I’ll admit it. Somewhere in the changing of homes from point A to point OMG, I love my new apartment, I lost my driver’s license. I remember having it the day I was going to sign my lease, and then leaving it somewhere (oh where?!) in favor of my carnet, which I needed for legal purposes with the lease.
I puzzled. I turned everything upside down. I even used my mother’s trick of turning a glass upside-down and putting a knife on top to see if it would appear. Answer: No. I turned things over and over again, and came to the conclusion that in fact, I had lost my license.
Now, I don’t generally drive. In fact, that’s a terrible overstatement. I don’t drive at all. But for reasons known mainly to the Smith clan and which I will not go into detail about here, during a trip I will make in the coming month to the states, it would be good (for some, if not all), if I could get behind the wheel and hit go. I understand they like you to have a license to do that. And I used to have a Chilean one. And it was a giant struggle to get it, which involved great gnashing of teeth and incredulity that I had to prove that I’d graduated from the eighth grade, and no, showing my law school diploma would not suffice, and oh, I was angry, like pre-decaffeination angry. It seems I never wrote up the story, a shame, for sure. Trust me, it was ugly. And I mean feo.
Anyway, so, driver’s license lost, canna find. What’s a girl to do? A girl is to follow the following gazillion steps.
1. Find appropriate website using the words “Santiago, lost driver’s license” (in Spanish). Discover that the website does not tell you what to do if you have lost your license.
2. Call the number on the website to see what you need to replace the DL. Corroborate that yes, despite my accent, it is a Chilean DL I am replacing. (Answer, paper from the notary, paper from the police station, photocopy of carnet, front and back, patience, and a buncha cash).
3. Go to a notary to get some piece of paper that swears that I am replacing my license because I lost it, and not because it was taken from me due to a moving violation, etc. Actually, I have no idea what the paper said. I arrived, took a number, and said, I lost my DL, there’s some paper I need to fill out. This took about 5 minutes, and cost 2,000 CLP (about four dollars).
4. Go to the police station and file a paper there swearing that I had lost my driver’s license (not sure how this differs from the first paper). This would have taken 10 minutes except the guy typed my name wrong, despite holding my carnet at the time he was typing. Free!
5. Make a photocopy of your carnet, back and front. 100 pesos (overcharged!).
6. Bike over bright and early to the Transportation Authority building, painted a mustard yellow, and stand in line with all the other folks who have license issues or some court-related issue to deal with. (this office is open from 8:30 to 11:30 AM).
7. Run to the back right of the building to get to the place where they give out the number.
8. Wait for the guy with the numbers to put the coil of numbers into the machine, while the guy behind you chants “numerito, numerito” (little number, little number).
9. Listen to announcement reiterating what you need for most license issues, including making photocopies, and there’s a person with a photocopier right outside. Watch several number-waiters run away to make requisite copies.
10. Take a number and wait.
11. Go up when your number is called, but find out you can only go to window 5 for your particular issue. Perch by window 5 making the “this much” sign with your fingers to mean I need to talk to you for a second to explain to the woman that she should see you next (if she is busy with another customer).
12. Go to window 5, give the person (probably a woman) your carnet, your two hard-won pieces of paper and the photocopy. Get a chit to take to the cashier to pay for your idiocy (price: 10,810 (about $22 US, ouch).
13. Pay the fee. Here I screwed up and waited on the wrong cashier’s line. I suggest you skip this step, and would like to imagine that I skipped it myself.
14. Get called for a photo.
15. Discuss how the lighting is wrong for someone as pale as myself. Take a couple of photos and tell the guy to have a nice day.
16. Wait 45 minutes.
17. Get called to window 1 to sign a piece of paper (your future license) twice, one time very, very small.
18. Wait 35 minutes
19. Hear your name called and pick up your license.
20. Wrap it in gold cloth and bury it in your cactus/yard so you never lose it again. Some snark intended.
Celebrate Bureaucracy!
