Bolivia Go!

My first destination on this blog will be South America. My flight stops in San Salvador, El Salvador, then Lima, Peru. The airline has overbooked the flight, so they were asking for someone to stay the night and fly the next morning to La Paz. They offered total accomodations and a 500 dollar credit to fly anywhere. My original plan was to travel overland from La Paz to Rio, but this was tedious, and I knew it. I decided then and there to change plans. I would instead travel north from La Paz to Lima, through Cuzco, and fly from Lima to Rio (la Paz is a small airport and there are no flights to Rio through the airline I had credit at). I accepted, walked through customs, and was in Lima for the night. The airline gave me a penthouse suite on the 11th floor of a fly hotel in downtown lima, complete with kitchen, full bathroom, closet, and a stellar view. My trip began in style...

After the mistakeof making a phone call which ended up costing me about 100 USD, I decided to haggle and pretended not to have money to pay. I´m sorry, I said, I cant do anything about it, I only have 120 soles, which i put down on the table, my hand palming the 100 extra soles I had in my pocket. I owed about 260 soles. They complained, told me to make calls to the embassy, or to get a friends credit card number. Eventually, my taxi back to the airport was about to leave and I had to catch the flight. I forkd over the amount by slipping it under the 120 i put down earlier. I said im sorry, but this is all i have, spreading the bills. The guy looked at it and did a double take. He asked the girl how much I had there. She said 120. He said count again, clearly seeing the extra 100. I was a good 15USD short, but they grumbled a bit but let me go.

Close call, i thought. Without my pretending not to have enough, I would surely have been trapped there. Slick hands...

Anyway, my flight to La Paz was reasonably uneventful.
In countries like those in central and South America, people sometimes clap when the plane lands. This can catch you off guard if you´re not ready for it. TYhey are just happy to have landed safely. In the US, nobody gives a shit, its just expected. I think its the sense of entitlement americans have. US passe¡gers, when the plane lands, seem to be thinking ´That´s goddamn right you landed safely! If you didnt...oh the lawsuits!´
Everyone else in the world is just grateful...

The La PAz airport is a joke. There is one guy who we all go through for immigration. Customs is partially cordoned off by a row of chairs. One could leap the chairs and make it into Bolivia. Before customs, I see they have (of course) lost my bag. This is the bag I meticulously packed with everything I need. Its a huge black army surplus bag, and it basically has my life in it. I whine a bit and some guy helps me fill out a lost bag form. By the time we´re done, there is nobody at the customs station. I literally walk through customs. Nobody sees me. I pocket my declaration form. What a country, I think!