The journey begins in Maracaibo, my hometown, where my friends and I were planning to go to Aruba. We were thinking about partying in Aruba to celebrate that we graduated from high school. As soon as we all agreed, we started looking for the hotel, clubs, and beaches. The day before our trip, my friends Orlando, Jesus, and Joseandres confirmed that everything was still going well, and everything was perfect, in other words, everything was working out just how we planned it.
The big day arrived, and we flew to Aruba, but unlucky for us, that was where everything started to look dark. Joseandres lost his documents and money, and out from the blue what was supposed to be a party trip, turned into a sorry trip. Jesus and I were the first to get out of the plane when we landed at Aruba’s airport because Joseandres and Orlando were on the back. Jesus and I went through immigration, but somehow, he was a little too worried, and he asked me “Franklin, this is kind of weird. Why do you think the guys are taking so long, do you think something bad happened”.
I was too happy that I was not paying attention to him and his negativity, so while laughing, I said “I don’t think so, and if something happened, might be Joseandres losing something, just how he always does”. The airport was as cold as a winter day in Chicago and the time was going by fast. Around 30 minutes went by, and Jesus asked me for the fifth time” Hey, dude, we should at least make sure that they are okay”, but he was starting to get annoying, so I decided to go with him to immigration.
Jesus and I headed to the immigration office, but Joseandres and Orlando were already coming towards us with sad faces. Orlando is the one who talks first and, he says, “Franklin, we have a serious problem, Joseandres lost his money and identification documents after going through immigration. ” Jesus started to ask securities to help us find the documents, but the security staff was not trying to give us hope because they thought it was too late to start looking for them.
As soon as we talked to the security staff, they made a small group of search and started checking everyone’s bags to see if anyone could have stolen the documentation. It was similar to the movies, dogs were sniffing the bags, and the security staff was intimidating everyone with their big flashlight and their iron stick. We were not allowed to do a lot because the staff had us in a small room, where we could not see anything for security reasons.
Two hours later, one of the officers came to the room asking for the person who lost the documents to bring him to another room and ask him some questions. Orlando, Jesus, and I patiently waited while the immigration security officers were interrogating him, but even though it was just fifteen minutes that we waited, it felt longer because we were isolated, and we did not know anything that was going on outside those four small and cold walls.
Joseandres finally walked in to the room with his documents, but still with bad news because he did not have any money since his money was stolen, even his credit card. By the end of the day, we got to the hotel worried about our situation, and called our parents to let them know that even though nothing physically happened to us, we had some issues with Joseandres’ documentation. My mom was “cool” about it and, she did not get upset, but on the other hand, my dad was very upset.
My dad did not take it the same way my mom did because he did not like our idea of going alone, therefore he called my friends’ parents to tell them that we should come cancel our plans and come back because we cannot take care of ourselves. Few minutes later, Joseandres’ mom ordered him to go back to Venezuela as soon as possible, so we all decided to cancel all of our plans to end our catastrophic trip. Even though we felt disappointed of ourselves, we learned a lesson from that trip.
That bad experience taught us that in order to go on a trip alone, we should be more responsible than what we thought because bad things could happen and we need to have the knowledge of how to solve the problem without the help of our parents. Nowadays I am living in the U. S by myself, and I think | would not be as independent and mature aslam right now if | would have not been through that bad experience in Aruba.
