12 Hours in Bolivia

rom what we´ve heard and been told, traveling in Bolivia can be tricky. In a nutshell, the US has less than perfect relations with their government. Flying from Buenos Aires to Cusco, Peru, we had the opportunity to spend 12 hours in Santa Cruz, thanks to procrastinating on booking our flight.

Here´s how it went.

In Buenos Aires we were told that, upon arrival in the Santa Cruz airport, we would need to obtain a Visa (mandatory for US citizens). No problem, we need one anyways as we will be heading there post-Machu Picchu. As we rolled through immigrations, the guy asked “do you have a Visa”. Us: No.” Him: “Ok, pass”. Hmmm, okay… easy enough. As it was only 6pm, we decided we might as well leave the airport to go explore Santa Cruz for a few hours, then come crash in the airport before departing on our 6am flight to Cusco.

We headed to the AeroSur Airlines counter to see if 1) we could leave our bags in a locker or 2) we could check our bags. Yes to the former, no to the latter. As we turned to head towards the lockers, she said “oh, but you must be looking for your hotel vouchers”. Us, looking quizzically at each other: “um, sure”. Five minutes later, we were in a cab (free) clutching the voucher for our our comped hotel (with two queen sized beds, AC, huge bathroom… and a free dinner out by the pool in the back courtyard) in downtown Santa Cruz. We were totally clueless as to what had just happened. The airline even sent a cab for us in the morning, so we´d be back in time for our 6am flight.

Pretty certain we love both AeroSur and Bolivia at this point.

We are in Cusco now, tomorrow we depart for our our 8 day trek to Machu Picchu. Over the course of the past two days, 12 of our friends have flown in from all over the US to meet us here (Allison, Theo, Barney, Cinzia, Marisa, Randy, John, Melissa, Andy, Dave, Catherine, and Juliet)… so we  are rolling 14 strong for the next 10 or so days as we treverse over the Salkanty Pass then down into Machu Picchu. For the 14 of us, we have 20 porters… so our group´s presence is certain to be felt.

So excited for MP 2009 as a part of FV 2009… we´ll check back after the hike!