Interpol now has a file on me.

Captain's log: Stardate 05021.6

You may remember from one of my past posts, that we need to get a specific purpose visa before we can get our year long visa. So we've been working towards that. One of the requirements is a police record from your home country. According to migration we can use an interpol police record if we need to. That has been our main goal these past few weeks.

The requirements for an interpol certificado de antecedentes are:

1. A letter written by a lawyer to the director of Interpol, stating we would like a certificado de antecedentes.
2. A colour photocopy of our passport's ID page, entry stamp, and visa slip.
3. 4 photographs against a red background in 4x3 format. 3 Profile, 1 half profile looking left.
4. A photocopy of our National ID (not needed as we don't have national ID cards).
5. A photocopy of a certificado de antecedentes from the FELCN (drug trafficking police).
6. Marriage certificate Legalised in the country of issue at the Bolivian consulate, and in Bolivia too. (Not applicable luckily)
7. A photocopy of our rent contract (confirmed by a notary).
8. A photocopy of the deeds to the property you live in.
9. A photocopy of the owner of the property's ID, signed by the owner.
10. Photocopies of power and water bills, and taxes.
11. A photocopy of your student certificate (not applicable).
12. A photocopy of your work contract (volunteering in our case).
13. A sworn declaration of financial solvency from a notary.
14. Separate deposits of 50 Bs and 15 Bs into Interpol's bank account.
15. The original documents to back up the photocopies.

Of course this isn't listed on Interpol's website, oh wait they don't have a Bolivian website. You have to go to the office, oh wait, where is the office? So yeah that was the first step, finding the office, eventually we found that in an old petrol station a bit out of town, and got the above details (by taking a photo of a piece of paper outside).

So looking through that list, the first thing seems to be the certificado de antecedentes from the FELCN. They actually have a website! Which lists the requirements as:

1. A letter written by a lawyer to the director of the FELCN.
2. A photo in 4x4 format against a red background, in profile.
3. Two photocopies of your passport's ID page.
4. Your passport (to show).
5. A deposit of 25 Bs into their bank account.

So first we found ourselves a lawyer who our friend warned us may well try and convince us just to bribe interpol. From him we got two a letter for interpol and a letter for the FELCN stating that we were living at Sustainable Bolivia's volunteering house, as that's what SB put on our initial application for the visa de cortesia. Costing 40 Bs per letter each.We also got some photos taken, and photocopied a bunch of stuff. After that we paid money into to the bank account listed on the FELCN's website.

What the website doesn't say is where their office is in Cochabamba, so we ask a bunch of people and take the consensus (since we got about 4 different replies), and got a taxi across town to a centre of police offices next to the FELCC (where I went 3 times when my phone was stolen). Turns out it isn't there, so we got a taxi all the way back across town to the FELCN's office, which actually was there, however was not where they issue the certificates. So we get another taxi back across town again to near the airport, to transito which is where the certificates are now issued.

Finally there, we present our documents and find out that actually we paid the money into the La Paz office's account (we had checked that this was OK with our lawyer first). So another taxi takes us to the bank, where we wait some more, and make another deposit. The final taxi takes us back where we actually get issued with the certificate straight off. Not sure if they actually checked anything or not, but we know have a certificate with our photo and thumb prints stating that we are not drug traffickers!

Then we head to SB and ask them about the rest of the certificado de antecedentes requirements for interpol. Remember the one saying that we need the deeds to the house we live in? Well turns out SB hadn't been bothered to read the e-mail we sent them, and actually they can't provide the deeds, because the lady who owns the house doesn't have them... So we wait a few days over the weekend and go to interpol with SB's lawyer to check, and sure enough .. yes you actually need all the documents that are listed as being required ... who'd have thought it.

