Jaime Bayly counted the awkward moments what happened last week at José Joaquín de Olmedo Airport in Guayaquil, upon arrival and departure from the city. The Peruvian journalist and writer shared a 16:39 minute video on his YouTube channel on Tuesday, September 16, in which he talked attitude that two immigration agents had towards him when they checked his passport.

‘I thought they were going to stop me and arrest me. The situation was absolutely surreal and bizarre,” he said.

The writer visited the Mainport between Thursday, September 21 and Sunday, September 24 to participate in the Guayaquil Book Fair. There he presented his most recent novel, The genius, that is about the blow that Mario Vargas Llosa dealt to Gabriel García Márquez.

Two days after his stay in Ecuador, he shared the details of the bad experience at the air terminal, especially when he wanted to leave the country.

He said that when he arrived in Guayaquil around midnight on Thursday, presented his American citizen passport (he has two nationalities). The immigration officer who visited him asked him “unexpected questions”asked him when he last visited the city, whether he used his Peruvian passport, his marital status, the purpose of the visit, whether he came to sell books, where he would stay and when he would leave Ecuador.

To which Bayly replied that he could not remember the exact date, but said it would probably have been twenty years ago. He also said that he had long ago stopped using his Peruvian passport and that he had been invited to the Book Fair to give a talk and sign books. And he answered the other concerns.

“The officer was surprisingly suspicious, investigative and… even hostile (…) Finally he stamped my passport. Welcome to Ecuador. I thought: it doesn’t matter at all, it seemed to him in the system that I was Peruvian and now American, and so he asked me some somewhat unusual questions,” the journalist said.

The most unpleasant thing, he said, happened on Sunday with the immigration officer, before boarding the departure aircraft. He described the woman with derogatory adjectives, he said “She had an evil, evil face, she had the face of a horror movie.”

Bayly gave her his passport and she proceeded to ask him questions and adopt a certain attitude that seemed suspicious to the journalist. He even thought it was somehow a retaliation with political background for his criticism of President Guillermo Lasso.

The agent told him that the airport system showed that he had entered the city with a Peruvian passport; therefore, I couldn’t leave the country.

“Here in Ecuador we do not recognize dual nationality,” the woman told him, to which the writer replied that he was not using the Peruvian passport, but the American one and that the agent registered it that way upon his arrival in Guayaquil.

“She took pictures of my passport. He took pictures of my passport with his cell phone and sent them to someone. “I said, ‘I’m toast, they ambushed me, they’re not letting me out,’” she said, recalling that at one point the official even asked her if she was going to the country to talk about politics and that she made a comment against Rafael Correa.

In his story the writer mentioned the minister, Henry Cucalon, and made several reflections on some meanings and connotations of the authority’s surname.

He thought he was in trouble, that he was going to be arrested, because “Lasso is angry” with him for his questions about the government’s performance. After a few minutes, the situation at the airport was finally resolved.

“It was terrible and I want to tell it. I want to denounce it because there are only two interpretations. One, the benevolent one, is the agent at my arrival and the other is the agent chucky When I left, it was some incompetent people. That is evil They deliberately and deliberately made things difficult for me, in revenge for my criticism of the Lasso government and his minister Cucalón. I believe in the second. I believe it was not a coincidence, nor clumsiness, nor negligence,” said Jayme Bayly.

This newspaper asked for a statement from the minister. Henry Cucalón responded in short messages. He indicated that he will consult with the Home Office about who is responsible for immigration.

“The only thing I know about Jaime Bayly is that I went to the Book Fair on Saturday I bought 2 copies of his latest work, “That’s very good,” he responded in an initial message.

He then noted that he had read all the journalist’s works. “I see that they have me in mind and it was a learning experience to see new meanings of my surname,” the government minister concluded. (JO)