DAC, DAC, DAC

I ordered a book from Amazon in the US. If I lived in the US, I would have received it within three days. But of course I don’t, so I shipped it to Miami whence it was brought by air for USD 12 (under two pounds weight). Plus a few bucks for home delivery.

But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Way ahead.

The Miami shipper delivered it to a local delivery service called DAC. From DAC’s warehouse in Montevideo to my doorstep is roughly 46.5 kilometers, a one hour and five minute drive, according to Google (pronounced google-eh) Maps. So allowing a few minutes for confused DAC employees to fumble around, I could drive there for my package and be back in under two and a half hours.

Assuming an average speed of 6 km/hour, I could walk the same in around 15 hours and 20 minutes.

But let’s go further: if DAC had strapped my book to the back of a giant tortoise and sent it on its way, theoretically (of course the poor thing would have to take breaks) I could have my book in just over 7 days.

(To make it more realistic, we’ll assume the tortoise has more than just one book to deliver.)

Am I being ridiculous? Consider how long DAC took to deliver a package 46.5 km, and you tell me.

That’s over 11 days. The tortoise could have been more than halfway back by the time DAC accomplished its delivery.

Completely pathetic? Maybe not: they were quicker than a 3-toed sloth would have been, given the same task.

Fast like tortoise

I ordered something on Mercado Libre. It was shipped from Lascano in Rocha Department, ~230 km away.

Here’s how it played out:

Three days to get 230 km. Ridiculous, right? Well, at least it was on its way to Atlántida, so I could expect delivery on the 28th, no? Wrong. Late afternoon on the 28th I went to the local office, where they retrieved my package and I paid the postage. Why wasn’t it delivered to my home, as directed? We were going to do that tomorrow. This reminds me of getting documents expressed shipped from Europe several years ago. They got to Montevideo in two days. I received them seven days after that. I literally could have walked to Montevideo and back in less time.

On the other hand, today I received a wireless keyboard and mouse I ordered two days ago.

As with so many things in Uruguay, the only consistent aspect is their inconsistency.

A package arrives

Residents of Uruguay can bring in some things duty-free. I think currently it’s three times per year, has to be by courier or Uruguayan Post’s program, and value limited to USD 200, including shipping costs. I used it recently to ship down a refurbished Macintosh keyboard. The day after it arrived my wife’s Macintosh keyboard started to fail as well. So I ordered another for around USD 50, again with some clothing items my wife wanted, keeping under $200 and under 2 kg (courier service charges by the kilo).

The same keyboard new in the US is USD 163 new, which is quite ridiculous. I don’t want a wireless keyboard – not long ago I wired our two computers with ethernet and turned off wifi – but even if I did, what Apple offers, USD 99 in the US, is ridiculous here:

ad, Uruguay

And Apple is “different” enough that anything else I can buy locally will only work with Windows. I tried. Keys all jumbled, regardless of computer language settings.

To get here, the goods had to be shipped to Florida, consolidated, cleared through Customs here, and delivered. Today we discovered the sodden delivery notice in our mailbox:

delivery slip, Uruguay

There is no date. Apparently it was from yesterday, telling me that since nobody was home, we won’t do that UPS/Fedex thing and try again. You have to come to our office (oval: what?) hour on the seventh of January two-thousand-backwards-nine-nineteen.

I went to the DAC office, less than two kilometers away, and was told by a lady with a broom there that I would have to go to Montevideo. I pointed out that we were standing at the intersection of Artigas and Circunvolación, as indicated on the slip. She then went inside and asked the girl, who recognized the name and directed her to a top corner shelf, which she could barely get to through stacks of boxes.

As she did that, I scanned the shelves, immediately spotted the USPS Priority Mail box and retrieved it.

delivered package, Uruguay

So, another “something actually accomplished” in Uruguay, something that those living in lands of consumer convenience probably can’t even begin to appreciate. And on a further ‘Murkan note, I got a kick out of the receipt: when was the last time you got a receipt with “God bless” handwritten on it?

Invoice

No doubt the last time you ordered from Saved Computers.