I will never forget our first day in Bolivia. We arrived at El Alto International Airport, the main airport for La Paz, around 1:30 a.m. We had an Airbnb booked for our first few days in-country, but we wouldn’t be able to check in for another seven hours. It was really cold in El Alto that morning, especially since there was no central heating inside the airport. I remember peeking out of the windows in our terminal, next to the immigration check point, and seeing a light dusting of snow on the ground.
After taking two airplanes and traveling for more than 10 hours, we had climbed from just six feet above sea level in Miami, Florida to more than 13,000 feet above sea level in El Alto! Within a matter of seconds of landing, Josh and I both noticed that we were starting to get headaches from the lack of oxygen in the air. Cold, tired and in pain, we knew that we were in for a long wait. But in the end, of course, we survived. At around 7:30 a.m., we hopped in a taxi. We showed the driver the piece of paper we had prepared ahead of time with the address of our Airbnb (or so we thought), wearily negotiated a fare of 70 bolivianos (about $10 USD) and began the next leg of our journey—straight into the heart of La Paz!
