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Bolivia has few usable roads, so relies heavily on aircraft. My destination, Cochabamba, gets 3 flights a week from Bolivia's largest airport in Santa Cruz.
 
Bolivia's largest airport is a dusty deserted terminal building in the middle of hundreds of acres of unused land.
 
I arrived on a real airline (LAN Peru). But the next leg - to Cochabamba - was aboard
Aerosur Airlines. The locals call it Cowboy Airlines. And now I know why.
 
Aerosur pilots fly with the cockpit door open and they wear cowboy hats and a red-checkered scarf around their necks. There is no pre-flight briefing or safety demonstration, no seat-belt check, no announcements, no life-vests (although, to be fair, Bolivia is land-locked), and no sick-bags!
 
Takeoff used every last bit of the runway in Santa Cruz. And landing .. oh my god, the landing! We approached in total darkness in a continuous turn through a mountain pass surrounded by dark jagged peaks well above. Then we hit the runway in Cochabamba like we were landing on an Aircraft Carrier. Full-on braking, with everyone straining against their seatbelts and all loose articles collecting at the front of the plane, put us to a stop a few feet from the runway end. The pilots had to do a 180 on the runway to get back to a taxiway.
 
There are only 2 ways to get back out of Cochabamba. Aerosur is one. I am seriously considering the other: mule-caravan that only goes once a week.

I was more than a little concerned to arrive in Cochabamba and find the streets crawling with police, military, and artillery. My host, Javier, explained that a summit of 5 South-American Presidents is being held in Cochabamba's best hotel. That is why I will be staying at Cochabamba's second-best hotel.
 
Except that we found every road leading to Cochabamba's second-best hotel blocked by soldiers who told us to find a different route. After 45 minutes of trying different approaches, we convinced a set of guards to let us through the barricade.
 
Then Javier's car-alarm went off and the anti-theft equipment disabled the car - 10 feet past the barricade. This made the guards more than a little nervous. Thank goodness Bolivians have no fear of middle-eastern people. They took my presence (professional foreigner) as a sign that everything must be ok. I don't think that has ever happened to me before.

Twice today I got myself into trouble because I'm too stupid to learn Spanish.
 
This morning I spent 20 minutes on the phone to the front desk asking for an Iron so I could Iron my Shirt. I got so frustrated I started talking like an idiot: "I want an Irona for my Shirto". Of course I knew damn well that Irona and Shirto are not the Spanish versions of Iron and Shirt.
 
Finally, when I figured I had gotten my message across, I hung up and waited. A man came to my room within 5 mintues. With tools to fix the Air Conditioner.
 
Later, when I had food brought to my room, the bill was $35 Bolivians instead of the $21 Bolivians I saw on the menu. So I tried to explain to the girl that it was suppose to be $21 Bolivians. After some talking and gesturing she went away happy. I learned the next morning, at check out, that she thought I wanted to add a $21 Bolivian tip. My dinner was $56 Bolivians! I didn't have the heart, at that point, to reverse it.

Had the opportunity, after today's meetings, to spend some time exploring Cochabamba. It was actually very interesting. Two things I learned that surprised me:
 
The Mormons have one of their 4-pillars temples here in Cochabamba. It is built like a nuclear-fall-out-shelter and includes a huge underground mini-city. The idea is that all the Mormons will survive the end of the world by hanging out in the shelter.
 
I also learned that Cochabamba has a giant Jesus statue like the famous one in Brazil. And Cochabamba's Christo de la Concordia is actually bigger than the one in Brazil. I, of course, took pictures.
 
Two fun video montages for today:
 

Various sights and sounds around Cochabamba. Including the Christo, and the Cochabamba Palace.
 

Lunch at Cochabamba's best restaurant. Very different.