A JOURNEY IN BOLIVIA 1988
Friday, July 29th
Hanneke took us, Kik and me, to Frankfurt airport. Of course we stopped exactly on the wrong side of the "Abflug", so that we were allowed to walk an invigorating distance with our luggage: backpacks + hand luggage. This could of course be seen as a last minute training. At Varig's desk it turned out that the plane had been delayed by thirteen hours. At the expense of the company we were accommodated in the Sheraton hotel, where we each occupied a nice room. We also received a voucher for a decent meal, but we had to pay DM 9 for the beer ourselves. It was a somewhat strange way to start to our trip, so we may not have fully enjoyed our spacious rooms.
Saturday, July 30th
We slept well and were up at seven o'clock. In my room I had already read that we could have a choice between a Continental breakfast or an American breakfast. However, this did not apply to us: Varig had its own breakfast room, where everyone could enjoy themselves in abundance.
To be on the safe side, we went to the desk to find out that the plane would leave another hour later and that we would have to stay in Sao Paulo for two days. So we were well in time to wait for quite a while, but finally we went through customs. As I hoped, I was seated at the window behind the wing and we were treated to a magnificent view. The weather was fair. We saw many villages and roads below us. Clouds increased at the coast, but the coastline was clearly visible. After some time we came back above land: Northern Spain. After that came the Atlantic Ocean, which turns out to be really big. At one point, islands could be seen in the distance, probably the Cape Verde islands.
The meal on board was not a treat. To pass the time, we were entertained with three unattractive video films. You just have to bite through that.
At first it was cloudless above Brazil. We had a fantastic view. We arrived in Sao Paulo at about seven o'clock local time. What now? It turned out that we had to check out. That was not easy: in front of us was a queue of two meters. Many of these people had not written their names correctly on the immigration card. The inspecting officer was in danger of being overstrained by this, but after two hours we passed him anyway. Now my backpack turned out not to be with the luggage.
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