Esme and I were excited to finally be making it Bolivia after what seemed like an eternity. We would finally be able to meet my sisters and do all the things we had been looking forward to! After many mishaps, we hoped this last step would be easier, though we were nervous because it was the crucial tourist visa step. So, upon arrival, I was pretty shocked to see that the international airport in a large city was a relatively small, rundown, institutional building that reminded me of my old high school’s gym. It was one-story with an area for waiting lines, a room for picking up suitcases, and little else. There was no way to get lost, at least.
Esme and I were arriving at about 1 a.m. My sisters had decided to receive us at the airport. The head of a JW family they were staying with while in the city of Santa Cruz had decided to pick us up in his vehicle to make the early morning trip back to their house that much easier. We were among some of the last ones processed through immigration. The immigration officer asked for our paperwork. Everything went well, until we got to the letter of invitation my sister had written us. Apparently, it had to be certified by the Bolivian embassy and stamped, but ours wasn’t because there had been absolutely no information about it anywhere. So, the immigration officer said that we had to have a hotel reservation instead. She suggested making a reservation for one night through booking.com to show we had a place to stay, even though you often don’t have to pay upon making the reservation and can cancel it later. We did so, and were finally given a tourist visa. After going through the next officer, we were allowed to pass as the last entrants of the night, around 20 minutes after the others had left. Fortunately, Esme had been able to signal that the luggage left on the belt was ours, so it had been picked up and stacked on an old cart by the airport employee that awaited us. Once we were able to pass into the lobby, we finally met with our sisters who tipped the airport employee and loaded up our luggage into the brother’s vehicle.
It was about 3-4 a.m. when we finally arrived at the family’s house. We were exhausted, so Esme and I showered and then we went to sleep. We slept deeply, but I woke up just a few hours later to greet our hostess. We were left to our own devices with plenty of supplies for breakfast.
After sleeping another few hours, my sisters woke us up to try to fight the jetlag, meet the host family, and eat lunch. We had a very traditional sopa de maní (peanut soup) that seems to be a Bolivian national dish you can eat just about anywhere.
After cleaning up and resting a little longer, we decided to take advantage of the remaining daylight to go out and do a little exploring. First, my sisters decided to take Esme to a Korean store to help her adjust to the culture shock and buy any supplies she hadn’t been able to bring on the plane. Esme decided not to get anything there, especially upon seeing how expensive everything was, but my sisters took advantage of the rare chance to buy a couple of food items to be able to make a little makeshift Korean food at their home.
Afterwards, we checked out a nearby market. That’s where Esme really got to experience culture shock. Most vendors were selling piles of secondhand clothes on tarps placed on the street. You can find good deals, but you have to get down and dig through these piles. You also have to carefully examine the clothes for rips and stains. Meanwhile, the vendors’ small children were either laying in the piles of clothes or nearby on the bare sidewalks chatting with siblings or friends as their parents worked. It broke Esme’s heart since in Korea children are so protected and valued.
Then we made our way to the plaza via public bus, where Esme bought a cup of coffee and we got to see a nice view from the top of a bell tower.
Finally, we went to visit a fancy cafe since we knew Esme wouldn’t get much of a chance to do that once we got to the small town of Entre Rios.
Finally, with the dark of the night fast coming upon us and our continuing tiredness, we figured it was time to go back home and rest… Or not! We arrived home to an unexpected dance/karaoke party!
And that was the end of day one in Bolivia!
4 Sisters in Foreign Lands 