"No chico? Muy bien!!"

Monday, August 25, 2014
La Paz, Bolivia
So this day marks my sad departure from Peru. I'm sure the rest of my travels will also be an exciting adventure, but I have really enjoyed my time in Peru and met so many wonderful people that I am quite sad to end this leg of the trip.

I took a taxi to the airport and did something really stupid there . I went to take out some $$ at the airport, with the intention of keeping some and changing some to Bolivianos. Unfortunately the ATMs here spit out the money first before the card. I'm not used to that, so I left it behind in the machine. Goodbye Citibank card! Luckily I have a couple of different cards, but none without the withdrawal fees like this one. 

I think the pilot was on Peruvian time, because it seemed to take an eternity to leave the airport. Not that I was really aware, I was only half awake. I pretty much slept from the moment I sat down to the moment someone woke me up at La Paz.

Bolivian customs was something of a surprise - certainly not the same reception as one might expect in the USA or UK, for example. I recall the customs official grilling me for a full 5-10 minutes about my travel plans in New York, trying to catch me out. However, the Bolivian customs official had only one question for me - "are you married or single?" . The response when I said I was single? "Muy bien!!! No chico?? Maybe in Bolivia (wink wink)". He then waved me through.

The airport transfer was a little strange also. A man picked me up, then asked me to wait inside while he went out and hailed a taxi. He then travelled with me in the taxi, paid the taxi driver and left me at the hotel. Not exactly what I expected. No seatbelts in the back and an insane taxi driver was also not quite what I expected. The traffic here is quite mad actually. There are kids skateboarding and doing tricks down the middle of the highway and no one seems to mind.

Anyway, I don't know if it was the return to the altitude or the altitude tablets or maybe just the lack of sleep in Lima, but once I arrived at the hotel I proceeded to sleep for about 16 hours, so didn't see a whole lot of the city yet!
 

 
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