Backpacking South America

Life is full of new experiences, especially when traveling in a different country.  Usually you should allot twice as much time to get anywhere and anticipate spending twice as much on just about everything, including mail.

Ok, so the post office isn’t a daily venture for me in “real life.”  The mail COMES to my house; I can BUY stamps from a machine; and I usually don’t MAIL things because the things I would MAIL, I would MAIL to the people I SEE.

But, in this life of travel, at times we have come across a few things we really like and would like to buy either for ourselves or for someone else.  However, we’re traveling with only ONE backpack each, so, “think small” – the things we would like to buy need to be small.  Well, over time, we’ve accumulated a few SMALL things.  We off-loaded a few with our friends in Salta, but accumulated a few more items that were impossible to continue to carry with us.  No, it’s not wine, however, I keep telling Jared those bottles really aren’t that big (but when thinking SMALL, we also need to consider weight).  It’s tricky.

In any case, we decided to attempt the post office and found ourselves on a new adventure.  It was Amazing Race meets bureaucratic nightmare.  We had anticipated that a trip to the post office could take a better part of the day.  When we studied in Buenos Aires, a classmate sent a package to his grandchildren in Germany and he said that he and his wife spent 4 hours at the post office.  “You’ve got to be kidding!” was all I could think.  I guess when you anticipate spending 4 hours at the post office, anything less really isn’t that bad.  In any case, we weren’t quite sure if we would need to bring a box, if they provided a box or if we could buy a box…somewhere.

We went to the post office one afternoon and determined which line we needed to be in – International Mail.  Got it.  When we got to the counter we told the man that we had a few things that we needed to mail to the States, but that we didn’t have a box.  He told us that we could buy a box from the post office and buy some packing supplies outside and that we would need to go down the street to the corner and on the 2^nd floor of that building is where we can mail international packages.  However, they are closed right now.  They are only open for 3 hours in the morning (it was afternoon at this point).

Okay, no big deal, we’ll deal with this tomorrow when they reopen.  So the next day, first thing in the morning, we head to the building where you can ship packages internationally, which is actually on the third floor one block away from the post office.  We get there and they tell us that we need to go to the post office to purchase the box.  So, we descend three flights of stairs, walk a block to the post office and stand in line to purchase a box.  We get the box and they tell us that there is a kiosk in front of the post office where we can purchase brown paper (We thought the paper was to stuff the box and protect the contents, but apparently, it was to wrap the outside of the box) and tape.  Tape – are you kidding me?  I have to purchase a big roll of packing tape?

So, we pack up our things, purchase brown paper, not tape – hoping the ladies will have mercy on us and share their tape with us, and return to the office of international packages (which is really on the 3^rd floor – very hot day, no AC).  We get there.  We show the ladies what we are mailing.  We put it in the box with paper for cushioning and they fuss that it’s not protected well enough.  (Are you kidding me?  It’s my package!)  So, they also ask if we have tape and more paper to wrap around the outside of the box because it’s cheaper to send a package without any markings on it, just as a brown paper box.  So, we plead with them to use some tape, but they had no mercy on us.  So, Jared ran down the stairs (again), walked the block to the Kiosk to buy more brown paper and tape.  Now, we’re sweating…I fuss with the ladies and the scale to get the box to the weight we want so we don’t pay an excessive amount of money (too late for that).  The one lady is convinced our things are going to break, so she steps into another office and comes back with some Styrofoam type thing and sticks it in our box.  We fuss a little more with the weight, take out a few items, and then wrap that baby up, finish the paperwork and “listo” – an hour and half later we’re finished (please keep in mind there wasn’t a line).

In the meantime, several foreigners showed up and since we were further along in the process, we were asked to explain the process to them.  For one couple, it was their 4^th attempt to try to ship something and they were still confused as to why you had to buy all the supplies elsewhere, and then come to the third floor of some building to ship it.  They left and were resigned to try the whole thing again for a 5^th time…  Then another foreigner came, he was a bit more organized, but didn’t have the brown paper or tape to wrap his box.  We felt his pain and gave him our left over brown paper and tape.  We definitely have a newfound appreciation for the orderly, if slow Jamaica Plain post office.

Think about it – imagine a post office where you can ship anything you want either domestically or internationally and where all the shipping supplies are in one place.  The world would be just a little bit more perfect.  Wait – there wouldn’t be any lines either.