Warning: Picking up mail in Bolivia can take several days and involve a lot of running

So my sister sent me a box, which was supposed to take a week to get here. Paramount for me was my new debit card, because my old one had expired and I had no access to my bank account (I had a credit card as backup, which I had to cancel because I started getting all these weird charges on it, like to an airline in Barcelona. I think it's because I almost bought a video camera from the mob (seriously), which is a whole other story, because I hadn't used it here at all). After going to the post office every day for 10 days, my box arrived after 18 days. But I couldn't just pick it up: first I went upstairs to the pick-up desk, where I searched through a stack of cards for my name. Then I went out of the building, and back in by another entrance to the international mail desk, where they told me I had to pay some sort of tax to get my box. But I can't pay the tax at the post office, I have to go to the bank, several blocks away. And the bank is closed.

So the next day, my last day in town, I go to the bank using the directions I was given to find out it's the wrong bank, and that there are a string of banks in the area they told me ("two blocks south of the main plaza"). So I had to go back to the post office and wait in line to find out the right bank, only what I wasn't told the day before was that before I could even go to the bank I had to fill out three different forms (which I had to buy) and wait in two different lines to receive various pieces of paper which I would need at the bank - and also find out I'll have to pay about $10 to get my box, plus come back with two photocopies of two different pages in my passport. By the time this is done it's 12:10. The international mail desk shuts at 12:30 and doesn't reopen until 2:30, and my bus for carnival leaves at 3pm and I haven't packed or eaten lunch. So I'm stressed.

I literally run to the bank, through crowded streets in flip-flops, where there thankfully is no line. Then I go in and out of a couple buildings looking for photocopies, run back to the bank, making it inside at 12:28. Then I wait in line again, fill out two different forms in triplicate, and sign all of them; go back to the first line and wait again, hand in my paperwork, and finally get my box. It's the most convoluted, unnecessarily complex process I think I have ever been through - just to pick up mail. Supposedly India is famous for this sort of bureaucratic mess, but I never witnessed anything approaching this when I was there.

On the steps of an internet place (I had to get online to activate my card), I was frantically tearing thorough newspaper packing, magazines, and candy, trying to find my debit card. It turns out my sister had removed it from it's envelope (which is what I was on the lookout for) and tucked it inside a tote bag, the last place I looked. Anyways, I made it back in time for a rushed lunch and to make the bus to Oruro for Carnival. Or so I thought...