The Travelling Teacher: El Salvador - The fun of cross-continental pet travel (part 2)

A long time ago - October 12

Hello everyone!

This is the second instalment of the Mini and Maxi’s journey from Malawi to El Salvador. The first part of the saga can be found here. At this point, Mini and Maxi are still in Lilongwe, having been put on and then taken off a plane on September 2nd as the plane wasn’t fit for delivering pets.

A happy Maxi in the UK

A happy Mini in the UK

Spoiler alert: they do make it to El Salvador

Part 2 (take 2): Leaving Malawi

Getting a new flight actually happened a lot quicker than anticipated, making me wonder why it took three months in the first place. Flight on Friday, September 23rd, landing on Saturday.

Heart rate: 100

The new Airway Bill

This date meant that all export permits and medicines were now invalid, so had to be repeated and paid for again. It also meant Hannah having to delay her departure from the UK to the US, meaning she would also come later to El Salvador. It also meant that the initial date we’d sorted for the dogs coming to El Salvador - September 12th - had to be pushed back. Essentially, one bit of negligence from Ethiopian Airlines started a massive chain reaction for which Hannah and I had to pick up the pieces.

Heart rate: 110

Possible policy: don't bother checking
if your plane is fit to fly pets

Nevertheless, we plough on, get everything sorted once more and are fully prepared for the flight on the 23rd. This actually is declared as a ‘rain day’ in El Salvador, meaning that I wasn’t at school and could therefore follow the process carefully throughout the day. Lucky I could…

Heart rate: 90

The rain was away from Santa Tecla

All seems fine at first.

Heart rate: 80

I like the thought of the dogs waving - in
reality, they were probably absolutely terrified

I then get an email with the word ‘Urgent’ as its first part of the email title. This is what came through…

Heart rate: 180

Big. Problem.

A lot to dissect here. In layman’s terms, there are two methods: commercial and non-commercial. Commercial involves an expensive vet check on arrival. Non-commercial involves booking a phantom ticket which would arrive within 5 days, which could then be cancelled and refunded. We agreed to book a phantom ticket to do the non-commercial option and make it cheaper…only for someone to put ‘commercial’ on the paperwork. Leaving this flight redundant as the dogs would then need a vet check.

Heart rate: 180

A vet keeping calm as yet more money pours in

Where to begin with this. Let’s go with the fact that no one noticed this until the dogs were in the air. Follow that up with the fact that it’s essentially a copy (with new date) of the same paperwork which had been agreed for the original September 2nd flight. Carry on with the distinct lack of communication between AGS and Starwood, which would have clarified this decision. A decision which was in writing, multiple times, in emails. Oh, and add that this has been found out after the end of business hours in Malawi on a Friday, so no one would be able to rectify it until Monday at the absolute earliest (and knowing Malawian bureaucracy, I doubt that would have happened). Furious doesn’t even begin to describe this.

Heart rate: 180

Proof from our email threads that key players knew the
situation and messed up. Neither have taken responsibility.

This turned to complete bewilderment when Starwood, the company being paid hundreds of pounds to organise the move, replied by saying that it isn’t their job to check if the paperwork is correct. Various emails, and phone calls by Hannah and myself, only served to show that they were deflecting blame. I enquired as to what would happen if I refused to pay the extortionate vet charges. The inference was that we wouldn’t get the dogs. It felt like a hostage situation.

Heart rate: 200

At one point in the phone call, when there was a suggestion that I was at fault for not liaising sufficiently the fact that I was using a dummy ticket, I snapped. I don’t like to hide my emotions (people will know when I’m in a mood) but I rarely show extremes of emotion. I did this time. Rage flowed through the tears streaming out of my eyes as I stared at a Skype-filled computer screen, berating the woman for blaming me when I had paid them hundreds of pounds to do this very basic, necessary job.

Heart rate: 37000

Probably feeling miserable on the plane

The dogs would transfer in Addis

I was very glad that my teaching team had essentially taken over for me on this day so I was able to sort this out. I can’t imagine the issues if I had been teaching and on site.

Part 2: Arrival into the UK

Mini and Maxi arrived safely into the UK…then had to wait. The vet wasn’t there. What had we paid for? I was subsequently told that the vet was dealing with an emergency elsewhere. The inference is that the main point of entry for animals in the UK has one vet to call upon. Ridiculous.

Heart rate: 130

Anyway they were soon checked, passed and allowed out. Apparently within moments of arriving in Sussex, Maxi had dived under the outside table to scare the life out of a neighbour’s cat (which was eating a bird, circle of life).

Heart rate: 80 (heart rate of cat: probably eight million)

Proud to be British...ish...

The garden was fun for them to explore

They had made it. That was the most important thing. As a result, I got the most drunk I have been in El Salvador and had to start contemplating the next stage with a crushing hangover.

Drinking away the Saturday with friends

If all had gone to plan, Mini and Maxi would
have been in El Salvador for 19 days at this point

Part 3: Leaving the UK

Whilst all the Malawi shenanigans had been happening, we’d been trying to also organise the second leg of the journey: from the UK to El Salvador. This was also far from smooth sailing.

Turns out they had plenty of time to sleep

Walking away stress in the countryside

Considering the issues we’d had with Starwood bringing the dogs in, I was thankful that we weren’t actually using them as our exporters (their costs were prohibitive). We were using Passport 4 Pets, the company we used to bring Mini back to Malawi in 2019, and Panama Pet Relocation as the Salvadorean importers.

The original plan was for the dogs to fly from London to San Salvador via Madrid, on Iberia. Bizarrely, they only take pets on weekdays. We were told well in advance that they would need to overnight in Madrid owing to the same day connection time. This meant organising a flight from London on Monday, September 5th, with the dogs arriving in El Salvador on the Tuesday. So far, so good.

