American Airlines, How I Hate You

After more than forty eight hours of traveling, I've finally arrived, safe and sound.

It was a stressful leaving the States, with a misplaced passport and visa, a flight out of Chicago delayed for lack of flight attendents, a flight out of Miami missed by all of five minutes, luggage checked through without me and spending the night in a smoky, suburban casino.

Then it was downright scary entering Bolivia. The plane actually had to climb before the knuckle-whitening descent into El Alto. Apparently, planes have to be going twice as fast as at sea level to take off and land, so they are equipped with special tires and brakes and the runways are twice as long. As we landed, most all of the Bolivians were crossing themselves, the women next to me crossed me too!