You’ve read our sunny, cheerful blog posts about us visiting cool places and having wonderful experiences. They’re all true, but as much as we travel, it’s inevitable that once in a while a horrible day sneaks in there.

Like our recent travel day from Guayaquil, Ecuador to Medellín, Colombia.

It didn’t start off that badly. Except we’re not in the habit of getting up at six in the morning. We’d arrived in Guayaquil the night before from Cuenca, enjoyed a good (although short) night’s sleep, and had an uneventful ride to the airport.

For some reason we couldn’t check in online for our flight the day before. When we arrived at the Avianca counter we found out why.

“Can I see your tickets for leaving Colombia?” the agent asked.

“They’re not booked yet. We haven’t finalized plans with our family to visit during Christmas.”

“You both have to show a ticket to board this flight.”

“What are you talking about? We’ve been traveling full time for the last two years and no one has ever aske...