Papers, please

Until this year, the United States required Chileans to have a visa to enter the country. In return, Chile charged a reciprocity fee of $160 for US citizens to enter Chile. We paid the life-of-the-passport entrance fee at the Santiago airport when we arrived last February, and those receipts were stapled to our passports. (Air Canada wouldn't let us pay ahead of time to enter Chile. When we flew Air Canada to Argentina, on the other hand, they would not let us board the plane without paying ahead of time. I gather the Argentine authorityes are very difficult to work with). In March of 2014, the US added Chile to the Visa Waiver Program, so Chile stopped charging the reciprocity fee to US Citizens.

1. Hooray! I want it to be easier for everyone to go to Chile! From Patagonia to the Atacama Desert, it is truly some of the most amazing and dazzling landscape on this planet. Seriously, folks. Go there.

2. It actually looks like Chile stopped charging the fee three days after we arrived. Um, huh. I would have spent that money on more empanadas, sea food, vino, or pudding cups. Or! I would have spent more money at Lapiz Lopez, the office supply chain I frequented and adored.

While the reciprocity fees have changed, each country still has a 90-day limit for tourists. Chile's way of enforcing this limit is to issue tourist cards at the airport, then collect them on the way out. Before the trip I couldn't find any information about what the cards looked like -- only that YOU CANNOT LOSE IT.  It turns out that the tourist card is a carbon paper form that is filled out by hand (on a bumpy descent into Santiago, which meant that I had really bumpy handwriting to look at for the first three months), then date-stamped at the immigration station. Because it was a flimsy piece of paper, I wanted to secure it to my passport. Finding tape in Chile that was actually sticky turned out to be a bigger challenge than one would expect, but that's what I did to keep my tourist card secure.

When we did leave (both times), my customs officers counted out on their fingers how long I had been there. You'd think they would have a "before this date..." sign at the customs stations or something, but that would be too efficient.