It was not easy to leave Turkey. If I were not running out of time on my visa, I would’ve liked to stay longer for sure. But sadly, that was not an option right now. Jana and I bid each other an emotional farewell, and promised to meet again as soon as possible.

Flying over the Canadian Tundra

My flight to Chicago was uneventful, and once there, I joined the horde of people queueing up to pass through immigrations. I had had some trouble at immigrations the last time I was entering the US because some documents that I was asked for were in my checked-in bag. Luckily, however, the immigrations officer was sufficiently satisfied that I wasn’t lying and had let me through.

So this time around, I was carrying with me a large set of documents so that I would be prepared for anything that I was asked to produce. When it was my turn, the officer only asked me for my tickets out of the US. In my case, this meant my flight tickets from Miami to Quito. I knew I had printed them, but no matter how much I looked for them in my fat pouch of papers, I just couldn’t locate them. This the officer wasn’t willing to buy, and asked me to step aside and wait. Eventually another officer showed up and took me to a room filled with people all waiting to be questioned. My passport was taken, and I was asked to wait there until I was called.

No sooner had I sat down that I found my tickets to Ecuador. They weren’t in my pouch of documents at all, but were in the book that I was reading. I suddenly remembered that I had kept them there because I was so sure that I would be asked for them. But at the immigrations desk, I was so nervous that it had completely slipped my mind. But now I had no choice but to wait for my turn. It was a long wait. There were a lot of people in that waiting room. People of all ages and many different nationalities. Most of them looked very worried. Some were even sobbing.

Finally, my name was called and I was taken to a small room with a table and two chairs. There was an officer on one of them and I was asked to take the other. The officer was polite and asked me the purpose of my visit to the United States. When I told him that I was only passing through the States and was actually on my way to Ecuador to volunteer at a school in a remote village, he was genuinely surprised. He said, “No shit man! That’s pretty impressive.” and stamped my passport. I guess I was among the few who would leave happy from that place.

The long delay at immigrations meant that my backpack that I had checked in in Istanbul did the rounds on the conveyor belt, and was finally lumped together with other unclaimed bags. It took a bit of searching to locate it, but I was eventually reunited with it. Later in the evening I got my connecting flight to Atlanta, Georgia and once there, looked for a comfortable place to sleep. My plan was to spend the night in the airport and in the morning, go to meet Divya.

As I was surfing, I got a message from Divya, who was shocked that I was already in Atlanta. She didn’t like the idea of me sleeping at the airport, and said that she would come and pick me up. It was more than a two-hour drive for her, so we agreed to meet halfway - at the Mall of Georgia. I got out of the airport and talked to one of the waiting taxis. They asked for a fare of 100 USD, which I thought was way too much, so I walked away. I was asking some people if there was a cheaper option to get there, when a guy came up to me and said that he was the driver of the shuttle between the airport and Comfort Inn. He offered to give me a free ride to his hotel and call a cab from the hotel reception. I agreed and got into his van. Once at the hotel, he called the cab which showed up after about 20 minutes. The detour and the extra wait meant that I arrived at the Mall of Georgia 45 minutes after Divya and her flatmate Steffi.

How much did this cab cost me you ask? 110 USD.

Should've just taken one of the cabs at the airport