After a couple weeks, when your package doesn´t show up, you do some investigating to realize that that mystery package was intended for you. So you need help getting your package out of customs and into your hands. You try and remain respectful of the pace at which things work in Nicaragua while conveying the importance of a speedy delivery.
A few more weeks go by and your patience is being tested. You keep asking about the status of this package and kept getting told "tomorrow" and even "later today".
Then you´re told it´s going to cost X amount of money to pick up the package. Do you still want it? Yes.
Finally everything is set and 2 months have passed and someone in the office is going to go to customs to pick up your package. Then that someone gets in a car accident (he is ok, but will be out of commission for at least 2 weeks). You try and show the requisite amount of sympathy while also trying to find a way to get this package. Time is starting to run out. More forms need to be filled out because now YOU are going to customs to pick up this package. More waiting. Finally! You have everything you need and hop in a taxi and head straight to the customs office. You get there 15 minutes late. Come back tomorrow. You've been waiting 2 and a half months, what's another day? You go back the next day. The following is a quick recap of the 2 hours you spent at customs.
Someone at the front desk looks at all your files, tells you to go down that hall. You go into this room, they look at your files, print off another form. You go to get the package. Your package was delivered over 2 months ago - it's not here, it's over in that huge pile which doesn't seem to have any system to it at all. A man wearing a baseball hat that says "100% drunk" finds your package, surprisingly in only about 15 minutes. Then you have to go find "the fat one" (they're all fat). The fat one tells you to wait "over there". You do that. Finally the fat one comes over, walks you back to where your package is. Opens it up. Shows you everything. Puts everything back in the package and reseals it. The package goes back in that big pile. You need to follow the fat one back to the main office. He looks through your files again. Says they need to write up a receipt. Someone else takes your file and takes it back to his desk. A bit later the fat one comes back to you and tells you they can't give you the package because you're missing a photocopy of the ID for the person to whom the package is addressed to. But you have you're ID, you have an official letter from a lawyer saying you can pick this package up. You also have a half dozen other papers that don't really mean anything to you but must be important. You beg, you plead and after a few tears of frustration and wild arm gestures, the fat one decides to talk to his supervisor with regards to your "special case". The fat one comes back from speaking with his supervisor and hands the folder with all your files back to this other guy in the office. So you figure everything is ok. Then you see the guy with your files over at another computer, looking at something, laughing, then calling his colleagues over to look at the computer, they all laugh and point. You go up to the front desk and ask what's happening - and your guy goes back to his desk. He makes a receipt for a ridiculous amount of money that you have to pay in order to free your package. You wait in another line to pay the receipt. You go back to the guy that made your receipt. You need a signature from the fat one. But the fat one is nowhere to be seen. At this point, they see the desperation in your face and want you out of their office, so they go and track down the fat one to get his signature. You can go back and pick up your package. It's in your hands. You can leave. But first, the guy with the "100% drunk" hat needs to fill out 2 more forms so that you can hand them to the security guards as you leave the building. Then you get in a cab and go home.
