Crimes, Punishment, and Other Travel Inconveniences

I was detained by Chilean authorities as I attempted to enter the country. They knew they had me. Now all they needed was for me to confess. I hadn’t thought my actions would lead to this. But, now here I was — alone, waiting for the interrogation. . .

Like life, travel doesn’t always go like you might expect or hope. You learn a lot about yourself and others, however, when something does go wrong. Earlier this year, Lisa broke her wrist on a sailing trip, hours from decent medical care. Our friends rallied, sprang into action, and creatively improvised to get her the help she needed. We learned that we have the world’s best friends.

But, problems don’t usually rise to crisis level. Sometimes it is just a relatively minor inconvenience. One of our travel companions, Sharon, is a life coach. She says that people determine their own happiness by the way they respond to the things that happen to them. I think this is right. You can turn a minor irritation into a major negative and bring everyone down. Or, you can roll with it, see the humor in your situation and create an adventure for yourself.

Sharon has personally tested her theory this week. We were in line to check our bags in Buenos Aires for our flight to Mendoza. Sharon said, “I sure hope my bags don’t get lost. I couldn’t survive without the stuff in my luggage.” (foreshadowing). Well, you guessed it. We got to Mendoza and Sharon’s bag was no where to be found. We later learned it went to Chile and is still having the time of its life somewhere in that country. We’re just not sure where. Well, instead of getting angry and ruining her vacation, she has taken the whole thing in stride. The travel gods tested her further when she went to the store to buy some casual shoes. She tried on the left one — it fit — so she bought them and brought them back to the resort. The next morning as we were getting ready to leave for Chile, we heard she and her friend Laura laughing uncontrollably as they came into the breakfast room. We asked what was so funny. She pointed at the shoes and said, “Two left shoes, no right one.”

Sharon, discovering that she had two left shoes.

I’m not sure I would have had the same patience.

Anyway, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with my trouble getting into Chile. Back to that story.

We landed in Santiago and were transferring to our flight to Calama in the Atacama desert. We had to go through immigration, collect our bags, go through customs, recheck our bags, go back through security, and board our flight to Calama. My issue began when we went through customs.

I handed the agent my customs form and put my bags on that conveyor belt that takes everything through the x-ray. As I was collecting my bags on the other side, one of the agents grabs my backpack and says, “who does this belong to?” I told him it was mine and I came over to see what the problem was. Was I supposed to declare my iPad? Did I leave a dirty pair of underwear in there? Hmmm. He asked, “Do you have any fruit in here?” Uh oh. The nice guide that was with us on our ride to the airport gave us some fruit to bring along because we were going to be traveling through lunch time. I had forgotten that I had thrown contraband in my backpack — (cue dramatic music) an apple. That darned forbidden fruit.

I was immediately ushered over to the area they hold criminals. Lisa looked with panic at her detained spouse. Her parents warned I’d be trouble (I’m sure this was going through her mind at the time). Our tour leader Stephanie threw herself into the fray. She said something in Spanish that I’m sure translated to “I know this guy looks suspicious, but, can you please let him go so we can make our plane?” When that didn’t work I was moved over to another area to answer questions so the customs agent could fill out a form by hand. The form basically said that I claimed no fruit on my customs form and had, in my possession, one apple, .25kg. She showed me the place on the form that indicated this was a misdemeanor and they could lock me up for the better part of the rest of my life. (OK, I exaggerate). I couldn’t deny it because there on the desk, in a plastic baggie to keep whatever ills it contained out of the country, was the evidence — my (cue dramatic music) apple.

Well, after I signed the paper, I was sent back to the holding area and told to wait. There in the waiting area was my fellow traveler and also criminal, Adele. I asked her what she was in for. She had some raisins and nut mix in her possession. Surely that is worse than a single apple. I mean, how many raisins and nuts were in that partial package? Maybe they’ll be satisfied with working her over and letting me go. In the meantime, Stephanie is still working to get us both free. I still couldn’t understand what they were saying (see early blog, Lost in Translation). But, there was a lot of head shaking by the customs guys. I knew that couldn’t be good.

Well, after a while, Adele and I go into a new room and are speaking to separate agents. Mine was a very nice agent who was entering everything on the first form into the computer. She prints it out and proceeds to type something into another form. She asks me if I speak Spanish. I say no and she says her English is not good. I smile and tell her that it’s OK, we can figure it out together. I thought charming her might just work.

Then the customs lady starts the (cue even more dramatic music) interrogation. And, there on the desk was that dreaded baggie with the criminal evidence in it. I’m sunk. I may never see Lisa and the kids again. She gets tough quickly. “Why did you try to bring an apple into the country?” I answer, “Uh, because I thew it in my backpack this morning and forgot it was there.” She says, “Backpack, huh?” I nod. She then fills out a third form on the computer. I looked over and Adele was getting the same third degree questioning from her agent. But, she had tears in her eyes. “Oh, no,” I think. I can’t compete with crying. They’ll book me for sure. Meanwhile, Stephanie was standing outside peeking in to make sure no Geneva Convention rules were being violated.

After the nice agent finishes all the forms she prints them, stamps them, and puts them down in front of me. The first one was a list of the charges — attempting to bring one apple, .25kg, into the country. The second, my confession. The third, my permission to destroy the offending fruit. Since the apple baggie was still sitting on the desk staring at me, I had no choice but to sign.

She then puts a card in front of me that says the minimum fine was $200 US dollars. Whoa, that is the most expensive apple I never got to eat. I begin to reach for my credit card when she say, “No. Since this is your first offense we will charge you nothing.” You are free to go.

“Free? To go? You mean I can see my wife and kids again?” She smiles and nods. I walk out where Adele, her husband Stephen, and Stephanie are waiting. There are ten minutes before our flight is scheduled to leave. Let’s go! As we are heading up the elevator, Stephanie tells me we can catch the next flight in just over an hour. I said, “If we hurry, we can catch this one.” She gave me one of those “Oh you poor, foolish soul” looks and said, “perhaps.” Stephanie is always so polite.

As we got to the check in line there was Lisa waiting for me with our luggage. I had hoped she would have gone ahead and boarded the earlier flight, but, I was so happy to see her. She told me she would never leave without me.

Anyway, Stephanie, Adele, Stephen, Lisa and I had a nice lunch in the airport as we waited for the next flight. We laughed about our plight and vowed never again to carry fruit when we travel. You see, travel, like life, is what you make of it. Things may not always go the way you expect them or want them to go. But, no matter what, it can be an adventure. Enjoy the ride.

Adele and I with our criminal papers.