A Letter In Your Back Pocket: Your Key To The Developing World

July 10, 2007

The developing world mentality is a challenge which you either love or hate. You can either relish in maneuvering through its weaknesses or become frustrated by its inefficiency.

I like to work it.

TIP: If you want something from a government official, look and sound as impressive and authoritative as possible ( no matter how you actually look as I’m sure I’m not the only one that don’t look pretty on the road.)

I pulled this one out a couple of months ago while crossing the border from Panama into Costa Rica. Everyone needed an exit ticket leaving Costa Rica in order to be admitted in, but unfortunately I did not have any tickets.

I watched the German guy in front of me get hassled and refused at the border only to have to return to Panama to buy bus fare from Costa Rica to Panama he was never going to use. A racket? You bet. Typical small border crossing mentality.

Before I left home I thought ahead about this problem of my lack of any tickets and I had my friend whip up a very official letter full of “pomp and circumstance”.

At the border I showed my fellow traveling companions I had met along the way my crumpled up letter, and they rightfully laughed. All it was, was a tattered piece of paper stating that I had the intention of leaving, nothing more, just the intention.

But…the letter was written in English, and that carries automatic clout in the developing world.

I handed the shabby piece of paper to the stern customs official and had to bite my tongue to prevent letting a mischievous grin slip at the ridiculousness of merely presenting a beat up letter of intention as an official travel document.

I waited…and waited…he nodded…and nodded…until finally he stamped my passport, folded the letter carefully and slid it back under the glass.

Lesson: Where ever you go, always write a letter of the intention of carrying on to your final destination, and then have someone you know with an officious title sign it with a nice, BIG, fancy signature. Since the English rarely translates completely, it is usually the official looking signature and letter that does the translating enough to unlock even the tightest of bureaucratic doors.