March 16- Back to La Paz

I woke up at 5 AM with my brain racing.  I decided I may as well get up and do something so I organized a log of all the arrangements I’d booked, cancelled, COULD cancel, etc. It was helpful- I’d started to mix things up in my mind.

At breakfast one more option closed:  we were all booked to fly to Lima on 3/19, and that was the base for a wide choice of flights to the US.  Lima was now closed to transiting passengers.  I had been SO tempted to grab a flight from Lima to the US that I’d seen on-line earlier in the morning.  I’d decided that I’d made too many knee-jerk decisions when things were in a state of flux.  Now I was very glad I’d restrained myself.  We  were told to skip our flight to the salt flats- a disappointment- and pack up for an 8 AM overland departure to La Paz to wait while the OAT travel desk sorted things out.  We later learned that one couple a tour group member had met managed to get to Lima on their way home to Canada- and they were promptly quarantined for 14 days.

Our hotel in Copacabana had a large group of German tourists, some of whom had arrived only a couple of days earlier.  So…  travelers from Europe, with a large number of coronavirus cases, were permitted to enter a country with fewer than a dozen cases thus far.  What was wrong with this picture?  Still, I felt very bad for them. I was pretty sure they’d have an even shorter trip than we would.

On the way back to La Paz Williams learned that our best chance to get home was a Boliviana de Aviacion flight from La Paz to Santa Cruz and then changing to a flight to Miami.  They’d found a local travel agent and the flights were fully booked for the next day but available the day after.  I cannot repeat too many times how the guide and the OAT staff went above and beyond in this crisis.  I hadn't even booked my flights through them and they still worked to get me home.

When we arrived in La Paz, the travel agent met us in our hotel lobby, gave us our documents for the flights from La Paz to Santa Cruz and then on to Miami, and processed our payments. She was accompanied by her little girl.  Well, the kids were out of school.  Not much else she could do.  We were grateful for her work.