Christmas Packages
Our daughters wanted us to have a few small things from them for our first Christmas away from home, so they each sent us a package.
We told them not to send checks or anything valuable and that UPS would be the safest way for things to arrive.
Jennifer brought her package to UPS and was told that it would cost $200 to send.
She opted for the $30 charge at the local post office.
They told her that it should arrive either Friday or Saturday before Christmas.
The package arrived right on schedule.
We got a notice in the mail Friday afternoon that a package had arrived for us and we could pick it up at one of the 4 facilities where packages from outside
Peru go through customs.
It was too late to pick it up before Christmas so Ricky took us to the postal office the following Tuesday.
It was a 35 minute drive.
Ricky had to show the postal slip of paper to enter the guarded facility.
Inside, he filled out a form to request the package.
From there he went into another line to hand in that form where he had to show his National ID card.
Then there was over an hour wait for our turn to go through customs.
When Ricky’s name was called, the inspectors opened the box behind a glassed in area and went through the contents notating them on the form.
Then the form was sent to another window to determine if the contents should be taxed.
The Skippy peanut butter jar (yes Robert has been missing his Skippy), two pairs of earrings and an emergency flashlight were deemed within the $100 limit so taxes were not charged. Ricky took that form and went to another window to retrieve the package.
At the gate, the form filled out inside had to be registered before we could then take the package to Ricky’s car.
The whole process, once at the postal customs, took 2 hours.
Add the drive time and it was easily a 3 hour learning experience.
It reminded me of a day at the Department of Motor Vehicles in CT,
USA.
Robert wrote Jennifer and Julia about it and we got word back from Julia that she’d sent a package of pictures to us.
We were very pleased, to say the least, when it arrived at Ricky’s home via the postman today.
