Struggle to Escape, part three.

I set­tled eas­ily into my AeroSur seat. There was a delay as air­port secu­rity tried to find a pas­sen­ger, some male, who needed to be Removed From the Plane for Questioning. Eventually they found the guy, and we were cleared for take­off. I knew bet­ter than to eat their possibly-Amoeba-poisoned fool, so at 11:something at night I had my day’s first meal — the Starbucks sand­wich I’d wisely pur­chased ear­lier. That swiftly done away with, and my brain sat­is­fied by hav­ing seen Cuba down below… and I fell asleep. I awoke the next morn­ing some­where over Ecuador, maybe Colombia. It was impos­si­ble to tell. We landed safely in Santa Cruz.

A cou­ple of scary things about land­ing in Santa Cruz.

First, the AeroSur would only take me so far. In Santa Cruz I was to get back onto a LAB flight. I had no inter­est in fly­ing with LAB.

Second, by land­ing in Santa Cruz I had to go through cus­toms twice. Every time you go through cus­toms you run the risk of out­ra­geous charges and con­fis­cated goods — any­thing some­one wants to take home to his wife.

I was blessed. Santa Cruz was easy. They took my immi­gra­tion papers and they stamped my pass­port — in the wrong spot, nat­u­rally. They waved me through cus­toms with­out a sin­gle prob­lem. They were all intrigued by Captain Pausert whose bright green eyes stared out of his Prison. They were par­tic­u­larly impressed with the embossed and brightly inked seal of the Bolivian Consulate in Houston on Pausert’s health papers. I was in Santa Cruz, stand­ing in Bolivia, and I was free. I went straight for the LAB counter. Another half hour in line, then I walked up to the counter and pointed at my nearby stacks of lug­gage. They stared blankly. Then came the con­ver­sa­tion in Spanish.

“Only one bag.”

“No, you have to take all of my bags.”

“Only one bag.”

“No, I paid for all of this lug­gage in Miami. This is my receipt.”

“Only one bag! And no pets.”

“NO! You take ALL of my bags AND my cat.” (The Bolivian travel agent had been very indig­nant that I be as loud and as mean as pos­si­ble, as that’s what was nec­es­sary and nor­mal to get through unscathed.)

“$750.”

“NO, I PAID in MIAMI.”

LAB Jerkface #2 turned and asked some­thing of some­one else. That some­one asked some­one. Then a woman appeared, looked at LAB Jerkface #2, and said: “It’s okay.”

LAB Jerkface #2 sud­denly turned smil­ing and pleas­ant, “Thank you! Please hand me your luggage.”

and all was well.

After being cleared, I went upstairs and waited. This was a new expe­ri­ence, too. Well, two new experiences.

First, a Bolivian bath­room. One on the clean side of things, but but­tons were in odd places.

Second, the secu­rity expe­ri­ence. You can’t go through secu­rity and wait at your gate. No, you wait with all of the other flights and try to find a couch which isn’t packed with sleep­ing peo­ple. When your plane is ready to board, then you go through secu­rity and go to your gate.

I made it. I made it through secu­rity, through my gate, onto the LAB plane. The LAB plane was this old, smokey, rick­ety machine. It flew, though!

We landed in Cochabamba. My lug­gage was retrieved, and again Pausert and his Official Bolivian Consulate Seal was such a dis­trac­tion that cus­toms ignored my lug­gage and passed me through the gate… and into my par­ents’ arms.

I am in Cochabamba, Bolivia.