We found this out by accident because we were contacting them to check timings, having been warned that they frequently changed tines without notifying their passengers. We spend most of Monday sorting it out, then finding we hadn't, then trying again, then receiving a flight booking from them for a different day, then trying again, then being told that the rearranged flights they had agreed to two hours ago could not be done. We go to bed Monday none the wiser. Today is Tuesday. More hours of fun await us. Either we will get our way, have to leave at 4am to fly to Santa Cruz, then La Paz, then Cusco all in the same day as planned. And hope they don't lose our bags, which judging from their performance thus far seems unlikely. Or we get to fly to La Paz via Santa Cruz, then have to stay the night at our own expense in order to complete leg three of what used to be a simple two leg flight, the following day. Confused? Good. Us too.
So in view of this rather boring actual set of activities these two days, I will use this opportunity to talk about something that has bothered us all the way through this trip, namely, the complete non sequiturs of travel warnings.
"We are not supposed to carry cameras because they'll get stolen," I complain to a friend as we depart New Zealand for South America, "but I am supposed to take pictures of the amazing scenery. We are told not yo go out after dark or we'll be mugged, but also that we should take advantage of the night life. We are meant to take taxis in the night rather than walk, but we are also supposed to avoid taking taxis. You know, in case of kidnappings."
The fact is, reading up on South America before coming here, it is difficult not to become convinced that you will be murdered, mugged, pick pocketed, kidnapped, trafficked, smuggled, used as a drug mule or thrown off a mountain.
"Are we sure we want to go there?" I ask M, aghast.
The fact is there are a lot of horror stories. The internet is lurid and spattered with gleeful accounts of terrible things that happened to Joyce from Cleveland or Becky from Staines or Julio from Greece. It's enough to stop you sleeping.
And of course we look them up for a reason. It's useful to know before you enter a place, what sort of things to look out for and how to avoid them. But you have to become adept at picking through it, working out trends. Is that story something that would have happened if its writer was not really drunk/doing drugs/walking home in the dark/hitchhiking etc at the time? Is that story simply a reproduction of that one? Was that just an episode of pick pocketing, such as might happen just as easily in London?
The hardest of course is other travellers telling you stories. Mostly these are bluster and wheeled out to look hardcore over beers. Those are easy to spot. But every now and then you meet people who have had an experience which they didn't do anything in particular to risk happening, and they tell it matter of factly in a way you can trust.
Then the trick, apart from to take every reasonable measure to avoid it happening to you, is to listen carefully to what happened afterwards. If they were robbed at gunpoint, gave the small amount of money they were carrying to the gunman, who disappeared leaving them shaken but unhurt, and then they went to the jazz club they were going to in the first place, then hats off to them for keeping their cool (this is a real story, though it happened in a country in South America we are not visiting) and - horrible an experience as it was, it was over quick, and no one was hurt.
Because otherwise the internet may leave you forewarned, but also absolutely and constantly petrified. Not to mention confused.
I could find enough horror stories about South America to have me walking the streets in the first few days, tense and looking over my shoulder constantly, convinced everyone who passed me was a mugger and everyone who spoke to me was only doing so as a distraction while they robbed me. It is a horrible feeling, no fun for you, hugely and unfairly insulting to the country - and doesn't do anybody any favours.
But while you can find an abundance of horror stories, it's very difficult to find any practical advice on how to avoid it. Or if you can, it's non sensical. Trust taxis over walking but don't trust taxis. Ask a local to advise you but don't trust the locals. Don't take anything valuable, such as phones, out with you, but always carry a phone.
I have a snake bite kit with me, because apparently South East Asia is just full of snakes, writhing about on the streets, just waiting for a bit of tourist ankle to sink their greedy, South East Asian fangs into. I didn't see a single snake in South East Asia.
I am not saying to ignore all the warnings, or not to read them, or not to be prepared. Just that the internet, as anyone knows from looking up the symptoms of a common cold on it, is chock full of hysteria.
We have now been travelling for nine months. We have not once been robbed, threatened, followed or pick pocketed, and only with Amazonas now, have we even had any trouble with flights.
We wear money belts in which we keep just the cash we need that day, and a photocopy of our passport. We leave phones at home unless we need them - when they travel in the belt. We wear our clothes well over the belt so it's very difficult for us to get into the darn thing, let alone anyone else. If we can walk, especially in the light, we do so. If it's dark and we can walk through exclusively main, populated, well lit roads, we do so. If we can't or we have to take a taxi, we ask for a recommendation from our AirBnB host or hostal. Very often they have, not just a firm, but a specific person they recommend to you. Using AirBnB gives you a friendly local to chat to straightaway, and they are much more to be trusted when it comes to the safe and unsafe areas of a city, than the internet shriekers.
While I am taking about the nightmarish unhelpfulness of the internet, I will share this link. This is the most non hysterical but helpful advice I found, and it puts the horror stories in context.
http://www.thisbatteredsuitcase.com/think-like-thief-avoid-theft-travelling/
In the meantime, may I assure you that travelling the world is not, despite what the internet says, a one way ticket to certain death, robbery and destruction.
(Unless you travel with Amazonas that is, in which case, throw all of the rules out of the window. It seems to be what they do.)
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