Flycycle Diaries, Part 2

Hello! I´m on an airplane again. This time it´s LAB, Lloyd Aereo Boliviano, the ultimate cheap flight airline of south america. By airline standards, the plane is ancient...a 1970´s 200 series Boeing 727. But, it´s been refurbished. The flight attendant call button has the sexist outline of a short skirted stewardess imprinted on it. The flight was supposed to take off at 3:30 a.m. They were good enough to call me and tell me the departure time was 5 a.m., but that I should check in at 3 a.m. We boarded the plane at 10 a.m. I was waiting in the airport since 6 p.m. That makes for a long night! Ouch!

I think I know every square inch of the Caracas airport. Because of the delay, they gave us a voucher for breakfast. That was nice and the people were very pleasant, even though a little understaffed and disorganized. They had one functioning computer at the check in counter. There were only about 25 passengers and it took about 2 hours to check us in. Poor LAB. There were about another 25 passengers already on board when we got on. I don´t know where they came from. The plane probably holds about 160 people, maybe more. I got a whole row to myself.

One great thing about a Latin American airport is watching the flight crews walk through the airport to their planes. They DEFINITELY know how to dress the part! They´re all in dark ties and suits. There´s gold braid and lots of stripes and spiffy hats with a large medallion on the front and wings about 6 inches across on their chests. Machismo personified! They´re definitely a cut above the motorcycle gang jackets worn by Southwest!

Flying south over Venezuela and Brazil is very impressive. For several hours, there´s nothing to see except a sea of green. We´re looking down onto the canopy of the huge rain forest of Amazonia. Occasionally, I can see an equally green river snaking its way around the landscape. It looks so homogeneous from the top, but contains such an immense richness!

Now, I´m sitting in the bar of this hotel the name of which I don´t know. Actuially, it´s not even a bar, but the bar/restaurant of the hotel. When the plane landed in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, it was an incredible show. There were about 20 of us headed for Buenos Aires. We were all told that the airline would put us up for the night in a hotel and send us off the following day. Of course, when we got to Santa Cruz, nobody with the airline knew nada. There was a token ticket counter with 3 overworked, and probably underpaid, workers behind the counter, and about 100 customers all scrunched up at the counter trying to get served. It was so "un-American." Everybody was talking at once and thrusting passports and plane tickets at the agents. None of this seemed to bother the unrumpled ticket agents. After every one had the chance to talk about the flight, the length of the delay, the promises made, etc., the airline folks rounded up a bus and a hotel. The hotel is actually pretty nice. And the airline folks paid for our dinner and breakfast. Poor LAB is probably not making any money off my $500 round trip ticket from caracas to buenos aires. They were even supposed to charge me $75 for changing the date of my ticket and they didn´t. I´m not complaining!

It seems like there are 2 schools of thought re-plane travel. There´s the american school: if the flight is supposed to leave at 3:28, then it better leave at at that time. Then there´s the latin american (and other places??) school that says if the flight is supposed to leave at 3, then that means it may leave sometime that day unless it´s cancelled. In Venezuela, I remember asking when the bus left. The answer was "about every 2 hours." Did it have a schedule?? No! I am so lucky. I don´t have to be anywhere at any time.

In the little bus they provided us, it was hot, humid, muggy. It was probably in the 90´s. The bus was not air conditioned. But, in the bus, it was party time! If this had been a group of Americans, half would be sitting in gloomy silence, upset by the delay and the heat. The other half would be on their cell phones, explaining their situation to all and sundry. Instead, this group was laughing, joking about the terrible night at the airport, etc., and having a great old time of it. What a wonderful way to react under the circumstances! They were almost all Argentines and thoroughly enjoyed picking on me and my fractured Spanish.

BUT, gracias a dios, they are so much EASIER to understand than the Venezuelans! They actually PRONOUNCE their words and don´t speak like a race car at full speed.

So, I came down to dinner at 7 p.m., famished, and of course, the Bolivians don´t even think about offering dinner until 7:30. I suspect the Argentines won´t be down here until close to midnight, long after I´ll be sound asleep.

In my short walk around the hotel area, the town of santa cruz is so much more sophisticated than Merida! Merida has the advantage of being in a beautiful mountain setting. Otherwise, unfortunately, it really has nothing going for it. It´s supposed to be a¨"university city" but I felt the university influence was minimal. There were some discotheques, but that was about it.
Here, in Santa Cruz, I´ve come across several bookstores, a chocolate shop (yummy!), some bohemian looking cafes. This place is much more hip than Merida! I´m tempted to draw sweeping conclusions that Merida students are just party animals (parranderos or fiesteros) and out to get something for notthing, which they´re all but entitled to in socialist Venezuela. In the very short time I´ve been here, the Bolivians strike me as deeper, more intense, AND, most importantly for me, easier to understand!

Well, the flight to buenos aires was supposed to leave at 10 a.m. Now I´m told it will leave at 1:30 p.m. Uh-oh, another adventure!