The Journey - Part 3

Dos Perros


And now the story gets really interesting, crazy, and stressful.

Nancy and I successfully found each other at the airport. Now, with all of my bags in tow, we had to find the driver, Ramon. At this point, I'm stressed out and exhausted and ready to find my dogs and begin the 5 hour car ride to La Serena. Again, I didn't want to do another leg on a plane with the dogs. Besides, there was no way their crates would fit on the puddle jumper from Santiago to La Serena. Poor things had been in their crates for a far longer period of time than I was comfortable with. I felt as though I needed to get to them asap to release them from their hell.

We finally catch up with the driver. We were on the arrivals floor and he was on the departure floor. Once we straightened that out via phone, we found him. I checked out the van. It did not look to me as thought we could fit two assembled GIANT crates, the two of us, and all of my belongings into it, but there was no time for me to worry about that now. I had Dos Perros to find and release.

Ramon was a very nice man. He helped us load the bags into the van and get us settled inside. While Ramon didn't seems to know the airport very well, he had the advantage of speaking the local dialect of Spanish, which turned out to be a saving grace.

Off we go in the very clean and tidy Hyundai van (more on the clean and tidy part later). Off in search of Delta International Cargo. Ramon reminded me of a driver I had in Turkey once. We had convinced the Turkish driver to take the new beltway around Ankara rather than driving through the city to save time as we were in a hurry. Well, it was a new beltway, and the driver wasn't used to it. He was comfortable threading his way through the busy streets of Ankara in a 16 passenger van at rush hour. It was amazing to see, but put him on a new beltway with no traffic and open road, he slowed way down. He stopped, really stopped, to read the signs that hung over the lanes of traffic. You know, the ones that say Exit 13, two miles. Perhaps it was my anxiety, but Ramon reminded me of this man. He just didn't seem to understand that I was in a hurry...a big hurry...the pups were at this airport somewhere and I needed to find them.

We left the terminal and started driving around. We found the national cargo facility fairly easily; unfortunately, we needed the international cargo facility. We stopped near a couple walking down the road, and ask them how to find the facility. A short conversation with lots of gesturing. A friend of mine says that whenever he asked for directions in Germany, the answer was always "Geradeaus auf dem Links," or "Straight ahead to the left." Now my sample size is only one, but the conversation about getting directions to the international cargo facility looked to me as though we had to go straight ahead out of the terminal area and to the left. Small world.

Off we go...straight ahead and to the left. Sure enough, we see signs for the international cargo facility. Woo hoo!  Course the driver is not going nearly fast enough for me and he had a habit of driving on the wrong side of the road. At first, I had to ask myself if I'd ever heard that Chileans drive on the left. Then I realized that he was just in unfamiliar territory. Kinda scary with all the big truck driving around. I see a building to our right the has the USDA/SAG sign on it. Hmmm, I think, SAG is an entity that is mentioned and controls the importation of animals and produce into Chile. We pull up to a gate manned by a couple of guys with bright orange vests on. The driver shows them the waybill, my one piece of paper proving that I am there to pick up 135 kilos of dogs plus kennel, and they wave us through. There is a second check point with more serious looking guards. I don't fully understand why there are two guard houses since the second is only separated from the first by about 100 yards and there is nothing but open space in between. The second set of guards have clipboards in hand and a tabletop full of badges behind them. The driver shows them the waybill and they ask for ID for each of us, presumably this is necessary in order to get a badge and a badge is necessary in order to the cargo facility (this is important...more later). I give them my passport and they give me a badge. I clip it on. By this time, I'm on the edge of my seat. My vision is that we get to the cargo facility, hand over the waybill, and they bring the dogs. Wrong answer.

This is where the "fun" starts.

We drive through the facility looking for a Delta Cargo sign. We pass doors 40 to 5...nothing. Finally, on a tiny little sign at the FastAir office, we see Northwest, Korean Air, and, yes, Delta. I jump out of the van with Nancy. My anxiety was rubbing off on Nancy. I've only got this one piece of paper. I should have made a copy. We walk in. There's on person in front of us speaking with the agent at the chin high counter. My foot is tapping. I'm fidgeting. Come on....hurry up! The agent finishes with the person in front of us. Now it's the moment of truth. Can I get my dogs? Nancy hands the person the waybill. He takes it and walks away, back behind the wall behind him. He comes back a minute later and writes 3rd floor on the side of the way bill and points out the door. We think that he's pointing to the office next door. So out we go to the office next door.

As we're walking, I turn and there just inside the door are two GIANT kennels. THE DOGS ARE RIGHT THERE. I'm 40 feet away from them. Riley is hidden behind a pallet of cargo, but I can see Emmett's big head. He's moving about in the crate. The relief to know that they made it is wonderful, but  we still have to deal with the system and get them OUT.

At the office next door, they tell us we need to go across the compound and to the Delta Cargo office on the third floor of a building. Several helpful people are pointing us in the right direction. Our driver pulls up, we hop in the minivan, and off we go to the pedestrian gate. Through the gate, we see only one building. There are no Delta signs. We go in and find the elevator, call it, and step in. The doors open onto a hallway with several nondescript doors. Do we go left or right? We go left. We walk down the dimly lit hallway only to discover no Delta Cargo door. We backtrack and head down the corridor in the opposite direction. We find two doors with Delta/Northwest Cargo on them. We knock on one only to have a passerby point us to the other door. We walk in. There are two counters with agents behind them. The first woman says, "Dos Perros?" Si! Out comes the stack of paperwork, including the International Health and Rabies Certificates! They needed some ID for me as my name was listed as the consignee. Looking back, I probably should have put Nancy's name in that box.  My passport was back at the guard house, Nancy explained. License? Sure...along with $50 US Dollars only...Hmmm..still not sure what the fee was for, but I was happy to have the paperwork in hand. Back to the cargo area.

