Our long & tiring flight to Bolivia…

In our way to Bolivia, we had a very tiring day and for that we thought to share our experience as a result of buying cheap plane tickets!

Disclaimer: We are not against buying cheap tickets, but sometimes this can lead to tiring experience and this post will set your expectations prior to any plans you make.

The story started when we bought our round trip tickets from Los Angeles to La Paz, to Guayaquil, and finally to Madrid. We booked with Taca Airlines and our first leg included 2 stops.

It took us 3 hours to pack our stuff (I don’t know why but when you stay a long time somewhere, you tend to spread what’s in your backpacks like everywhere!), we left the house in Mission Viejo at 9 pm as our flight was scheduled at 1:35 am and the airport is 1.5 hour from the house. We arrived at 10.30 pm and started queuing to drop the luggages. After queuing for an hour, we decided to double check with the agent at the airport to see if there is another queue for online check-in (usually there are!), and surprisingly there was one (how smart!!!).

We got our boarding passes (2nd queue) and went to the 3rd queue for our backpacks, and this took us another 30 min! It seems that flying companies decided that customers should do the bags/luggage check-in and not their employees, sweet! Finally came our fourth and last queue, the security check and the end of the long night queues.

After a quick last drink (sniff, sniff!) before takeoff, we were finally in the plane for good six hours. Thank God we could sleep a little bit before landing at San José airport in Costa Rica.

The San José airport is very comfortable and pleasant which was good as we had to stay there for 6 hours. We were able to enjoy a very nice landscape, and the most important we had free WI-Fi to do some work and check with our friends and families and as a result; time passed quickly.

Later we took our second plane for four hours to Lima Peru, which also gave us the chance to have some sleep.

After another couple of hours layover in Lima where they also provide free WI-Fi which gave us the chance to call our host in La Paz to confirm reservation! We then took our last plane which after boarding was set on hold for weather report clearance for another hour, at that point we were very tired…

We arrived at La Paz at 2 am after 2 hours flight, and it took us an hour or so to finish with passports, luggage, currency change, and changing clothes as it was raining and cold. Whereupon we took a cab, and the ride was for another good hour (driver didn’t know the place and the was no one to ask, after all it was after midnight).

We finally were able to make it to bed at 5 am, and that was exactly 26.5 hours after we left home at Los Angeles. This was a very tiring flight, and we were also worry about the altitude sickness after all we had heard and read and how it can be dangerous if not taken seriously etc…

But thanks to God, we were fine and so far, we didn’t felt anything serious.

Have you been in such a long flight?