Suffice it to say, we are even more pissed off with SB than normal, they do try and be helpful, but seem to fall short at every hurdle. Remember we paid $485 each to get the visa de cortesia through them, and pay them $150 each per month, for the privilege of working. Oh and on the note of SB, it's carnival this weekend, SB were offering a "fantastic" package for only $150 with accomodation, travel, seats, VIP area, etc... with the wonderful accommodation option of the floor of a restaurant, but don't worry, there's a lady around the corner that sells cardboard for you to sleep on! Oh and they throw in a free rain poncho and a whistle!!!! Lets say I ranted a fair bit about this, and decided that I was not going. Amy has actually just left for carnival although with a different group that charged about $110 and actually provides a bed.

Also on the note of carnival the chamber of heavey freight are protesting against taxes ATM (yes a government agency protesting) and there are road blocks all over the country and the cities. Amy was meant to leave early this morning, but was delayed 13 hours due to the buses not being able to go. Oh and when there's road blocks here, people set of dynamite charges, so there's been lots of quite load bangs across the city for the last few days. Not sure if the situations been resolved or not, but Amy's off, we'll see if she actually makes it there or not.

So back on topic, we found that we can't actually use the FELCN certificate we just got, because it has the address on, and it needs to match the address on the deeds that we provide to interpol. So we take a week off so that we don't go back to the FELCN 2 days later and ask for another certificate at a different address. We check with the family we are living with if they have and will provide everything we need, and then we go to a lawyer and get the two FELCN and two interpol letters written again (another 40 Bs per letter each), do some more deposits and go back to the FELCN (luckily we know where it is now). We get another certificate with no issues, explaining that we moved as we couldn't get the deeds to the over place. Now we have two FELCN certificates, definitely not drug traffickers!

We then return to the lawyer and get a rent contract drawn up (200 Bs), sign it, and go down the street to a notary who charges us 60 Bs to stick our thumb prints on it and stamp it. While at the notary we get our sworn declaration of financial solvency (she didn't even look at my bank statements). That was another 60 Bs each, plus some more for a few photocopies.

We pick up the deeds, and bills and owner's ID and with the help of the mum of our family (a lawyer) we get everything photocopied and what not. Then run off to SB to get the work contracts, which their lawyer had signed Amy's but forgotten mine. So we wait until the next morning and head back, get that signed, photocopy some more stuff, and go to interpol who say everything is good, so then we get the go ahead to go back to the back and pay the deposits in. Returning back to interpol we go through all the documents and they actually get accepted. 

Finally there was just the matter of taking my fingerprints (not just my thumb print, all of them), every single fingertip was dyed blue for the rest of the day, and asking me to write down my UK address and parents' names. (Mum, Dad, if anyone asks then that's why).

So now all that's left is for us to wait 10 to 12 working days and go back and pick it up (assuming it's actually ready by then).

Once we have it, then all we need to do is apply for the Specific Purpose visa which we can either do here or go back to Puno in Peru (another 14 hours each way in buses, assuming there aren't more roadblocks). It costs $85 in Puno, and more here, although we don't know how much more, some say it'll be about $450, others say about $100... who knows. Oh and we also need more paperwork for that, although hopefully it's easier to obtain. The main thing is they also want the sworn declaration of financial solvency backed up with 6 months of bank statements. Obviously the only bank statements we have are printed from online banking or printed scans. Hopefully they'll accept that. With how it's going, we'll go to Puno, spend 5 days waiting, find out it's been rejected because our bank statements are printed, and then we'll not be allowed to return to Bolivia.

We'll make the Puno VS here decision in the next couple of weeks.

So yeah visa are FUN!

Here's a baby Elephant from when I was in Thailand in October 2014 to take your mind off visas.

Other than that I've been improving my OpenGL's pipeline and doing some interesting stuff wit that. Once I've got a bit further I'll probably do a blog post talking about that and showing images of what I've got. I've also been reading the wheel of time by Robert Jordan which consists of 14 books each of about 1000 pages each, I'm on book 7 now, almost halfway through, at a rate of one book per week. With which:

May you always find water and shade.