Heart rate: 80

Iberia are the only direct carrier
from Europe to El Salvador

With what happened before, this obviously had to change. As the Malawi-UK flight had moved from August 30th to September 2nd, the dogs wouldn’t have enough time to do what was required in the UK. We thus managed to push the El Salvador flights back a week.

Heart rate: 90

In order to get into El Salvador, yet more paperwork was required. The most challenging aspect of this was a UK export certificate, signed off by a vet. Not just any vet, though. One with a ‘special licence’. The vet practice I had used before has one such person…who was going to be on holiday at this time. This meant scouring around to find a new vet. The one we found was…how to say…thorough…

Heart rate: 110

How Maxi feels about vets

The suggestion we were getting was that the document needed to be ‘legalised’, and that the only way to do this was at the El Salvador embassy in central London. It was also suggested that it had to be the vet themselves who did this in person. Ludicrous. Thankfully, also not necessary, as our import agents said not to do it. Still, an unnecessary extra potential stress.

Heart rate: 130

No need to go to London!

The delay due to Ethiopian Airlines meant that yet another date needed to be sorted (Hannah had had to change her own flight each time). The El Salvador flight was thus changed to Monday, October 3rd. We were told we would get confirmation on September 19th. So, once again, nothing set in stone. I hope you’re keeping up!

Heart rate: 110

On September 20th, 3 days before the dogs were leaving Malawi, we received this email:

If you can't read it, it says that Iberia were
no longer carrying animals on that route

Heart rate: 170

Thanks Iberia. Again, no explanation as to why. I called them and they stated that the flight was still going. The suggestion was that it was to do with the ‘breed of dog’. This was quickly refuted by Passport 4 Pets.

Whatever the reasoning, this was a big issue. It was too late to leave them in Malawi (which was something we didn’t want to do). We didn’t have anywhere to leave them long term in the UK (not fair on my parents, who were going away at the end of October). We now had no idea of when they would be able to go to El Salvador. Frantic research included seeing if they could stay on a friend’s farm and looking at them staying in the UK for six months before Hannah returned to the UK to bring them to the US (they’d have been allowed in at that point).

Heart rate: 160

Much as they'd love to, they can't stay in Sussex the whole time!

Hunting for a potential new home? Or a squirrel...

There was an option which had been suggested at the start of the process: to go via Panama. The issue with this was that they would have to be imported into and exported from that middle country, adding over $2000 to the cost. Another issue was that paperwork needed to be started immediately in order for them to avoid a potential 14 day quarantine in Panama. It stayed as a plan C or D whilst we scoured other options.

Heart rate: 150

Quite far and very expensive as an option

One that randomly came up was that they go even further south than Panama. To a different continent, actually. Colombia, off of South America. We started looking into this and found an option for the dogs to fly in the first week of October.

Heart rate: 130

Bogota's airport. I would love to explore Colombia at
some point, hopefully for much longer than the dogs did!

This quickly - and I can’t actually remember why - became the second week of October, specifically Monday, 10th October. Yet another flight for Hannah to have to change, but possibly the end beginning to be in sight.

Heart rate: 120

Confirmation of flights

We are then advised by the Salvadorean importers that the planned trip would involve them not being processed in time, resulting in the dogs having to sleep in an airport hangar with no supervision overnight. Not ideal.

Heart rate: 130

No one to feed the dogs either, which would be a problem
as they aren't allowed to eat in the flying process

The finalised trip was that the dogs flew from London late on Monday, October 10th, arriving in Bogota at 3:30am on the Tuesday. There would then be one hour - one hour - for them to be transferred to the next flight, which would land in El Salvador at 6:45am. Customs would open at 8am so the dogs wouldn’t be alone for long. It was organised that there would be someone to look after them in Colombia if they missed that connection, before being popped on the same flight the following day.

Heart rate: 120

Separate crates, obviously

Vet checks and certificates were done, plans hatched…what could possibly go wrong?

Mini could stay in that spot all week

Enjoying the comforts of the UK

Chapter 4: Arrival into El Salvador

This turned out to be the easiest part. By far. It also helped that this happened on one of the rain days mentioned in a previous blog.

Rain, rain...from a selfish point
of view, don't go away!

I woke up early (I’d actually argue that 4am is very early, considering I didn’t have to work) to get an update. Had they made their connection? Or were Mini and Maxi going to be Colombian tourists for a day?

“You will be contacted by 5am,” I’d been told. Bogota is one hour ahead of El Salvador, meaning by 4am. Naturally, there was no message when I woke up. I emailed at 4:22am. Considering how the whole process had gone, I was surprised to get a response at 4:24am, and positively beaming when I read it.

Heart rate: 80

On the plane!

I was then regularly contacted by our handling team in El Salvador, before being informed at 1:30pm that the dogs were leaving the airport having been processed and allowed to legally enter the country. Moments after finishing a parent-teacher conference, the doorbell rang…

Heart rate: 100

Arrival, and immediate
desire to explore the neighbourhood

It’s strange. I didn’t realise how much I had missed Mini and Maxi until seeing them. They immediately sniffed out every crevice of the house before settling into their garden which I probably can’t afford. You’re welcome, pups.

Marking territory: my sofa!

Our first walk around the residencia

Eyeing up birds. The cats come later...

The first 24 hours involved the dogs saying hi to a cat in their special way and me trying my best to board up the stairwell to the upstairs section. This was added to each day as the clever clogs were always able to navigate around, over (and in one extreme case, jump the equivalent of four steps from one side to the other) and even under the obstacles. Even chicken wire hasn’t stopped them in their cat quests.