- Now something incredible
has just happened. I've just hit a hundred
thousand subscribers on YouTube. Thank you so much to
every single one of you for watching the videos and subscribing. Now I have a little bit of an issue now because the flight that
I was due to be on today was canceled about a week
ago down to Buenos Aires. So I booked an alternative for something that was really
cool and really interesting. And guess what happened? That flight was canceled this morning. So I need to get to Buenos Aires. So I've decided to come to Madrid because it's home of all
flights to South America and see how on Earth we
can get to Buenos Aires. I'd just like to say a
big thanks to Surfshark for sponsoring this video. More about their excellent VPN
service later in the video. Right, so there is one flight tonight that has seats available that
can get me to Buenos Aires in time for my connecting flight tomorrow. It's with an airline called BoA Boliviana, they are the Bolivian National Airline. So it's a flight from here in Madrid across to Bolivia, hopping across Bolivia and then down to Buenos Aires. Hola, perfect. - The lounge is Iberia lounge. - As in the Velazquez lounge? Yes. - Ah yes, I've been there before. Perfect, thank you very
much, thank you, bye bye. We're going to Bolivia. Let's go. So first stop tonight is
a place called Cochabamba, which I have to say sounds very fun. It sounds like some
sort of Cuban nightclub. ♪ Para bailar la bamba ♪ But it's the name of a city in Bolivia and I think I'm wearing the right shirt to visit somewhere as exotic and party sounding as Cochabamba. As I headed to the lounge, I soon discovered that life in Cochabamba right now wasn't quite
as fun as I'd imagined. So since posting on Insta
about my unscheduled trip to Bolivia, I've had loads of people, more than usual, saying be careful. Take care, be really careful and I'm thinking okay, what's going on? It turns out there is a
massive load of civil unrest going on over in Bolivia at the moment. The president has been outed, there's some sort of coo going on. There's riots in the
streets, food shortages, this is a little bit worrying really since I'm going to be spending
the next 24 hours there, so, yeah, little bit nervous now. In other news, people keep
telling me that they love the shirt, I don't know
whether that's a good thing or whether they're just being sarcastic, but I'm taking it as a good thing. Okay, time to go. They've just started
boarding the flight so, we're off to Bolivia. My ride to Bolivia tonight is this 25 year old Boeing 767. It was delivered in 1994 to Alitalia, since flown for Varig and TAP before going to Bolivia on it in 2014. Dear God. The gate area was absolute chaos, but as soon as somebody
saw my business class boarding pass, the ocean of passengers miraculously parted and
I was waved to the front. Gracias. Gracias. Thank you. Here we go, boarding Boliviana BoA. Next stop, Cochabamba. Hola, buenas tardes. Thank you. The business cabin on the Boliviana 767 is in a two, one, two configuration, with just two rows. So on board the BoA 767. It's interesting how they've
placed all the sick bags on prominent display on all the seats. How bad is this flight going to be? The safety cards relegated
right to the back. There's a priority, sick bags first then consider how you're
going to get out of the plane. Oh and the entire row of economy behind me is full of screaming babies as well. Yay, this is going to be a great flight. I was handed out form
number 250 to complete, which basically ensured I wasn't smuggling millions of pounds of cash or other substances into Bolivia. Doors closed, doors closed. We're on our way. Fairly soon we pushed back and started our taxi out to the runway. - [Pilot] 779 to the city
of Cochabamba connecting. (loud crying) - We've not even started our taxi yet. 11 more hours. Our route tonight then
took us across Portugal to cross the North Atlantic ocean. We crossed the Canary
Islands and Cape Verde before crossing the South
Atlantic towards Brazil. We cross Brazil and commenced
our descent over Bolivia into Cochabamba with a flight time tonight of 11 hours and 18 minutes, with a cruising altitude
of 36 and 38,000 feet. So update on the situation then, we are airborne out of Madrid. The kids haven't stopped
screaming behind me. It's very retro so far, it's like going back to the 90's. They've just handed out some blankets and some pillows, which is nice. - [Flight Attendant] Are you
ready to take your dinner? - Yes please. - It is pork with potatoes, bacalao, do you know
what is bacalao? Fish. - Okay, I'll take the pork please. Pork. - For drink? - Can I have white wine please? - White wine. - Thank you. So a quick look around the seats then here on the Boliviana 76 and it's very dated, I think, is the word to say. So down here we have the seat control. I use that word in a singular form because all it does is recline the back and lift the feet up, like so. We have, what every airline
from the 1990's needs here, this little ashtray. No idea what this is for. Dunno if that's to keep
the engine's running if we have an engine failure. Just keep, everybody turns those and keeps them spinning
round, I don't know. At the side of the seat we have remote control for the audio. Over there you've got the movie screen at the front of the cabin. Does it have personal TV's? No. Power sockets? No. We don't have those either. USB sockets? (laughing)
You're joking. No, absolutely not. It's not got much and it
