Up in the air

It's 5:00am. I usually don't sleep well on planes, but somehow have managed to do so. I was pleasantly awakened to the flight attendant offering me coffee and the pre-dawn orange over the Andes out my window. Emma's head is in my lap - she slept well too. Wendy and Tessa are still comatose in the row behind us. So far, the trip has been kind to us.



We checked in at O'Hare without much difficulty. We were able to take advantage of the extra baggage allowance on the American Airlines platinum card and check four extra bags. Thouugh they could have turned that down on some technicalities, the lady at the desk (Patricia, I believe) found a way to make it work (saved us hundreds), though we still had to pay extra for the heavy anesthesia machine. Later, we watched out the window as they loaded our luggage onto the conveyor belt leading to the plane. Apparently, bright orange duct-tape reading "This end up" means nothing to Chicago baggage handlers, and "Fragile!" (Fra-gee-lay... must be Italian) must mean "tip me over forcefully." Oh well, at least it's on the plane.

The girls slept pretty well on the flight from Miami to La Paz. Unfortunately, the altitude got to Tessa who made full use of her "motion discomfort" bag, and now that we are descending to Santa Cruz, the pressure is really hurting Emma's ears. Only about 30 minutes left in the air, then comes the adventure of clearing customs. I've never had problems in Bolivia, but then again I've never brought quite this much equipment - hoping we don't get hit with much duty on "Dr. DRE."

Not sure when this will post. Hoping to find WiFi at the airport (and hoping they don't charge quite as many pesos as they do in Chicago and Miami).




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Location:Somewhere East of La Paz