From the counter, I can again see my dogs. They are quite and probably exhausted. It's now about 9:30 am. They've been in the damn crates forever. Hopefully, I can get them now. Nope says the guy at the counter. We now had to go to the SAG/USDA building, which was back at the vehicle entrance to the cargo facility. Off we go. Back in the van. Ramon drives us back towards the gate on the wrong side of the road, of course, and pulls into a dirt lot inside the fence line. I scratch my head. We have to go out of the fence, but there is no pedestrian gate. We walk by the guard house and ask about SAG. They point us in the right direction. We hurriedly walk to the building, papers in hand, and through the door marked Entrada. We end up in a room full of avocados. Yes, boxes and boxes of them. People are picked through them, I guess they're inspecting them for export to the US. It was a USDA facility as well as a SAG facility. We go right (wrong again). No offices. We go around to the left...a couple of official looking doors with counters. Which one to go through. Two kindly men who were sitting in the hallway in rather institutional looking chairs, nod towards the second door. We open the door and walk in to a cramped office with a counter and several computers. A very nice (and patient) woman who spoke no English takes our papers and hands us two forms to fill out, thick with several layers of carbon paper. As I mentioned, everyone was very nice and helpful. A stranger at the counter helped to translate what the woman behind the counter wanted from us into English. One of the numbers she needed was my passport number and my passport was back at the main gate. Fortunately, all she needed was the number, not the physical passport. US Department of State is very helpful these days. They gave me a card on which I noted my passport number. I whipped that out and wrote it down. Off she goes with the papers saying, "Uno Momento." When she comes back she tells us, through the other customer, that the veterinarian is looking over the paperwork. Ok, I think this is it. Last big hurdle. I had gotten all their paperwork and shots organized and certified before I left. Surely, there could be no issue. For once i was right! Phew!

She disappears for a few moments and comes back with the paperwork and tells us to go next door. We do. There is lots of stamping of the carbon copies, cachunk cachunk cachunk. And there is another fee to pay, which amounted to another $20.  Then she tells us to go to customs. Where is that we wonder....She points. We think we understand, but once again, we're lost.

We hopefully go in to the building across the road....nothing. We speak with the nice guards at the shack. The don't quite understand where we want to go or what the guy in the building told us, so one of them leaves his post and runs into the building we'd just left and comes back with a smile and speaks with the driver, Ramon, who seems to understand. I think the guard was so helpful as he knew that we were trying to get two dos grande perros and he really wanted to see them.

Back into the van and another trip, this time on the correct side of the road, to the pedestrian gate. This time, however, we stay on the secure side and got into a two story building, carefully avoiding the jackhammering that was creating a huge hole at the entrance to the customs building. We climb the stairs to the second floor. Again, a counter. Again, we're woefully unprepared. The woman requests my passport. This one wants the real thing, which is at the vehicle gate with the serious guards. I say that I used the passport to get the badge which allows me to get to this building. She says that it's okay, they will make an exception and give you your passport back. ACK! This was the first time I was truly truly frustrated with the Chilean system. Down the stairs, into the van, back to the vehicle gate.

I trade my badge for my passport. I'm actually feeling a little more secure with passport in hand. Back to the customs office. We hand her my passport. More stamps. Cachunk cachunk. And she hands us only the original waybill, you know, the one they gave me in Atlanta as the only thing I had to prove I had these dos grande perros.  Only now it is full of stamps and signatures and receipts.  Back down the stairs, with the waybill, back in the van, one last trip across the parking lot to the cargo facility.

We jump out of the van and run back into the office. The woman behind the counter was new since we were last here as it's now about 1015 and the place is busy with pick ups and deliveries. We walk up  to her and she takes the waybill. She smiles and says "Dos grande perros," and laughs. Apparently everyone knows the two big dogs now. She does her thing and sends us to the next counter where more stamping and another fee is paid. Out the door to the last stop on our Monty Python escapade. We hand the waybill to the man behind yet another counter, we keep a copy for ourselves, becuase we need one to get the dogs off the secure cargo facility. I look over to where the dogs should be and they're GONE! Where are they...was it so long that they put them in storage...are they buried somewhere deep inside this warehouse. Nope, I guess they saw us coming and moved them out of the hold facility to a bay for pick up. We run out, the bay door opens, and there they are in their crates. They hear me and start barking. Work at the facility stops and the drivers and cargo handlers gather around to see exactly how grande the dos grande perros are.

I open Emmett's crate, fully expected a leap into my arms. He was happy to see me, but he came out slowly, perhaps a bit cramped from the confinement and a bit tired from the trip. I let Riley out. She comes out like a bullet. I could smell why. Poor girl didn't quite make it without an accident. I can't blame her.

The crowd stares wide eyed at the size of my small clydesdales. One or two of the men come over to ask about them and are hesitant, but do end up petting them. I think these may be the first Swissies they've seen here.  I take the pups over to a little sliver of grass across from the facility, where they were overjoyed to relieve themselves.

They'd made it! A bit tired, but not as traumatized as I'd expected (well, at least the dogs weren't traumatized. I can't say the same for me). They came through it well. Now to break down the crates, stuff them in the van, and get the dogs in the car for the five hour journey to La Serena!