License Shuffle AGAIN

Last year I detailed the struggle that Shannon and I endured in order to get our driver's licenses. It sucked. But, we got a car, we needed to follow the law. What we didn't realize at the time, is the benefits of local law didn't apply to us. You see, the expiration for a driver's license in Ecuador is a completely reasonable 5 years. Every 5 years you need to go through the same process over and over. It's just enough time to be worth it. Well, what we didn't know last year when we got our licenses in January, is that the valid period of time for foreigners mirrors the visa you have. Which sucked for us.

You see since we are teachers working here on Cultural Exchange Visas, we need to reapply for new visas EVERY year. That process is super easy and the school helps us with it, but what it does mean is we have to go through the license process every time we get a new visa. Our first license, for all the trouble it was to get it, was valid for four months. Even though we got new visas which extended our ability to stay in Ecuador legally, that happened after we got our license.

This is a fact that we did not know about until March of this past year. At that time, neither Shannon nor I wanted to go through the process again for another three months of driving, but we knew we had to. But we never did. Between work, weekend trips, and general reluctance to do unpleasant tasks, we avoided doing it. Then when May came around, we just decided to hold off until June when we would receive new visas.

This is a stupid and foolish thing to do. You see, Ecuadorian law states that is you drive without a license, you are subject to three days in prison, your car being impounded, and a ONE MONTH salary fine. This would have sucked for us.

So over the past school year, even though we knew the penalty, we were ridin' dirty. Every trip out of town was a panic inducing adventure because weekends are prime time for random police check points. We even were stopped at check points once or twice where we showed our paperwork, smiled, and used our best Spanglish to try to charm our way our of prison time in a developing country.

So this week, with my new visa in hand, and some time I went through the process again. Only this time it was harder because there were 3x as many questions in the question bank for the test. However, due to some diligent studying and my slightly improved Spanish, I was able to take care of it all and pass the test. All in all, I'm really glad that I didn't go to jail for ridin' dirty, and I'm even happier that I get to drive legally now. For another year.