I'm ready to go and leaving this afternoon. I finally finished getting everything yesterday, so my life has been a bit of a circus for the last week or so. I have been visiting with everyone I had not seen at Christmas and trying to finish getting ready. For example, I read a couple of weeks ago that I needed a tourist visa for Brazil. So I went to the consulate in Toronto. It was closed (at 2 pm); they are only open until 1. So I went back the next week (Jan 9). I got there, and needed to leave again to get a money order -- nothing else was acceptable (even cash!). The woman behind the desk was such a witch. The next problem she had was that I don't have a plane ticket home, I explained that I didn't know when I was coming home, or from which country. Finally after lots of arguing she allowed me to write all my plans down (I am flying into Venezuela traveling by bus to Brazil, then continuing on to Argentina and Chile also by bus and so on...). She accepted that, and looked at my ticket to Venezuela and said that the earliest my visa could be ready was the 24th (I leave on the 25th). This had me quite worried, because I thought they may have to send it to the embassy in Ottawa to get the visa. But no, she is just a mean lady, I picked up the visa yesterday with no troubles and it was ready on the 12th!!
Then last night I decided that I should verify that I do not need any other visas (that i cannot get at the borders) for any other countries (I have looked this up in my LP guides already). So just to be sure I checked the Government of Canada website. Looked up the country forms for each place I am going to, and checked to see if there was any other helpful information and I got great tidbits of advice like: Always cross at official border crossings; Don't climb a volcano without a guide. I love how helpful the government is!
Oh well, now everything is done and done! So I am ready to go. Once I get to South America I will start posting more pictures.
No comments:
Post a Comment