GETTING THERE is all the fun!

Bolivia for two weeks.  My hopes were for hotels that have hot water.  The reality has turned out better.  Our first night, though was quite an adventure.  Suzanne and I met in Miami for American Airlines flight 922 to La Paz and on to Santa Cruz leaving at 10:30 pm and arriving in Santa Cruz at 9:30 the next morning.  The reality was a cancelled flight at 10:30, standing in line to change our tickets along with at least 400 people.  We were lucky that we were only about the 20th persons in line.  Lucky in that it took us only 2 ½ hours to get our ticket (we had rebooked by phone while in the line, but could not get the tickets except by remaining in line).  All of American’s flights the next three days were booked up.  Suzanne and I were lucky to get on a flight on Copa (Panamanian airlines) the next day at 11:45 am.  We were not so lucky with sleeping arrangements, however.

Note to American Airlines:  A hotel room would have cost you up to $200 according to the agent who gave us our vouchers if there had been any rooms available.  Sleeping on a cot in the auditorium cost you what?  Couldn’t you provide a blanket larger than 2 ½ feet by 6 feet and thicker than a Kleenex?  We FROZE, and I mean FROZE.  Suzanne had a blanket for our adventure to the Salt Mines and I had a shawl.  Neither helped us much.  I guess the cots being so close to the floor and made of porous material...cold air just blew up under us.  It was Miami.  Who would think it would be that cold.

Second note to American Airlines:  We got to the cots at 1:15 and you kicked us out at 6.  Did you really need the space that badly?  Thank god we really weren’t sleeping (see above note).

Note to the two Olympic level snorers:  Really?  You didn’t wake yourselves up?  How about at least synchronizing the next time.

We were happy, I suppose, that we got out in 2 ½ hours.  We wondered about the 400 or so people behind us in line.  We had re-booked and only needed the paperwork, and our case took over 15 minutes at the agent’s desk.  My organizational mind kept wondering WHY it took that long to assign and print out vouchers for meals.  Obviously everyone in that line was in the same boat and all of those in front of us had been in the same situation.  Wouldn’t it seem that there would be some method for automatically printing out the vouchers with our reservation number alone.  At one point our agent asked her colleague about something on her screen that obviously had something to do with date of birth.  Huh?

Believe it or not, but we got a survey from American on the quality of the trip.  I'm waiting until I get home to craft a good response.