Tipico Mentirosos

Last November I ordered some stuff in the US for Christmas and sent it to a freight forwarder in Miami to have delivered to Puerto Barrios.  Shipments normally take 7-10 days to arrive, then are brought to the capital where customers pay a pro-rata charge of the total container cost.  It’s a good way to get things here without a great deal of expense or red tape; you don’t have to deal with customs, you just pay the freight company a % of the total cost based on volume and you drive away with your goods.

Well, the week before Christmas, Santiago and I were on the phone daily checking on the status of the container.  You single guys can’t imagine the stress level when you’re a few days before Christmas and the important items are weeks behind and somewhere between Miami and Guatemala City.

Well, on the 22nd we were told the stuff would be in Zone 1 that afternoon, so I worked things out to be gone for the afternoon.  Turns out the stuff didn’t arrive that afternoon.  The next day we were told it would be in the capital the following morning, the 24th.  On the morning of the 24th we were told it was not in the capital and they didn’t know when it would be.  You can imagine my response.  Instead of knowing on the 22nd that I wasn’t going to have important Christmas gifts, I found myself on Christmas Eve not having them.  What is Christmas without a bunch of gifts?  I mean, don’t these guys realize what Christmas is all about?

So anyway, a lot of time, money and stress went into Christmas Eve…’tis the reason for the season, but we got by.  I assumed that the container had simply gotten to Puerto Barrios too close to Christmas and nobody wanted to work, and so it would be after January 6 (Epiphany), before we could get anything.

Well, while this may be Guatemala’s most accurate blog, but even I wouldn’t have given odds on the goods actually being available on January 6th.  However, sure enough we got a call on the morning of the 6th from the transport company saying our goods were in the warehouse and we could pick them up after lunch (that’s 3pm).

Anticipating the amount of cargo, Santiago and I drove separately to the capital, where we discovered Anillo Periferico blocked off, resulting in unbelievable chaos and traffic on Roosevelt and all ancillary calles.  I suggested Trebol but Santiago chose Bolivar Ave and eventually we arrived at a warehouse in Zone 1 and were let inside.

The guy with the clipboard declared that he had the complete manifest and our names and items were not on it, and therefore, he did not have the items.  Santiago’s response reminded me of Fuego the other night when the Wife and I were returning from a night out…even though Fuego was completely shrouded in clouds you could see a red glow at the top.  Only, Santiago angry reminds me of the way Captain Jack Sparrow moves around when under stress.

Anyway, I only caught every third word, but he was explaining how we had been called that morning and told to come down, how the two of us had driven from Antigua, how we had brought two cars, how these things had been in Miami more than six weeks before…and the guy’s response was, “Well, here’s the list, check for yourself”.

Eventually we found a few of the boxes, things belonging to Mrs. Santiago, so that took some of the pressure off him, but the rest of his shipment and all of my stuff were still MIA.  (For those of you in San Pedro La Laguna, that’s ‘Missing In Action’).  A few more phone calls and lots of strong questioning revealed that our stuff wasn’t even in the capital.  It was still in Puerto Barrios, or so someone claimed.

There was no explanation for why, after all these weeks of stonewalling, we would have been told the items were in the warehouse and waiting for us.  There was no explanation for why some stuff was in the capital and some was in the Port, when they all came on the same container.  There were no explanations for anything.  Humorously, one woman said, “But they’ll be here tomorrow, just come back.”

We did get an interesting explanation of how this whole process works, why there is no red tape, where some of the glitches can occur, what paperwork you might want to have ready if you are transporting say, a whole truckload of plasma TVs, and some other interesting tidbits that help explain why 80% of this economy operates underground-or as one of my Chapin friends calls it, ‘informal’, but I wouldn’t have driven to the capital for that lesson, or at least, I would have coupled it with a trip to Pricesmart or something.

On the one hand, I was really…disappointed that I had just blown an afternoon when we had been lied to all along.  On the other hand, how could I really be surprised?  This is the MO (Modus Operandi) here; people lie regularly and even when it’s not necessary.  I’ve been waiting for my stuff for six weeks, they could have easily said it would be another week and it wouldn’t have mattered now, but they called us and told us to come to the capital when the stuff wasn’t even there.  Can you imagine driving from Coban or Xela to pick stuff up and finding out it wasn’t there to begin with?  I’m beginning to understand one element of the high murder rate here…

Manana…yeah right.  Here’s my address, amigo, deliver it to Antigua and I’ll think about paying the agreed upon fee.