Cochabamba to Santa Cruz. (You can never plan enough)

Tickets… check.

Visas… check

Permissions… Check

Brazil-Qatar-Thailand here we come!

Waiting room at Viru Viru International Airport, Santa Cruz, Bolivia

When travelling from a 3rd world country you never know what can happen. To acquire a passport the first thing you do is make sure the courts don’t have any warrants or bonds holding you in the country. For travelling with a minor a separate permission that requires a judge to sign off on, is required to be shown at immigration upon leaving. It wasn't until trying to leave Santa Cruz, our second stop on our journey, and leaving point from Bolivia, that the problems began.   We were shocked and horrified to be informed that the Prince would not be allowed to travel. Being whisked away to that special room is never anyone’s idea of fun.  I am talking about the room you usually see out of the corner of your eye containing some poor individual and a slew of agents. We were those people, the ones you see detained and wonder if they were packing contraband, or forgot their visas.  The ones you are glad you are not.

After the initial shock,  there was some crying, and much arguing.  I still cannot comprehend how we were not informed earlier in the process that he was prohibited from leaving the country, so we could have rectified the situation while we still had a chance.  It makes no sense and is infuriating.  It was 20 minutes of hell, feeling helpless and seeing our flight already boarding.  I have to admit that the employees at immigration seemed to be on our side in helping us acquire permission to the "voice" on the other side of the phone, who after over an hour of tense and sad times finally gave the green light.  We were on our way.

The prince closing in on the promise land