On-the-Road Tales

At 0400, traffic in La Paz is not too much of a problem so getting to the airport was easy. I jumped on the queue and soon learned why as the place quickly turned in a maze of lines. Organized, just very slow counter staff dealing with yellow fever and visa requirements for flying abroad. Took some photos of the airlines I am all to familiar with in my work. I boarded my Aerosur 727-200 and watched dawn break on the snowy Cordilleas range surrounding one, if not the, highest commercial airport in the world, El Alto. I watched the drug sniffer dogs excitedly bounce around waiting for the next load of luggage to tackle. You would not pull anything over on these pups! As each bag was sniffed, luggage handlers would grab bags 2 at a time and dart across the tarmac to try and get a plane out on time. Not exactly efficent use of energy at that 3800 meters! On the take off I felt I could reach out and touch the glacial lakes and snowy peaks, oh wait taking off from that altitude – I probably could.

We landed in Santa Cruz, Bolivia to change planes. I thought it was a bit strange that the crew were american until I saw a placard and realized it was an Ryan Intl 757 so probably a lease to Aero Sur. This was the first flight in recent memory I got an emergency row exit. I enjoyed the legroom for all of about 45 minutes when a young norwegian girl I had seen in the airport promptly collapsed in front of me with her pillow in fury of tears and fits of shivering. The flight attendent comes up and looks at my asking what is wrong. Me, the cynic, assume it is a fight with the boyfriend or something until we start asking if she is sick. Suddenly we are calling for a medic on board. There was an Aussie nurse which came to help. Because she was concerned with the patient and noone else seemed to be taking much command, I, holding the oxygen bottle starting interviewing the boyfriend, trying to get info asked the FAs for thermometers, first aid kits etc. One of the FAs is asking if we need an emergency landing – I am thinking huh, we are an hour from Santa Cruz nowhere, headed to Sao Paulo Brasil somehwere over the jungle. Brasilia is the only hope and god only knows where that is from here…uh nope – do not think that is such a good idea! The girl started responding to oxygen and calming. Turns out she had been sick for several days with gastro, no food, probably dehydrated and just took a turn for the worse at 37000 feet. The medics were waiting on the ground in Sao Paulo. I had to chuckle with everyone asking me if I was a doctor – if they only knew I passed out at the sight of a needle but I was more concerned with getting on the ground using a decent runway. Note to self – do not get sick on an aircraft bc there is not a hell of a lot on baord to help you feel better. All part of the experience!

Landed, got through immigration after the flight from Angola – one of only 4 portuguese countries left in the world and my good friend Donovan from college was waiting for me. He works for Embraer in Sao Jose dos Campos, about 1.5 hours east of SP. I finally after 7 years of hearing about his wonderful wife Cecilia got to meet her and she is lovely! She is from Chile originally and has some engliosh so we agreed to sepak spanish half the day to keep mine up and english the other half so she could practice. Best of both. We went for dinner in town and it was great to relax with friends and not worry about locking my stuff to a bedpost for once!

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 at 11:09 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.