Can't take a Colombian Favor to Ecuador.

The Colombian Favor -- it is ubiquitous. In Colombia, all you have to do is express a need, desire or even whim for something, and suddenly appears a Colombian to guide you on the path to attainment. "Hágame un favor," they say on your behalf... then phone calls are made, you speak to a succession of people in various places of various trades, and in the end you have whatever it is you seek. Just don't go expecting that this favor chain will last you all through South America, because once you hit Ecuador, Colombia's stern neighbor to the south, the Colombian favor goes weak and then dies. Something like Superman and kryptonite.

I learned this lesson on my recent return to South America. I arrived in Bogota and got on a southward-bound, kumbia-blasting bus for 19 hours to Pasto, the little city in the big mountains where my motorcycle spent its summer. When I arrived, I was enshrouded in my own personal haze of worries and concerns: I remembered the oil and coolant leaks that plagued my bike; my camera was broken; a hard-to-find battery charger had been left in the US... but most of all, my Colombian customs papers for the bike were expired, and if stopped at one of the routine military checkpoints between Pasto and the Ecuadorian border two hours to the south, I was toast. They could fine me, demand a bribe, or worse, they could impound my bike. Things were on my mind.

Having been away for so long, I'd forgotten how things work. Pasto is the perfect setting for the Colombian Favor. At 350,000, it's big enough to have what you need, small enough that whatever it is is within just a few degrees of separation... And Alex, my friend there, is like the fairy godfather of the Colombian Favor. His cell phone contact book is like a magic wand that he uses to wave away peoples' troubles. He brought my motorcycle to meet me at Hotel Koala, and I nearly passed out when I saw it... not only had the oil and coolant leaks been fixed, but the pipes were re-chromed and undented, there were new turn signals, a tear in the back seat had been fixed, missing screws were replaced, the rear fender had been welded back together, the license plate holder was reattached, and the whole bike had been repainted. It looked better than it had when I bought it. "People owed me favors," he said with a grin. My pragmatic American mind cannot comprehend what it is one must do to be owed such favors, or what I did to have the favors "spent" on my bike...

Next we were off to resolve the rest of my woes. Alex flipped open his phone to his list of contacts, spoke to the voice on the other end, and we were soon greeted at a friend's cell phone store, lead into a back room of wires and chips and plastic phone covers where his minons were at work with tiny screwdrivers and magnifying lenses, and given a cup of boiling coffee out of a saucerpan on a single burner. I handed over my camera and was told they'd have it working that evening... Then we were moving again, on our way to see someone whose connection to Alex I vaguely understood as work-related, walking past tiny storefronts in a centro commercial until we arrived in front of a glass window crammed with GPS systems, ceramic figurines, logo-ed watches, toy guitars, video cameras, compasses -- and a sign promising "rare things". A grey-haired man sitting behind the glass counter inside pulled out cardboard boxes full of cords and assorted electronics, promising that if he didn't have the charger I needed he could just make me one, but at last pulled out a plastic package that I was looking for. So that was taken care of.

Next, several calls were made and numbers were jotted down, and in the end I had instructions for everyone I needed to know at the border in case of a problem with my expired papers. I'd be looking for a man named Don Jorge, "El Gato", to whom I was supposed to say, "A friend of yours from high school sent me..." (When I naively asked where Alex went to school with this guy, there was a pause, he looked at me, and then: "We never went to school together." Oooh. Got it.) There was also a military colonel in Bogota who could be called in the case that El Gato could not be found.

Thus, a few days later, with all my rewards of the Colombian Favor -- a working camera, a charged battery, and a beautiful, purring motorcycle -- I drove down to the border. It was a Sunday. I was waved through the sole military checkpoint on the highway, and then slid past customs without a sound. I got my Colombian exit stamp in immigrations with a huge sigh of relief, and even though it didn't look like I was going to have any problems, out of curiosity I still asked around for Don Jorge. A fat money changer, with that same pause and stare that Alex had given me, reported, "He went into the fruit business." I didn't know whatever secret signals or phrases were necessary to continue talking in code, so I said, "Well, wish him luck..."smiled, and left.

I went through immigrations on the Ecuadorian side, thinking I was home free... but then my good luck came to a screeching halt. The customs office was closed on Sundays. I could not get my entrance papers for the bike into Ecuador. I took my problem back into the immigrations office, where my explanation of the situation caused some stifled laughter in the line behind me: "I can't take my bike into the country without papers, but I've checked out of Colombia, so I can't go back there either, so really the only place I can legally be until tomorrow morning is in this parking lot..." Finally I was waved into a back hall, and after some deliberating and real consideration of whether or not I could camp in the parking lot, two immigrations officials told me just to go back to Colombia, that they'd be nicer to me there if I was caught. So back I went, an illegal immigrant. When fairy godfather Alex heard about the situation, and that Don Jorge was now in "fruits", he said he'd come down to the border town to be on standby the next morning.

So it was that the next morning I met Alex at the border. My luck with Colombian formalities held, and we drove through to Ecuador without having to present passports or papers or any kind. I parked in front of the customs office there and was met at the window by a sour faced woman who I thought must have a hard time keeping her lips pursed like she did when her hair was pulled back so tightly. I handed her my documents, not anticipating any problems... after all, it was the Colombian papers I'd had to worry about, not the Ecuadorian ones. I chatted breezily with Alex as I waited for her to hand back my entrance paper.

Then Sour Face left her seat and went to talk to someone in the back.

Then it was taking too long.

Then she came back with a crippling verdict: I had not obtained my exit stamp for the bike the last time I left Ecuador, which meant I had to pay a $400 fine, and the bike would be impounded inside the customs office until I did so.

Then I wanted to cry.

Alex's reaction to the news was instantaneous -- he went straight for the cell phone in his pocket, a direct line to the Colombian Favor. So while I negotiated with Sour Face -- explained my situation, claimed ignorance of the system, pleaded -- Alex was making one call after another, following one lead to the next, lighting one cigarette off another, and pacing.

I was sent to the main customs office, which I thought was going to be my big break, but instead my case was heard by the male equivalent of Sour Face -- a man immune to big, sad eyes and long, emotional appeals -- and I was made to walk a mile in a thunderstorm (which I was sure I'd conjured up myself) to take out $400 USD and make my payment at an appointed bank. When I still failed to recieve my entry papers into Ecuador and a guard said they had to keep my bike overnight (because Sour Face had gone home early), I lost my mind and charged back into the main office after-hours to deliver an empassioned diatribe to the head of customs and some other important looking suits on how systems and governments function. Then I got my papers, and I got my bike back.

When back at the border Alex finally put the phone back in his pocket, I knew by the look on his face that he'd gotten nowhere. It was a combination of distress, confusion, and defeat -- something I'd never seen on him before. He was a mere couple hundred feet south of the border, and yet being on the wrong side of it had rendered him powerless.

That's because you can't take a Colombian Favor to Ecuador... so better bring your wallet.