Last night I flew from Cuenca to Quito, together with Joe, one of my colleagues. He´s heading Galapagos and then he´ll go back to the US. After this short but good flight I spent the night in a nice hostel in the new city of Quito and had a good night with some foreigners staying here as well. This morning I got up, did some final arrangements for my trip to Colombia and headed the airport around noon. So far, so good.

Because I was so early, the counters for baggage drop-off hadn´t opened yet. I decided to kill some time in a little bar and made my way to the counters opening at 1 pm. I got to know a friendly Colombian man who works in Quito and we talked for a while. I received an immigration form that I was supposed to fill out before going to the migration police. I started writing it, but several times asked my Colombian friend what it was supposed to be for, because it was an Ecuadorean form, not a Colombian one. Why would I fill out a form to leave the country? I was confused. That was only the beginning of what would turn out into a deception.

I moved forward to the customs (policia de migracion). Here I was confronted with the utmost bureaucracy I´ve ever experienced in my life thus far. I presented my passport, which according to international law is a valid travel document. However, as I work in this country I hold both a visa and an Ecuadorean id-card that comes with it. I decided to leave this little worthless card at home, because I didn´t want lose it. Stupid decision. The guy asked for it. I told him I didn´t bring it and kindly pointed at all the stamps that I managed to collect and bring since my arrival in Ecuador. 'Please look at my EU passport that is accepted everywhere around the world. You´re not going to stop me, are you?' Those were my desperate thoughts at that stressful moment.

No way. ¨No puede salir el país señor¨. I couldn´t believe my ears. 'You can´t leave the country'. I couldn´t leave this country carrying a valid passport. My key to leave the country lies 500 km south! The guy copied my passport, took my forms and sent me back. I talked to another officer and another officer, but there was no way I could get through. I had to postpone my flight and called my roommate in Cuenca. She might be able to ship the card by plane this night or tomorrow morning. Hopefully I´ll be able to depart tomorrow without getting stuck at the borderline again.