- 1st day of trip. Saying I was 'thrilled' was an understatement! Had breakfast with Mark, and Lucy and Vien drove me to the airport (Thanks Lucy and Vien!)
- At the (SF) airport, as I stepped into the restroom, a Hispanic cleaning lady hushed-hushed me out and pointed to a men´s restroom. I responded "Yo la mujer. No hombre". We both laughed. Yes! I did it! My hard work in Spanish paid off.
- After 12 hours of flight and 8 hrs of layover (4 at LA, 4 at Lima), I finally set foot at Bolivian soil ... well, at least for 5 seconds at the immigration booth. I sensed something went wrong when the immigration officer started scrutinizing my passport, and within 5 minutes, 10 immigration/airline staff were flipping through my passport and passing around comments. I caught ´visa´,´china´ .. and after 20 puzzling minutes, I was escorted back into the flight I came in from. Hmm ... the flight´s destination is Santa Cruz (south of Bolivia). Great!
- The guy sitting next to me was a consultant in the mining industry and I was still trying to get over the frustration over this visa fiesta. He started telling me stories of how he worked at these deserted places and got stranded for days because of vehicle malfunction. Bottom line: shit happens and there is not much you can do about it. It is nothing new, but somehow knowing that shit happens to everybody (not just me) made me feel better.
- Another 4 hours later (1 to Santa Cruz, 3 from Santa Cruz to Lima), I´m back at Lima. It´s 8 pm (local time) already, and I have been in the air for over 20 hrs. I learnt from the flight attendant that my visa was deemed invalid, and they were sending me ... back to the states. LAN was ready to put me on a midnight flight back to LA when I managed to convince them that I would stay at Lima and clear things up with the Bolivia embassy ASAP.
- It is hard for people to grasp the concept that Hong Kong is part of China, but not China. At Lima, immigration officers were radio-ing one another that some gal from China (my passport cover says HKSAR People's Republic from China, so I am automatically from China) needs to check in, and everyone commented that I needed a visa to get clearance into Peru. Finally a supervisor stepped out from her office, looked at my passport, and said´ Ah ... Hong Kong, not China´. Thanks to her divine knowledge, I finally got my precious Peruvian stamp on my passport. Only glitch - they couldn´t find my backpack and I needed to come back tomorrow for it. Not a problem. At least I am somewhere in South America, even though not where I intended.
- Called a cab from the airport (40 sol) and stayed at a hostel at Miraflores (Backpackers Family House). At the airport, the LAN staff was nice enough to let me use the internet at the VIP lounge to locate hostel, embassy information. The hostel staff are super helpful and bonus point for speaking good English.
- 1st thing on my ´To-do-list' for tomorrow is to head to the Bolivian embassy.
- One gal at the hostel is heading home 1/3 into her trip - had been sick for over 2 weeks and had not eaten for almost 4 days. Yikes. Feel so bad for her. Need to stay healthy, stay healthy, stay healthy ...
