Yammering On

So months without a peep, and now  there's lots to talk about!

Today we met with a facilitator who assists we gringos through the forest known as Inmigracion.  With all the recent changes in the last couple of years, we need it!

Last year they hadn't implemented the new laws, so we did it ourselves, using the services of an Escritorio Publica across the street from the Inmigracion building.  For a small fee, they wrote our letter for us (in Spanish), created the paperwork for the bank, took our pictures, et cetera.  Quick and easy.

However, the new procedures have now been implemented, so we're using the services of someone who knows their way through that forest.  The news wasn't all that we had hoped for (going directly to Residente Permanente without the 4 years as a Temporal under our belts would have been nice), but at least we now know what we can do and how to do it.

We've even got a schedule of when we go back to him (our visas don't expire until August), what we'll be doing this year and next (Residente Termporal this year; Permanente next year), how we'll deal with the fact that we're going to be out of the country on our expiration date both years, and the fees that we will be responsible for paying.

So it's a transition to Residente Temporal this August and then to Residente Permanente next August.  We can begin the process this year in July and request a permit to be out of the country without a 'real' visa in our hands.  Next year we'll leave the country with a 'real' visa still in our hands, but it will expire during our cruise, so we have to work within the guidelines to make it legal and make the transition to Permanente.

Of course, once we reach Permanente status, that's the last visa we need  -- no more renewals to pay for, no limits to how long we can be out of the country and still maintain our visa.  Guess we'll live making the changeover in 2014 instead of 2013.  There's supposed to be a points system that can be combined with years in-country, but no one has even written the guidelines for that process. We should be permanent before it sees the light of day.