Flying out

One good thing about flying to South America [from New Zealand anyway] is that the baggage allowance is very generous. Each person is allowed two cases of a maximum of 23 kgs, and carry on of 8 kgs. Very helpful indeed if you are planning to be away for a year. It does have a downside though, what a fiasco getting through airports and using taxis! My daughter and her husband decided to accompany us on our adventure, so with four of us we had 8 large suitcases and 4 small. Hugely daunting when arriving in Buenos Aires and not being really sure where our hotel was, and having to take separate taxis. Some people told us not to be concerned about learning Spanish in NZ, being fully immersed in the language would ensure we picked it up in no time. Not really a help in Buenos Aires before arriving in Bolivia however! Fortunately we did try our best for 6 months to learn the language, and I can honestly say the more you can learn before leaving home the better. Even being able to have small conversations with our brothers and sisters here has been like gold! I would have hated not knowing any Spanish at all. Anyway I digress, more on that later.
   I imagined the easiest way to get to Bolivia from NZ would be through the United States, but it turns out the best way for us was to fly either direct from Auckland to La Paz or to fly to either Santiago Chile, or Buenos Aires Argentina, then take a domestic flight up to Salta Argentina, where we could bus across the border to Tarija Bolivia which was our final destination. We were advised that flying in to La Paz while sometimes a cheaper option, could pose problems as it is at a very high altitude (almost 4000 meters) which causes major problems for some until your body adjusts. Apparently there is no way of knowing if you will cope or not, and if you react badly, you simply need to get to a lower altitude ASAP. It appears some people have even died! Considering we were  living not much above sea level in NZ it was probably a good choice to take the Southern route which we did. Actually it just happened that a good special on a flight came up flying into Santiago, then on to Buenos Aires, then on to Salta which we purchased. We were not even aware of how risky it was flying to La Paz. Anyway it was awesome to see other countries on the way.
   We were supposed to have a 7 hour stopover in Chile, but our flight was delayed, and we turned up in Santiago just in time to walk on to the next flight to Buenos Aires. We stayed a night here then flew on to Salta.
   In my next post I will give our impressions of these cities and post some photographs. I only have one poor photograph of our flight into Buenos Aires to post now (sorry about the quality) I was trying to get an impression of the size of the city but it wasn't a great shot. Hasta manana