Trip from Buenos Aires to Santa Cruz to La Paz

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We left Buenos Aires in high spirits, as our trip to the Jungle in Bolivia is something we have been looking forward to for a long time. We were to get a flight from BA to Santa Cruz in Bolivia, and then from Santa Cruz to La Paz. We planned to stay in La Paz overnight and then catch our flight to Rurrenabaque the following morning, and from Rurre we would get to Madidi by boat up the Beni river.

Our flight from SC to LP was originally scheduled for the afternoon, but it got cancelled. We were booked on a 7pm flight instead. That was no problem, it didn´t really bother us! We arrived in SC airport around 11.30 am and hung around the airport until 5.30 when they would let us go through security to the departures lounge. We sat in the lounge, and all of a sudden, at about 6.45, our 7pm flight disappeared off the board. So Dave went back out to security to see what the story was and they sent us down to the Aerosur desk (that was the company we were flying with).... it turned out the flight was cancelled. What we didn´t know was that Aerosur had been cancelling flights since January as they couldn´t afford fuel. The day we had arrived the workers had finally agreed to strike as they hadn´t been paid for months and one of the former directors was being accused of embezzling $27 million out of the company. We could have booked on the next Boa (state carrier) flight except the one remaining Aerosur employee that morning had checkd our bags in for us, then dissappeared and we couldn´t get to them. so we were worried that we wouldn´t make our jungle trip as we had to catch a flight to Rurre the next morning which we now couldn´t make. Thankfully we got in contact with the tour company and they pushed us back a day. So we were told our best option was to stay the night in Santa Cruz and hopefully there would be someone from Aerosur there in the morning.

So we travelled into the city centre (there´s no airport hotel) and stayed in the Boliviar Residencia which is a hostel near the main square in Santa Cruz. The hostel was great and they had a resident Toucan (Simon) hanging out in the courtyard. We strolled down to the main square which full of bars and restaurants and had a nice tree lined courtyard in the centre. It turned out getting to see Santa Cruz was a blessing in disguise as there was a great atmosphere in the place and we got some great dinner there too.

After our pleasant night in SC we got up early to get out to the airport at 6am which was when the AeroSur desk was due to open. We met a few other passengers who similar to us had Aerosur flights and we let them know the situation. There was no sign of anyone by 9am so we got talking to the customer service guy who was very helpful. He informed us of the strike situation and tried his best to find our bags.

He searched high and low but no sign. The Aerosur staff were all on strike so there was no-one there to help us. Eventually, he wandered up to the Aerosur office and through the window we could see...our bags! So the information man said he could get someone to open the door, and we could book ourselves on the BoA 6pm flight. So off we went to book our flight for that evening.

It turned out that unlocking the door to the office would breach strike regulations so nobody was willing to open it for us. So the info man called an important person in the airport who went out to one of the Aerosur employees to get the key and bring it back to open the door at 3pm. That was great because we had to check our bags at 4.

So there was more waiting around, and 3pm came and went but no sign of the guy to open the door. (At this stage the info man had gone home). 3:45 he shows up, we got our bags just in time to check them in. There were no problems with our flight at all, it went on time and arrived on time.

Moral of the story is: always check local news when you´re travelling!

We landed in La Paz that evening feeling worse for wear. La Paz is the highest capital city in the world at 3,600 metres. Dave had a massive headache and i was pretty dizzy. We got a taxi to our hostel, Arthy´s Guesthouse, where we met Angela from our travel agent. She gave us our plane tickets to Rurre and loads of information for our ecolodge stay. After that we checked into our room and drank copious amounts of coca tea. Its supposed to help altitude sickness but even if it doesn´t, it tastes good!

We discovered the hostel had an impressive DVD collection so sat down to watch the first series of "The Office" before heading to bed. It had been a stressful couple of days!

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