April 10, 2000
Day 171 Flight from La Paz to Rurrenabaque
We are up early and have breakfast at the hotel. We take a taxi to the airport in El Alto. We have arranged with the hotel to keep our extra stuff and bicycles.
Again there is military on the streets. In El Alto, there are lots of police—they have also sided with the campesinos for they have not been paid and are also unhappy.
We are early to the airport. At 9, we check in. We talk with an Australian named Sue, about tours. She too doesn’t want to be on a tour with a group of Israeli’s. That is becoming a topic of bonding with non-Israeli travelers…and we have all seemed to reach independently the same conclusions and observations of Israeli groups. Patrick always interjects that part of the problem is that they travel in large groups and large groups (of any nationality) can be obnoxious. Rachel thinks it sad that the Israel youth are representing their country so poorly and not improving international relations.
We board the military plane (Patrick says it’s a Dutch plane good for short runways). We have views of the mountains, La Paz and Rivers. A stewardess gives us a drink of sprite and before landing (for the descent) a piece of candy to suck on. The landing is on a grass airstrip. We get out and fee the heat and humidity. We have been for about a month at elevations above 3000 meters.
What a change!!
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Things work differently than at home. Our luggage is unloaded to the grass area on the other side of the fence. We must wait until the outgoing luggage is loaded, the passengers boarded and the plane takes off, before we can get our luggage.
The luggage is loaded to the roof rack of a truck and we are all loaded to the back and for 4 BS each we get a ride into town to the TM office. Patrick is first in line to buy return tickets and gets 2 of the remaining 3 seats for next Monday. Along with Sue, we ask about one company’s tours, then find the Hotel recommended by someone leaving at the airport today Hotel Asis. It's nice rooms, and bathroom, a courtyard with two hammocks and they came down in price.
After being settled and showered and cleaned up, we go out again and arranged a 2 day jungle tour with Fluvial tours. Later we go to Club Social for dinner. We have a table with a nice view of the river and watch the sunset. Rachel ate a burrito and taco which was big and shared with Patrick. He had a huge bowl of chili con carne!
We are almost finished when Tanya & Suzy come up to the table. They have just returned from their tours and will be flying back to La Paz Wednesday. We exchange stories and say goodbye again.
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