MUNGO EATS Latin America

Today marked step one of the shipping process, well I guess step two if you count finding a shipping company as step one.  To leave the country we need to get the cops involved.  At the police station, which was no where as scary as it was on Saturday, an officer comes out, checks your paperwork from when you entered the country, to make sure the same vehicle is leaving.  He then gives you a report, which you bring to office number two, the Secretary General.  The Secretary General, as far as I know, checks to see that the vehicle was not involved in any traffic violations.  When they are satisfied with this, they give you a different little form.  Form after form, after form.  We actually had to buy a little accordion type file folder a few countries back to keep everything organized.  Not only do you have to have the original paperwork, van registration, trailer registration, driver’s license, international  driver’s license, passport, dog vaccine certificate, dog rabies certificate, dog health certificate, dog parasite control certificate…blah, blah, blah, but we also have to have copies of ALL these documents, because every office you go to has to keep a copy for themselves.  Crazy!!

Anyway, step one and two went off without a hitch.  We now have 1 out of 2 papers in our possession that say we can leave the country. 

Our other big task of the day was to find a dog kennel  for Mungo, so that  he could fly to Colombia with us.  This task was a little annoying, especially knowing that we have 2 perfectly fine dog kennels at home, suitable for flying a beasty in.  When we were planning what to bring on the trip, we just couldn’t wrap our heads around “packing” a big dog crate.  We did bring a cloth, foldable dog crate with us, but this is not good enough to fly in.  We also had hoped that we could rent a crate from the airline (an option the cheapo airline gave us),  but unfortunately the upscale airline didn’t rent crates.  Now we are the proud owners of three large dog crates, plus a foldable crate.  That is a lot of confinement for one dog!!  Maybe we will have to get more dogs when we get home. 

Mungo had a fun, if exhausting day today.  He went for his usual morning walk, and when we got back from our walk, the hostel’s 7 month old puppy, wanted to play.  The puppy is actually pretty brave, not put off by Mungo’s size at all.  I am not sure Mungo realized how hard it would be to race around with a puppy in this heat.  Tonight he is exhausted.  The puppy is till begging for more.