doesn't lie flat either. It comes fitted with seat belts. Very similar to any other plane. We have any sickness bags. You even get a safety card. And a, something about the Zika virus, that's a worry. And these really cool sick bags. Did I mention the sick bags? But never mind, I'm going to try my best to
get a decent nights sleep. It can't be any worse than Norwegians premium
economy flight, surely. The seats were fairly similar
to Norwegians premium economy, albeit, without power sockets. The overhead bins were the original ones fitted the very first Boeing 767's. The amenity kits were brought around and to be honest, they were
pretty well packed with goodies. Aside from the branded eye masks, socks, hair brush and toothpaste, there was a show horn and
an empty bottle of cologne. The tray table couldn't exactly
be called particularly flat which meant that my dinner
ended up being a little wonky. Aside from the undercooked
potatoes though, it was a relatively nice meal. The pork was delicious and hot bread rolls with
butter, always a bonus. The white wine was pretty decent too. Dessert was a cheesecake which
was also really pleasant. Although there's WiFi on board BoA, it only gives you
information about Boliviana and their fleet of Boing aircraft, which presumably refers to the way that the aircraft bounce when they land. On the subject of WiFi, thanks to Surfshark for
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one extra months for free. So I've had my dinner. It's time to try and get some sleep. (laughing) What's that? I don't think I'm going to
get any sleep on this flight, but hey, let's see. The seat is not massively comfortable. This is as far as it reclines. Look at those seats in front of me. It just kind of semi reclines. Doesn't go anywhere near a flat bed, but, we get spoiled these days, don't we? Think how people in business class used to have to travel 25 years ago and just pretend you're back then. We land in about nine hours. Let's see just whether
I can manage any sleep on this flight. Good night. (loud crying) Two hours into the flight, that damn kid still hasn't shut up screaming behind me. (loud crying) It's been going on now for,
about the last hour and a half, since we took off. All right, so it's now 3am. We've got five hours left to run. Screaming baby seems to have stopped. At least temporarily. It's now been replaced by
somebody playing a TV show or a movie on their tablet or phone at full blast with no headphones in. (loud crying) Guess who's back? About an hour until we land. Just been woken up by
the flight attendants. Breakfast was formed of this quiche which was really nice. There was also a strange sandwich that didn't taste that great. You also get a small bowl of fruit and some hot bread rolls. So just before I woke
up when I was asleep, I actually had a dream that
when I got to Cochabamba I went for a walk outside the airport and I ended up getting shot at. Not that it's playing on
my mind or anything, but. So Cochabamba airport is quite small and you can only actually fly into there from Europe, from Madrid. Outbound, the planes have
to stop somewhere else. Santa Cruz I believe, Viru Viru, and they refuel there and then head across to Madrid, 'cause the runway's just not long enough to take a long haul flight. (engine roaring) Pretty soon we were on
our approach to the city of Cochabamba in Bolivia. (applauding) (engine roaring) (speaking in a foreign language) (engine roaring) Gracias. Gracias. I followed the signs
for transit passengers, which strangely just
led me right to the back of the beginning of the passport
control queue once again. The door was wide open, which seemed that it would be possible to just let anybody
straight into the country without going through passport control. Transit. I was soon found by an employee who directed me to go
through customs to one side, before re-clearing security. Wait? Thank you. I was land side in Bolivia, which was a little nerve wracking, but I dared to go and
step outside the terminal at least for a few seconds before I bottled it and
headed straight back inside. (background mumbling) Once back through security, I headed for the gate. So then here at the Copa, Copacabana. Oh no it's not, wrong place. Cochabamba, that's where we are. Waiting for my next flight now. So next leg is a 737 300 classic from here across to Santa
Cruz, Viru Viru airport, which is in the east of the country. I have to say so far, I was a little bit
nervous about coming here, but, nothing is happening. It's just like normal. I even stepped outside, just to say I've done it and yeah. It's okay here at least. I imagine it's worse as
you go out of the airports into the towns and things,
but here at the airport, you wouldn't tell that
there was anything going on at the moment. So I'm a little bit confused now. My next flight is just a domestic flight and yet, I've just been
stamped out of the country at passport control before I
can go through to the gate. The plane seems to be going
from an international gate even though I have to
change planes in Santa Cruz. So I'm not entirely sure
what the reason for this is. A little bit nervous because I've now officially
been stamped out of Bolivia, but I'm taking a domestic flight, so what happens when I get to Santa Cruz and I have to go through passport control again presumably to get out of Bolivia, actually now for real. It was soon time to board
my flight to Santa Cruz. (background chatter) Gracias. Like my previous flights to Africa, you board by walking
straight across the tarmac, an aviation geek's dream. My ride to Santa Cruz today
was this Boeing 737 300, originally delivered to
