Day 1

WELCOME TO BOLIVIA. At this point you are lucky you are sitting at your computer enjoying the luxury of being able to breath in and out. The altitude here in the bowl of LaPaz Bolivia is 9,000ft aproxamately. The air is thin and cool. Every breath takes reminding or your lips and extremities turn blue. The air feels amazing after the hot day we had in Miami before we left. We arrived to El Alto at 0545 yesterday. El Alto is the plateau above LaPaz. Its a quick landing cuz there isn't much to land on! After deplaning, we had a slight trauma. Sally's carseat flew out of the stroller face first onto the tunnel carpet while she was still buckled in! Her nose didn't bleed but it was purplish/red all up to her forehead. Poor baby. She still has a small spot but she's ok. She cried all the way through customs and getting our visas. The police were there to greet us, all dressed in army green snow pants and jacket with vests and boots. I thought, jeeze! How cold is it out there. All of our bags made it safely and we had a handsome suited up taxi driver with our names on cardboard waiting with a smile! :) Loved it. Doug's spanish has been good. He was able to get our seats back from a woman who was also assigned 34E and he was able to converse very well with the taxi driver. The driver quickly rushed to get the car saying 'its too cold for you, get in'. It was beautiful out. I'm from MN buddy. This 35 degrees feels great. Strait out from the airport is this beautiful mountain peak covered in snow. It was absolutely breathtaking. My camera of course was packed in the back and I was so tired I didn't even think about getting it out! Until we started to descend into LaPaz. WOW!! The people were starting to come out of their orange colored clay homes. Colorful clothes out on the lines. There are dog's everywhere. 2 of them were enjoying each others company on the sidewalk, if you know what I mean! I made sal look away. The Taxi ride down the switchbacks into LaPaz was interesting to say the least. I did get my camera out and stap a few. We are in a very nice apartment living with a woman from save the children. We have all of the same nessecities as we would at home (but can't flush the toilet paper). With the addition of a house keeper named Nora. She is awesome. Made me breakfast this morning. She is here all day and goes home at night, she does all the cooking and cleaning. I've been speaking some spanish with her. We are very close to the American Embassy, you know, just in case. The mountain outside my window is so pretty. Mount Illimani. We haven't been out much yet I was sick yesterday but feel better today. We've been drinking Coca tea, it is leaves of the coca plant. When processed this leaf turns into cocaine. Hmm. Won't be given sally any of that. I really think that it helped me get better fast though. Doug is at the office now. Doing orientation yesterday and today. Then the rest of the week is a bolivian holiday. So we'll hopefully get out.