At 3 AM this morning, I began 24 hours of continuous travel, arriving in La Paz, Bolivia, at 3 AM. I think I only spent a third of the time flying, the rest just waiting around. At Boston Logan, it took 45 minutes to get through security due to the TSA work slowdown. When I boarded my connecting flight in Atlanta, we sat at the gate or on the runway for 90 minutes due to the air traffic control slowdown. In Bogota, where I made my final connection, it was simply a matter of a very long scheduled layover where I indulged in a $39,500 Burger King Whopper Meal (see receipt above if you do not believe me).

Note to Jeanine (who will not be concerned about the exorbitant price of my cheeseburger meal, but rather, my choice of dining establishment): Dear Jeanine, it was not like they had any good restaurants in the airport, simply variations on the Burger King theme, but with menu items I could neither pronounce nor identify. I choose familiar.

The airport in La Paz is the highest international airport in the world at an altitude of 13,325 feet. When I stepped off the plane, my head started to spin, and I felt nauseous. I recently started taking a medication to help lower my blood pressure, and that only compounded the effects of the altitude. Fortunately, I was able to clear customs rather quickly due to my favorable seating assignment on the plane and the fact that I did not need to wait for checked baggage. Check-in at my lodging was mercifully short, and I was quick to fall asleep after choking down two Ibuprofen (drinking the tap water in Bolivia is not recommended, and I had failed to pick up bottled water at the airport in my disoriented mental state). In all, a rather inauspicious start to what I hope will be an otherwise great travel adventure.