It was the month of December of 2014, I was already on vacation and as every year I decided to visit my grandparents and the rest of my family, who reside on the island of Margarita, I live in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela and to get to the island there are two options, take a direct plane that lasts approximately thirty minutes or undertake a journey of at least five hours by bus for after traveling on a ship which takes six hours to reach its destination. The plane ticket is somewhat more expensive so the boat is considerable despite the length of the journey.
I had managed to find an offer on an old plane which was considerably cheaper than a regular one so I decided to take it, but there was a detail, by that time I was a minor and my legal representatives were not going to be with me, so it was necessary fill a tedious and exhausting paperwork for the situation.
Finally It was time for the Check in at the airport box office, since I was young I had a thick voice and a rather generous beard so it was not crazy to think that I was older than I am, however, everything changed when the young lady at the box office asked for my identity card, observing the year of my birth she frowned because she knew that she had to proceed with the exhausting regulations for minors.
Twenty minutes passed when the staff of the airline in charge of minors appeared they had to accompany me all the time, I was 17 years old, in Venezuela, the age of majority is reached at 18 years old, you can imagine my expression as I walk through the airport with a badge that indicated a minority of age and accompanied by a worker who was lower in stature than I, soon that man did not stand the curiosity and asked for my age, He could not avoid let out a laugh at hearing my answer .
My flight was at eight o'clock at night, but I had already checked my ticket at four o'clock, so I was taken to a special area designated for minors traveling without an escort, a young girl like twelve years and a couple of brothers of eleven and nine years were my companions in that space. It was incredibly boring, I still had to wait four hours to get on the plane and I was trapped in that tiny space with my even younger companions who were a little restless as would be any child without his parents at an airport, but the girl was very shy so a few words came out of his mouth at the time we shared in that place.
At six in the afternoon the megaphone announced the departure of a flight to Margarita and the supervisor asked me if that was mine, after my refusal she took out a small radio and began to speak, I did not pay much attention to what she said, but briefly she asked me if I wanted to go on that flight, my amazement was big I even took a few seconds to respond, just saying that yes, another worker appeared and exclaimed "follow me", we had to be fast because the flight was about to leave, the man communicated so that my suitcase was changed to another plane and in less than ten minutes I was flying over the city to the island, I was a little impressed that the plane was almost empty, that is the reason It was not a surprise that they insisted on changing my flight.
This was an anecdote that I remember with a smile because it made me experience the good and bad part of traveling alone being a minor, on the one hand I had to do the tedious and endless paperwork of authorization with my representative and on the other I was the first option of flying earlier when observing that there were few passengers in it. I can say that the experience was not so bad.
