten-by-ten foot cage that was so large, I decided to join Roxy in it.
The scene was surreal, sitting with my dog in a locked cage, stranded in Ecuadorian customs in a secure area behind lock and key, waiting for numbers on a computer screen somewhere to change while the forklifts hummed and whined back and forth in front of us. Sitting in this cage had an interesting effect: People started to stop by and chat with me. I speak enough Spanish to strike up a funny conversation, and some of them spoke English, too. Before long, most of the workers there knew me and my dog, and they waved as they walked by with their clipboards. They were all extremely friendly, and they offered to bring Roxy more water if she needed it.
The time in captivity had now slipped past 36 hours. At one point, I was told everything was completely finished, and we would be able to go in five minutes. With cautious excitement, I shuffled to a cashier window where I paid $12.40 (the total customs processing fee for all this). But after paying, the person behind the counter mentioned something with hesitation, and the face of my customs broker went pale: Another signature was needed! Apparently, yet another person needed to sign these papers before the computer screens would change and we would be set free. This person, it turns out, was the boss of the local paperwork office, and she was nowhere to be found.
At this point, my taxi driver (Jose), my Quito attorney (abogado), my customs broker and even my friend Stan Grist (the guide for the upcoming Ancient Cities of the Sun tour in Quito), had all gathered in our support. We hovered from building to building like a gang of bureaucrat busters, glaring at those whose signatures or stamps we needed, almost as if our willpower alone would compel them to sign it, stamp it, click it or do whatever they needed to do in order to get us to move on. The jefe was soon found, and she immediately signed what we needed signed, but her signature was supposed to update a data field in the customs computer system, and that data field was kept on a server in Guayaquil (a coastal city). Frustratingly, the server was down and nobody knew when it might be fixed.
So let me explain where this put us: We had completed all the paperwork necessary to retrieve our dog, and everybody in customs knew us by now, and they knew this was our family dog and not "cargo." All the signatures that were necessary for the release of our dog had been acquired. All fees had been paid. Every paperwork step that was mandated by Ecuadorian law had been completed to the letter. And yet the final data field indicating all this could not be updated because a remote database on a computer two hundred miles away could not be updated so that the field on the computer screen in Quito would turn green.
Astonishingly, we literally found ourselves held captive by a field in a database!
On the precipice of patience
Time had now slipped well past 42 hours in all. Roxy was hadn't managed a bowel movement for three days (counting the U.S. air travel, too). From sitting in the customs cage for so many hours, my own pants were filthy with warehouse dust and grease, and I hadn't showered in two days (I could hardly sleep during all this). My patience had turned to desperation, and I'm sure it showed.
The warehouse employees felt my frustration. They, too, were hoping to see Roxy set free much earlier. They even began to ask me, "How long now?" And I would tell them thirty minutes, or three hours, or ten minutes, or whatever the latest figure was that I had been quoted by my customs broker. The armed customs guard continued to search me each time I entered or left the warehouse, but now he was smiling and asking for the status of my dog, too. I stayed positive, telling everyone we were hoping for the best, and they kept a positive attitude, too, reminding me to "have just a little more patience" while the gears of Ecuadorian bureaucracy creaked forward at a snail's pace.
By this time, I had resorted to eating airport food, as I dared not leave the premises for fear that some shred of paper needing my signature might suddenly appear and I might miss the one window of opportunity to conclude the whole affair. So I subsisted on -- horrifyingly -- grilled chicken, french fries, ketchup and mayonnaise... aided by a pocket full of X-Balance superfood packets and Organic Food Bars that probably saved my sanity (and my health).
The amazing (and unexpected) solution
Perhaps sensing my desperation, a senior Ecuadorian customs official soon stopped by the cage to check on us. She was a friendly woman who spoke good English -- and she loved dogs! When I filled her in on the story of what had happened so far, her heart went out to us and our dog, and she told me on the spot that she would go personally investigate what was going on and find out why the data field on the server in Guayaquil could not be updated so that someone's screen in Quito would turn green and set us free.
She marched off with determination, and I sat down on the concrete again, assuring Roxy that we might taste freedom before nightfall.
