The flight to Bolivia

August 7 - 8, 2007

When I got to Mexico City it was like déjà vu. Jazzy and I had been there just 2 days earlier flying from Puerto Vallarta to LAX. I flew out of Mexico City from the same gate, in fact, that we waited at to leave just 2 days earlier. I had arrived with a 5-hour layover so I strolled around trying to practice mi espanol. Sometimes I failed miserably, but sometimes I did real well with the language. It was slowly coming back to me. It’s all about practicing and redefining your comfort zones. I spoke with one man, an Argentinean, named Flavian for some minutes before we departed. He offered some interesting information about his country – it boasts the most beautiful women and best beef to eat. Flavian had lived in Houston for two years, but preferred South America. We shared travel stories and laughed at how confusing we both found the language of the 4 Chinese gentlemen sitting in front of us.

On my flight to Peru I slept most of the way, but ran into some interesting individuals as well. First, I sat next to Linda, an American. She stole my seat, but no hard feelings because she gets motion sick. I figured a seat in the middle was better any day than a seat in danger of vomit. Linda works as a ski resort international employee recruiter. Yeah, I was like, what, too. She works at a resort somewhere in Park Slope (?), Utah that hires students from all over the world to work there. She basically gets paid to travel around the world to interview potential candidates. Over the next 3-4 weeks she will recruit in Peru, Argentina, Australia, and South Africa. I told her I wasn’t crazy about skiing, but I would dig her job. Sounds pretty cool.

Anyways, the flight wasn’t full so I was able to move to the more-spacious-but-far-from-first-class-status emergency seats, which my lanky behind needs. There I sat between a Brazilian and a Peruvian. Both were again very interesting and had incredible travel stories. Alfredo, the Brazilian, works for a medical equipment company in Brazil. There wasn’t a place I could mention – except the Philippines – that he hadn’t traveled to. He had even spent some time in Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia. He said he was getting tired of traveling, however. He just got married and hadn’t even had time to honeymoon. I asked him where he thought they would go and he said his wifey wanted to go to Orlando. I was like, Orlando? All the places in the world, and Orlando? Whatever floats your boat. Funny though, Alfredo boasted that Brazil had the best beef and the most beautiful women in the world.

Eduardo, the Peruvian to my right, is in charge of sales for a wireless telecommunications company based in Peru. He also had extensive traveling experiences. He most recently visited Israel. I had a more difficult time understanding his accent, so part of the conversation was a little shady for me. However, he reiterated how peaceful and beautiful the place was (the places in Israel he traveled that is). This paints a very different picture than what is often heard on the news in the States.

I finally made it to Peru, but my traveling via avion wasn’t quite finished. I had another 2-hour flight from Lima to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. We arrived in Lima around 11:30 and my flight left at about 12:30. At this point I was feeling the jet lag. I had no idea what time it was or what day for that matter. Waiting for the flight I ran into a Bostonian. His name was Greg and is a special education teacher. He’s been teaching for about 7 years and him and his wife have taken muchas oportunidades to travel. He was headed to La Paz to chill for a couple of days to get used to the altitude (about 13,000 feet) then head back to Peru to climb some mountain that stands at 18,000 feet. His wife was going to meet him afterwards and they would travel a bit through Peru.

I finally made it to La Paz at about 3 am. I wasn’t set on any one plan. I wanted to get to Copacabana and tour Lake Titicaca, but I was exhausted as well. And, it was cold. It didn’t help that it was 3 in the morning, but I figured it would somehow work out (and it did). I befriended a Bolivian who is now living in San Diego. He was going to wait at the airport for an hour or so and then check into a hotel. He was traveling back to visit some of his family in the northern region of the country. I told him I had wanted to catch an early bus to Copacabana, but wasn’t quite sure how to do that. There was only one taxi remaining so we decided to split the fair and he would make sure to help me get to the bus station. We reached the station, which was just the corner of a street, and there were already some folks waiting to go. We were traveling via kambee buses, which aren’t full buses, more like a version of the VW buses. These buses were the method of travel in Namibia, so I felt right at home.

Now it was about 4 am and we departed. We drove through La Paz, stopping at various street corners to pick up more customers. It was cold. We drove for about 2.5 hours. I fell asleep. When I awoke to my left was a picturesque view of a lake coastline, the Andes Mountains in the distance, and the sun slowly rising. It was beautiful. The kambee ride stopped in Tiquina. At this point I had to take a motorboat across a portion of the lake. It cost 1.50 bolivianos (about 0.20 US). It was cold. When we reached the other side I hitched an ascending taxi ride to the top of a mountain and then down to the lakeshore town of Copacabana. Finally, I made it. I was poop tired. I found the first hostel I could and crashed. It was about 8:00 am. I had been traveling just over 24 hours. I slept till 3 in the afternoon…