A PERSONAL STORY:
Let's just say that this story is mine. And if the authorities look for a Napoleon Bonaparte in their records, there's a possibility that it WON'T lead to me.
(1) I've been here for a few years.
(2) I've never stayed over the 90 days. Colonia, USA, Brazil, Uruguay (proper), Immigration office, and even one trip to Paysandu have kept me legal.
(3) I flew to the States with about a week to go in August. I was under the 90 day limit, but I'm not going to say which day I left or on which airline.
(4) I've had extra pages put into my passport because I was running out of space.
LEAVING BAIRES:
The girl checking me before I went to the airline counter was about 25 years old. Usually I joke around with these people and they tend to find me fairly amusing. This girl didn't like me from the get-go.
She flipped through my passport and saw a million stamps. She was not happy. She couldn't find my most recent entrance stamp even though I told her the exact page it was on. (One of the letter pages from the added pages.) I offered to help her find it. She told me that she didn't need help. I countered that perhaps she did, because she had missed the stamp the first time.
She asked me which airline I came in on last. I told her that I last came into Argentina via a car. (The truth) She was upset I didn't have some kind of piece of paper that you are supposed to retain from your flight. (I didn't know what she was talking about.)
She mentioned that my plane ticket said that I was going to return. I acknowledged as much. She asked me why I was returning, I told her that I was taking an photography course. She didn't like that I had a legitimate excuse, but she accepted it. She let me pass.
The airline, the passport/ticket checker upstairs, security (which was a joke), and immigration after that all had absolutely NO PROBLEM with me leaving the country.
A lazy bastard in Duty Free caused me to not be able to buy some wine & liquor because the cutoff for my flight had passed. They're slow, so get there plenty early if you are considering buy a liquid at Duty Free.
RETURNING TO BAIRES:
I returned to Buenos Aires at the start of this week. I was bringing in some appliances (router, blender, Crock Pot, Brita Water Filter...) and over US$5,000 worth of recently purchased photo equipment from the USA.
I put UV filters on the all of the new lenses, I used both cameras, the memory cards not only had photos on them, but the first photos were NOT "001", "002", "003"... This equipment was in a camera backpack that also had a space for my 3.5 year old laptop. I had kept the backpack in the trunk of the car I was driving around in in the States so that it would get some wear. It worked. It looked relatively new, but NOT new.
My plane arrived and I went through the USA/Canada/????? line where they try to charge you the (now) US$140.00. (I paid US$131.00 6 months ago.) But when the guy easily found my stamp, he quickly motioned me on through. Then the person at Immigration quickly stamped an empty page from the inserted pages and didn't even ask me one question.
Then I went to collect my bags. There wasn't a single cart because there were a ton of people who had just landed. I think that this played into my favor, because when I finally got into one of the 3 or 4 ADUANA lines to run my stuff through an X-Ray machine, I was about the 50th or 60th person in my line.
About two people in front of me there was a guy with a box containing about a 42" Flat Screen TV (or bigger) and he had a little trouble placing the thing on the conveyor belt, but they didn't hassle him.
When it was my turn, I place my two checked bags (with 4 pounds of coffee, a blender, a crock pot...) on the conveyor belt and then my two carry on bags (router, books, & Brita in one and CAMERA EQUIPMENT AND my laptop in the other).
I gave the guy my declaration sheet that had the US$176 worth of items that I was declaring and he looked to see that something had been written on it, and put it on a pile and looked to the next person.
I walked out of there like a free man walking out of prison. I was pretty sure that I had made it, but you never know until you go through the sliding doors. But I walked through those and that was it.
At least one other big plane had just arrived from overseas and I think that they were overwhelmed at the time. They didin't want anything more than to get people through the lines. And that's why I don't think I had any problems.
BUT, I started the the FBI & Birth Certificate processes while I was in the States so that (1) I would get that stuff going and (2) Know what to say if I was questioned upon my return. I didn't know if it would help, but I'm at least going to look for a way to get a visa besides a 90 day one.
It might be too late to satisfy the insecurity of my (now) ex-girlfriend (porteña), but if it comes up again in the future with a girl or "The MAN", I want to be prepared.
