We're not there yet!

Our adventure began yesterday morning (Friday) at 6:00 a.m. in the parking lot of St. John’s. We managed to pack 18 suitcases and our carry-ons into 3 station wagons. (Thanks for driving, Judy!) Not with us was Jim M, who still did not have his passport. After 13 weeks of waiting, calling, and harassing the passport folks, they finally told him that he might be able to pick it up in Boston on Friday morning. The plan was for him to meet us at Logan for our noon flight to Miami.

Jim finally caught up with us when we were nearly to the front of the line at Logan. (See Relieved Jim, at right) Once we got our tickets and had checked 16 of our 18 bags, the woman at the desk stopped us from putting the 17^th bag on the scale. There’s an embargo on extra luggage to Bolivia, she says. I made my best puppy eyes and said, but this is for a medical mission trip! This is not our personal stuff! No go. Unfortunately, all 16 bags had already gone down the baggage hole. One of the remaining two bags was all-important amoxicillin and surgical gloves. The other was my personal bag! Fortunately, not all travelers had second carry-ons, and my own bag contained a bunch of mesh bags. We stuffed essential contents into the festive-colored bags, left the rest in Jim M's, car, and trooped onto the plane in good time. Jim K’s carry-on was the box of amoxicillin, and it has become his constant and beloved companion.

At Miami, we were scheduled for a two-hour layover until our next flight to Lima. This turned into a six-hour layover. (See Peter and Jim’s Box, serving as card table, at right.) Needless to say, we missed our connection from Lima to Santa Cruz. We have been put up in a nice hotel in Lima, where we are happy to take advantage of the nice food and even nicer long hot water showers. We’ve been catching up on sleep, playing cards, watching TV, and walking around a bit. (We’re too far from the center of the city to do any meaningful site seeing.)

The original plan was for us to take the same flights, just a day later, but all flights from Santa Cruz to Cochabamba are filled until Tuesday. So we will take our midnight flight to Santa Cruz, arriving at 5:00 a.m. We will then take a 12-hour bus ride to Cochabamba. (The flight time for this trip is 45 minutes.) Our estimated time of arrival in Cochabamba is ~8 p.m. on Sunday.

Quote of the day: “We’re happy, it’s just hard to show emotion at this point.” - Sam

-Adrienne