In a year of road-traveling around Latin America, I’ve learned the cardinal rule:
Never cross the border at a popular place. You will spend three hours in line, they will make you unload all your stuff from the car, take away your bananas (did you know that banana gnats travel only in four-wheel drive cars with air conditioning, and can’t fly across the border because your passport is the wrong color?), and will explain for a long time that you should have bought a special toilet paper with a printed questionnaire for a dollar in advance, and if you don’t have the paper – well, go look for it somewhere in the night yourself.
Change countries through villages in high mountains or impenetrable jungles. There will be a strong wind outside, so they won’t even look in the car, all customs officers and their dogs will take pictures with you, because ruso gringo turisto in such a hole is the main entertainment of the week, maybe even pour coffee. If you don’t get caught in the lunch break of the only migration officer, you will pass everything literally in 10 minutes.
What was the most epic thing that happened to you at the border?
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