Late Night Travel Adventures

La Paz, Bolivia was our next destination after Lima. Puzzle piecing our trip together, over mountain ranges, was tricky. Places didn’t look that far apart on the map but where somehow seemingly impossible to get to from one another. 

La Paz was one of those. It’s only a two-hour direct flight. Perfect, no big deal, right? Well, the only direct flights I could find left at 1am, three days a week. Which means you have to leave for the airport by 10, which means you just stay up. That’s doable.

Then remember the two hour flight. That makes you arrive at 3am. But wait, just like those infomercials, there’s more. During the flight, we switched from central to eastern time zones, so we arrive at 4am.

The flight was seemingly smooth, although I felt quite sick and spent more time in an airplane bathroom than anyone ever should. (Did you read the food tour blog? Yeah, that was just a couple hours before…) Anyway, it passed and all is well, and I even slept through a few minutes of my audiobook after that.

We arrived in La Paz and had to go through immigration. Lima was quick, swift and simple. La Paz was not. Even though every booth had someone working in it (impressive for 4am!), the process took a long time. Somehow we ended up at the back of the longest line (probably due to our citizenship not being of a country near by). We finally made it to the front. I handed over my passport, and the adorable young man behind the counter asked me a question. I’ve learned to say, “Lo siento, no habla espanol,” making sure to apologize for my ignorance. He went to the computer, obviously to translate something, then came back to me and said, “Yo have visa?” 

Now, I had read on the embassy’s website that you needed a visa. If it was for a relatively short time, it was easiest just to pay some money at the airport. I tried to find more information, but kept getting stuck in a loophole, so decided, we would figure it out when we got there.

At this point, there are only about eight of us left from the flight in the immigration area, and not so shockingly, no other planes were arriving at this ridiculous hour. So, we were escorted to another line. Here, a very friendly man asked us of our plans. He took photos of our passports, our hotel confirmation and our flight out of Lima next month. He returned a while later with printed copies of these that we would need for our visa. In another line, we paid $160 to purchase a shiny visa for our brand new passports.

We left this area, leaving only one fellow traveler behind us. At the next stop, where they scan your suitcase, we had to turn in a piece of documentation we had filled out on the plane. A couple questions we were unsure of, so we had left blank. The nice x-ray technician pointed to the questions. We apologized and made questioning gestures. He reached to the stack of papers from other travelers and just let us copy their answers. Hope they passed the test, because otherwise, we all failed!

Finally, a few minutes before 6, we made it to the airport lobby. Before we could leave, we had to get Bolivian currency. Do know that we had tried at our local banks in the states as well as at the airport in Lima, but had been unsuccessful. So, before we caught a cab, we needed money to pay him with.

We found the ATM, or perhaps I should say ATM room as it looked more like a game room with lots of tall shiny machines. We tried several, but for whatever reason were unsuccessful. It was almost like gambling machines, as we hoped to find one that would spit out money! On the sixth try, I was able to get 1400 Bolivianos (about $220) in my hand, and we were finally ready to leave!

After our last attempt for a cab at an airport, we were reluctant and didn’t want to get cheated. So, we found free internet and called an Uber. Our driver was lovely and we paid him $12 to drive us the twenty miles downhill from the El Alto airport into the city of La Paz. 

We had booked the previous night at our hotel so that we could check in upon arrival, and warned them of our late/early arrival. When our driver dropped us off, the street was dark and abandoned and the door to our hotel was locked. I rang the bell, and a small window on the large wooden door soon opened. A half-asleep man looked at us and with a beautiful accent said, “Rebecca”? I couldn’t have been more grateful at that moment. He quickly checked us in to a perfect little room and at 6:30 am, after a day with over 32,000 steps, we took sleeping pills and climbed into bed.

Now, I must say, that through all of the traveling difficulties, every Bolivian we met was gracious, kind and overwhelmingly welcoming. So, after a few hours sleep, we were excited to explore a brand new country!