Thread: Permission I said when entering ...

One time I was in Argentina it was just for 36hrs while I waited for a flight home. When I flew to Uruguay we flew Latam from Auckland - Santiago - Montevideo as we usually do but I had a Airnz flight home direct from BA to Auckland. I went on the Buquebus ferry from Uruguay to Buenos Aires and went out for dinner and stayed the night at the home of one of the fellas who had worked for us while on his working holiday in NZ. Next day he dropped me off at the airport for my flight home and as I went through customs we hit a problem... When I had got off the ferry they just waved me through customs and didn't stamp my passport or anything so now customs at the airport were quite upset about how I was in the country in the first place. They couldn't let me leave the country without first having proof of how and when I had entered. It got dangerously close to boarding time before I was taken into a room and offered the chance to fix everything for a one off payment of USD $200. I paid the money and they took my passport, came back 5 minutes later and it had a "backdated" entry stamp in it from the day previous and I was free to go. You can fix most things with a bit of currency. I didn't know if I should feel clever I had got a solution to my problem, or stupid that I had quite possibly been hoodwinked out of $200 by some kind of corruption haha

Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst

One time I was in Argentina it was just for 36hrs while I waited for a flight home. When I flew to Uruguay we flew Latam from Auckland - Santiago - Montevideo as we usually do but I had a Airnz flight home direct from BA to Auckland. I went on the Buquebus ferry from Uruguay to Buenos Aires and went out for dinner and stayed the night at the home of one of the fellas who had worked for us while on his working holiday in NZ. Next day he dropped me off at the airport for my flight home and as I went through customs we hit a problem... When I had got off the ferry they just waved me through customs and didn't stamp my passport or anything so now customs at the airport were quite upset about how I was in the country in the first place. They couldn't let me leave the country without first having proof of how and when I had entered. It got dangerously close to boarding time before I was taken into a room and offered the chance to fix everything for a one off payment of USD $200. I paid the money and they took my passport, came back 5 minutes later and it had a "backdated" entry stamp in it from the day previous and I was free to go. You can fix most things with a bit of currency. I didn't know if I should feel clever I had got a solution to my problem, or stupid that I had quite possibly been hoodwinked out of $200 by some kind of corruption haha

Similar-ish thing happened to me.

Flew from Amsterdam to Manchester to spend a few alcohol drenched days with a mate before returning to Amsterdam. Couple days later, at Schiphol ready to fly back to NZ and I'm steaming, accidentally join the EU passport holders lane (empty) instead of the non-EU passport holders (which was long as) and the official looks at me and asks if I'd read the sign. Confidently replied that I had, before I was corrected by her. Oops. Then she asks me if I'm a "time traveler" (WTF?!) and now I'm in DEFCON1 thinking that she knows I'm drunk as and is trying to stitch me up to prevent me boarding. Turns out my passport had been stamped with the wrong date and it needed to be corrected. So now the entire queue of non-EU passport holders is watching me as an armed Customs official leads me away to an office, out of sight.

Didn't need to grease any palms but it was a nervous 20 minute wait while they sorted everything out. Then board the aircraft and am horrified to find that there's no inflight entertainment in the back of the seats and I cannot use my devices, even in flight mode (China Southern). Needless to say that it was a rather grueling flight from Amsterdam to Auckland via Guangzhou...

Corruption and bribery are common in my country ... which disgusts me.
If the solution were in my hands, today there would be more 1/3 of the population condemned to death.

Welcome! What a beautiful country you are from - visited once and would happily go back for more!

Originally Posted by JLF

Corruption and bribery are common in my country ... which disgusts me.
If the solution were in my hands, today there would be more 1/3 of the population condemned to death.

corruption in politicians is worldwide, i wish they were like soccer players and displayed their "sponsors" on their uniform life would be so much simpler
that and mandatory drug testing!!!

Originally Posted by Ryan

Sounds ideal! Gonna need to work on my Spanish, only things I can do is count to 10, say "happy birthday" and hello / goodbye. I know the most important word though - cerveza.

No problem Ryan, you cook the Braais and we can get started on the lessons.

Originally Posted by JLF

Map of the province of Santa Fe. The map resembles a boot, almost on the heel of the boot my hometown can be located.

@JLF A friend of mine is from your state. He lives in New Zealand working with bee hives, prior to that he worked on a dairy farm. If you work in agriculture it's reasonably easy to get a job here (when the borders are open).
Your huge lamb cook offs look amazing.
This forum has many good sorts and if you make it to NZ I am sure you will have many opportunities to go hunting.
@bunji if you make it to Orkland at some stage you are definitely invited for a beer, your only payment would be some PNG stories. The place fascinates me.

Originally Posted by NzMavrick

Welcome! What a beautiful country you are from - visited once and would happily go back for more!

It will be well received