Horrible! I was planning to get my Chilean license earlier this year… until I went to the DMV and discovered the process that you’ve already been through. I also argued the point that I have a certified, legalized, duplicoplicated, perforated, gilt-edged copy of my diploma and that, surely, it means I passed the 8th grade. They said it’s a matter of proving that you’re literate. (The fact that my diploma doesn’t prove I’m literate casts some doubt on their own intelligence, I must say.) I asked, “So why not offer a literacy test?” They had no answer to that. So if Joe Blow wasn’t lucky enough to finish the 8th grade, he can never get a license – even if he’s fully literate, owns the biggest bank in Chile, and developed the solution to cold fusion. Aching bureaucracy indeed!
I was able to get my license in the end by getting it in Santiago Centro, but there I had to bring a lease showing that I lived there to the comisaría to get some piece of paper to show that I lived in Santiago. Ugh! what an enredo. Maybe whereever M’s “home comuna” is would be better? Idiocy, sheer idiocy. Also, if your cert. is xlated and legalized, they should accept it. My theory is that Provi won’t accept anyone if you’re not going to pay for your permiso de circulación there. grrrrr.
There’s actually a respectable reason for requiring an 8th grade education (no excuse for the excessive bureaucracy though!). It’s an incentive for some kids to at least finish 8th grade. I remember an article on Chile’s Roma (gypsy) community and how all the boys were anxious to finish 8th grade because their biggest aspiration was to be able to drive!
I am willing to believe that you should have graduated from the 8th grade to be able to drive a vehicle. I am not willing to believe that the hardheaded funcionario of the municipalidad could not tell that my law degree, or maybe it was a letter from my university, and a carnet that said visa sujeto a contrato, which contract I could only get as a college graduate, most of which items were obtianed in the United States, did not at the very least equal an eighth grade ecucation here in Chile! And no use of the future subjunctive in my foreign language would convince him!
Hehe. Your blog always makes me giggle!
It sounds like quite the mission!
P.s You’re hilarious! Thanks so much for posting!! 🙂
thanks. I’m glad my bureaucracy could bring you joy. The good news is, whenever something ridiculous like this happens to me, I think, wait wait, I’ll blog it!
Thanks for commenting!
This made me giggle. I could so relate to the special joys of bureaucracy! And I love your attempts to get a decent photo. I’m betting you were so white you were practically glowing! I loved my official pics in Mauritania–they used their photo chemicals for years after they should have changed them, and I was always a pleasant sort of raspberry colour.
Oh, what a drag. I thought it was much simpler than that. I need to take extra good care of my license then.
Pff.. sacar la licencia es atrosh acá.. yo hice el curso dos veces antes de sacarla solo porque me dio paja recolectar todos los papeles… aunque a mi me aceptaron mi certificado de alumno regular de la u en vez de la licencia de octavo… who knows where that is…
En todo caso el PEOR tramite en Chile… es tratar de sacar un pase escolar/cualquier documento nuevo después del 18 de Sept… la correlacion entre 18 de sept VS perdida de documentos es cercana a 1, no se por que xD …
te has dado cuenta que acá cuando te roban la billetera, toda la gente llora por sus documentos perdidos y no por la plata… es por estas webadas 🙂
I couldn’t help but chuckle while reading this post because it’s exactly the sort of experience one might have here in Argentina. Upon completion of my residency paperwork, I plan to apply for an Argentine driver’s license. I figure that the license should be a drop in the bucket compared to all the other paperwork I’ve done this year to get married and apply for residency!
I’m glad it all worked out for you in the end – now hold on to that new license for dear life!
You guys definitely have it worse in Argentina, paperwork wise, I’m convinced. Hope getting the license won’t be too terrible!
I know someone else who lost their license and had to go through all of this (as well as yell at a few people)…remind me never to lose my license in Chile. Oh yeh, I probably won’t get a license!
There’s a battery of tests you have to go through, and reacting when a red light comes on and moving little magnetic items through a maze using calipers are among them. I think if you can do that, they’ll let you drive. I don’t remember a vision test, per se. I’m sure you’ll get it all figured out, Sara!
In Vietnam, the photographer kindly photoshops your passport photo to make you whiter. Whether you ask for it or not. Free of charge!
what if you’re already ghostly? Also, ick!
Do you have a profile on facebook? I cannot seem to discover Ow, My Aching Bureaucracy, or Don’t Lose your Driver’s License in Chile | Bearshapedsphere on the website and I would like to connect with you there. I like your writing style, thanks Yardley Frost