The very first day

So I’m not here to tell you where to go, where not to go and what to do while you’re there..I’m just here to share my travelling stories and if people get something from it then all the better!

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4th October 2017, myself and my boyfriend took the plunge and jumped on a flight to La Paz, Bolivia. We started a journey around South America that we guessed would take us 7 months; well we actually started out thinking that we could travel South America and then onto Central America, however only a few weeks in we realised that we wouldn’t have the time nor funds to venture into Central America this time around…that can be a trip for the future as we think if you’re not going to travel a place the way you want to, there’s no point even going!

Booking the cheapest flight we found came with its own disadvantages as much to our dismay it meant flying 12 hours from Madrid, Spain on an aircraft that looked and felt as if it belonged in the 1970s. On top of it all we weren’t even seated together even though we booked the flight and checked in together (disappointed although not at all surprised), however a kind lady gladly offered up her seat for us despite the language barrier.

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When we arrived in Bolivia it all made sense why our aircraft was the way it was! I think we couldn’t have gone to a place more out of our depth to start our South American journey, it was a big culture shock to say the least! We had a mission to preoccupy our minds from the altitude and tiredness; staying up all day so we didn’t mess up our body clocks, along with trying to get tickets to a World Cup qualifier match between Bolivia and Brazil which was being played later that night in La Paz.

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Thankfully being in Bolivia for the match meant that there were plenty of tickets up for grabs and at a price that as the saying goes, were as cheap as chips! That is if chips cost £6, but still you can’t argue against that bargain. Turns out that thankfully the match was worth every Boliviano we paid, it ending 0-0 wasn’t a reflection of the feeling of watching world class footballers play! The altitude was the real winner anyway as after the match the whole Brazilian team had to put on oxygen masks.

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All we had to do now was get some dinner for ourselves and then we could call it a night on our successful first day as travellers. However, La Paz being the city it is comes with its challenges and finding a half decent restaurant that would serve us something that wouldn’t completely throw our bodies into shock was harder than we thought. After a very long walk we ended up going into a restaurant that served Western food, we managed to fill our stomachs to an acceptable level and then went to bed as quickly as we could!

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After reading this first post I’m sure most of you are sitting here thinking, ‘Oh for goodness sake I hope we’re not getting a diary entry for every single day this girl travelled!’..and do not fret because that’s not what I’m going to do. I just wanted to share how we spent our very first day on what was an absolutely amazing experience because it’s always hard to know how you get into the ‘traveller’ spirit to go adventuring and exploring. What I’m trying to say is that you just treat every day how it comes being open minded for unexpected things to come up and then being flexible to deal with them properly!