Word had now spread throughout the entire customs facility: An American couple and their dog were stuck in customs, and a silly computer error was holding them captive. Everyone seemed willing to help in any way they could. Even the rifle-toting guards were completely disarmed by the situation, and they encouraged us to hang in for a little longer.
A few minutes later, a miracle occurred. Someone had made a call to Guayaquil and invoked a personal favor, causing the data field in the customs database to be magically updated. Data shot across the fiber optic lines to Quito and the field on the customs computer screen turned green.
A literal cheer broke out at the customs gate, where we had all gathered -- our attorney, taxi driver, customs broker, Stan Grist, the customs director, the armed guard, the customs helper woman and a half dozen other various helpers and assistants. People were grinning widely and waving thumbs-up signs in my direction. Three of them hugged me warmly as if we had just embraced in a ten-year family reunion. Mysterious papers changed hands while an excited forklift operator ran to his machine, burned rubber to my dog crate, and fork-lifted the crate outside the compound, next to our awaiting van. My wife and I were so elated that we began inviting people to Vilcabamba for acupuncture and medicinal herbs, and I grabbed a stack of business cards and handed them out so that we could keep in touch via email.
The predominant emotion in the air was one of, "WE DID IT!"
And they did, of course. Without their goodwill and their intervention, I might still be sitting in a cage in a customs warehouse in Quito, petting my dog and wondering when we both might get to use a bathroom.
But this viewpoint is curious all by itself. It's as if these wonderful customs workers felt victory in being able to overcome the computer system that held me captive. At no point did anyone look at the paperwork and say we could go, and that they would just update the data field later on after the computer was fixed. They felt held hostage by the computers just as much as I felt held hostage by them. And they truly believed they could not bend an inch until the right numbers (or colors) appeared on their screens.
You gotta hand it to the Ecuadorians for following directions. They didn't swerve from Ecuadorian law one iota. And yet, during all this, they also demonstrated the kind of amazing personal warmth and compassion for which the Ecuadorian people are renowned.
Even as they kept my dog confined for nearly 48 hours, they won my heart nonetheless.
The difficult (but valuable) lessons of cultural differences
In all, this experience drove home one point very, very strongly: Ecuadorians are the friendliest people in the world, but their obedience to computer screens and paperwork is inexplicable. They will go out of their way to help you in any way they believe they can, but they will not skip a signature, or a stamp, or a number painted on an LCD screen by a software application, regardless of how much it might make sense to do so.
This is what makes Ecuador so wonderful and so frustrating at the same time. It is an amazingly "free" country where you have tremendous freedom to travel, to speak your mind, to start a business and to create your own garden paradise. And yet you can very easily (and without recourse) find yourself held captive to a computer system, seemingly stuck in an endless waiting cycle where the very people operating those computers also feel like they are being held captive, too!
The upside of all this is that I spent three days practicing Spanish conversation with armed security guards and customs officials, and I met three or four new Ecuadorian friends who will probably come visit our farm in Vilcabamba, where Roxy is now having the time of her life, un-caged and unleashed.
At no time in any of this did I feel threatened by the guards who carried firearms, nor was I treated with anything other than warmth and friendliness by the Ecuadorian people.
I also learned an amazing amount about Ecuadorian culture as well as myself, and the most important thing of all I learned is this: No matter what troubles you might encounter (as long as your safety and livelihood isn't being threatened), if you stay positive and treat those around you with respect and warmth, most of those troubles will eventually be resolved, and you may gain something unexpected from the whole experience.
I never imagined I would have such an enlightening experience while sitting in captivity in a customs warehouse in Ecuador. But then again, life's lessons aren't served up on a convenient menu... they come to you unexpectedly and often in torrential downpours which may not necessarily be what you were hoping for.
There are two life-changing experiences I've had in South America: The first was hiking 65 kilometers through the Andes Mountains to visit Machu Picchu in Peru. The second was spending almost 48 hours stuck in Ecuadorian customs with my dog.
I have to say I learned more about South American culture from the second experience than the first.
And I still say Ecuador is a paradise in which to live. Roxy agrees.
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