For any foreigner residing in Ecuador for more than three months you must get your passport registered and a censo card within 30 days of landing. A censo card is like a driver's license. It identifies everything about you and also has your most hideous mugshot in the top left corner, but doesn't allow you to drive. You whip out this baby on almost every occasion- from grocery shopping, to buying a new pair of shoes, to reserving a room at a hotel, to paying rent. For now, I'm using my old censo until I get my new one. I forgot the feeling of power and belonging I feel everytime I reach inside my pink paisley wallet to retrieve it. Without it, you're just a tourist with maybe a week left of your vacation before you have to head back to the rat race in the States. With censo in hand, you're basically an Ecuadorian, and it symbolizes you're here to stay for as long as you want and the country is open to you...as soon as you can hack your way through the red tape to avoid deportation, of course.
So Joe, Carlie and I went to Quito two weeks ago to register our visas and get our censos under the 30 day requirement. Well, as soon as we returned from the 4 hour bus ride back to Tena, our lawyer emails to inform me that I don't have any free passport pages, so it can't be registered. I had to make an appointment, he said, with the American Embassy to get new pages, then bring it back to him to redo the whole process. The registration takes two whole days in which they keep your passport in limbo somewhere between Quito heaven and hell. Afterwards you can finally get your censo. So Joe and Carlie got theirs registered, came back to Tena, went back to Quito without me two days later, had to go to the police station to report their old censos stolen (long story in itself), and finally get their new 2011 censos.
I had to admit, I was jealous. They were done with the whole mess and I couldn't even get an appointment until a week and a half later. Finally it was my turn to return back to Quito. Carlie came with me. We traded in our tank tops and shorts and packed jeans, hoodies, and llama wool scarves. At night it easily dips into the 40s. At 7am Wednesday morning we rode with friends to Quito who were just doing some shopping there for the day. They dropped us off at Andino hotel and later that evening we met up with Jessamyn who was in Quito with her visiting dad and grandma who were leaving the next day from the Quito airport. Her dad treated us all to pizza at a really nice Italian restaurant down the street.
The next morning after the free breakfast at the hotel (coffee, eggs, fruit, juice, and fresh bread) Carlie and I rode the Ecovia (Quito trolley system) to the American Embassy. We had some time to kill and there were some shops nearby, so we hung around for a while at the Ecuadorian version of Bed, Bath, & Beyond. After a hot lunch in a nearby tienda, we went back to the Embassy where we had to wait in a waiting room watching Vampire Diaries for no less than three hours. I had an appointment, but they claimed they were short on staff and I was waiting long enough to start counting the cracks in the wall. Three hours, several VD episodes and $82 later, I walked out of there with about five new pages taped into my passport book. Seriously?! I could have had Juan Valdez de Ambato tape in some note-book paper pages with a hand-drawn U.S. flag for an English lesson and a Fanta. Time to drop off the new-and-improved passport at the lawyer's office, which would close at five. It was four.
Carlie and I spent at least twenty minutes trying to figure out which trolley at the station to take back to the lawyer's office-- a 15 minute ride north. Every person we'd ask help from gave us a different answer in mumbled Spanish but we figured it out. By the time we arrived at the office, it was just about to close and the lawyer (who is a Brother) had already left for the day. Thankfully, his receptionist (who is a Sister) was able to phone him and let him know that I would be leaving my passport there on his desk. He told her to inform me that he'd re-register it tomorrow and it would be ready for pick-up Monday or Tuesday. Yes, folks, if you've paid attention you know that that means I have to come back to Quito AGAIN next week to get my registered passport and my censo. No, folks, I don't have the money to stay at the hotel and eat at restaurants until all that stuff is done next week. And I'm not even sure I'd want to if I had the money. Quito might as well be New York City to me, and I was missing my humble jungle hut, complete with a hammock in the dining room.
By this time it was getting towards the end of a long and very stressful day. The lawyer's office, however, is located just one block from a very huge and fancy mall, Quicentro. So we walked over there and ate the most "American" dinner we could find at the Food Court: Taco Bell. Well, there also was a Sbarro, Burger King, TGIF's to-go, and Pizza Hut, but Carlie was craving stale tacos and cinnomin twists. I figured since I drug her all through this horrible experience with me, the least she deserved was the Taco Bell Socio Pack: 4 tacos, 2 drinks, cinnomin twists and chili cheese fries. Mmm. We shared it and she was thrilled. I was disgusted and got a migraine. Then we spent the next hour or so window shopping. Quicentro Mall is waaaay nicer than any mall I've been to in the States, and on the second floor it had a live band playing all the Christmas hits. When you live in the Amazon and it's 100 degrees every day, you forget it's almost time for fake Santa to return. Anyway, we took a taxi back to the hotel and watched the rest of Dr. Who season 1 on Netflix.
The next morning, (today), we ate breakfast and I went ahead and made my hotel reservations for next week. The owner, Miguel, was very pleased I'd be spending more money at his hotel next week, so he gave me a big discount. Then I took a twenty minute taxi to the bus stop where the Tena bus passes by. Four hours later and two Spanish Disney movies on the bus later, I was stripping off the pants and coat to throw back on the old tank-top and flipflops enssemble.
Carlie and I caught up with Joe over the goings-on of the last two days over lunch at Restaurante Lucy. The restaurant, like the rest of our city, was also out of water so when we got home we still couldn't take a shower or flush the toilets. "Welcome home". See you in Quito again next week!
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