British Airways in 1997, as registration number G-OAMS. It then went on to Air New Zealand in 2002 and finally to Boliviana in 2015. (background chatter) Right so I'm on board and
(mumbles) pretty decent. Quite a lot of space. Seats pretty comfy too. I'm right down here at the
back of the old 737-300. As we waited to depart, I was stunned by the
sheer variety of cargo being loaded into the hold. There were huge bags full of plants, as well as numerous boxes of goods. I was soon joined by my seat mate, which made it slightly less comfortable than I had originally thought. Take off was incredibly long today, considering that Cochabamba sits at almost 9,000 feet in altitude. Our route to Santa Cruz
today was fairly direct, heading directly east
for the short flight. We cruised today at 26,000
feet with a flight time of 26 minutes. There was a snack service and
drinks on this short flight. We soon arrived in Santa Cruz and flew directly over the airport before beginning our approach. Gracias. Gracias. So connecting here in Santa Cruz, de la Sierra Viru Viru airport. It was really weird, there's a security check point and you put your bag on it and it goes through and
nobody's checking the screens. You walk through with all
of your electronics on you, it sets the alarms off
and they just wave you on. What is the point of that? I have no idea. Passport situation is fine. They just waved me through, they just asked if I'd been stamped out in Cocha, oh the last place, so and I said yes, showed them the stamp and yeah, it was fine, straight through. So looks like they are starting
to board next flight now down to Buenos Aires. So I'm going to head down. Next flight is on a Boeing 767. Same type as the one I
came over from Madrid on, but in economy class this time, so this will be the third product of BoA's that I've been able to try out. So that the long haul
business class already. The short haul economy class and now the long haul economy class, so, let's head down to the
gate and see how it goes. (background chatter) Boarding was fairly confusing today as groups one and two were
separated in the queue, but group two was strangely
allowed to board first. Finally, I was able to board and made my way down the
jet bridge to today's ride. Speaking of which, my
ride to Buenos Aires today was a 24 year old Boeing 767, originally delivered to
Royal Brunei in 1996. It's since flown for Air Mauritius, Air Algerie Vietnam Airlines, Skymark Airlines in Japan, Varig, GOL and Nordwind Airlines in Russia, before finally going to Boliviana in 2016. It's had quite an interesting life. Hola. Here? 24. Ah, thank you. - [Flight Attendant] Morning
ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard (mumbles). - So last leg, down to Buenos Aires. Boeing 767, economy class. Look at the leg room. It's insane. So if it wasn't quite enough already with the APU, running
the APU's to shut down and lights out. The cargo was loaded
on and it was soon time to push back for today's flight. (engine roaring) I dunno what's going on, but there seem to be some serious problems with this plane. They've pushed back, one
engine started I think, but not the other and it is sweltering hot. There's no air conditioning
on or anything. Unbelievable. Really hope we get going soon, because this heat is just unbearable. It must be like 40, 50
degrees inside this plane, it's just horrendous. It was getting incredibly hot onboard and the crew came around
handing out water. Drinking it just wasn't
cutting it anymore. Finally, the engines were started though and we taxied out of the runway. (engine roaring) Our route down to Buenos Aires today took us south out of Santa Cruz into Argentina and down
towards Buenos Aires. Flight time today was
two hours and 41 minutes, with a cruising altitude
of 37 and 39,000 feet. (engine roaring) Now I don't know what it is abut Bolivians and playing movies out loud. I mean, do they not have
headphones in Bolivia? Have they not reached this
part of the world yet? It's crazy, that's every
flight I've been on now has had people playing
movies on full blast on their phone or something. It's like, really? We don't all want to listen to it. It's quite all right actually. There's a ton of leg room, I mean, just look at that. Loads of space. Ashtray there. That's another remnant from the past. We have, if we look down here, a control for the audio, but there is no video
playing at the moment. The seats do recline a decent
amount at the back here. Nice big tray table as well. It's all right this. There was a snack service today of a sandwich and malt cookies. You know, seven miles down there, out the window, Bolivia is not
a peaceful place right now, there are protests, there are talk of a military coup, there is civil unrest
across the entire country and violence everywhere, and yet, this is the thing about flying, I'm sat up here on a plane
just seven miles above that, but it could almost be another world. The world is just such a
peaceful place at 35,000 feet. It's why I love flying so much. It's almost like escapism and I like that. Pretty soon we commenced our
descent down into Buenos Aires. (engine roaring) Our flight from Madrid to Buenos Aires cost me £1100 or about 1500 US dollars. This was for a distance of 7,000 miles, making it cost per mile of 17 pence. (speaking in a foreign language) As we pulled onto stand, the APU issues continued as
the engines stayed running and the power kept tripping and going back on again
for several minutes. Overall, this was a fun but exhausting way of getting to Argentina. It was really interesting
to fly on Boliviana and despite the moaning, I did actually enjoy my
flight across Bolivia. The crew were so friendly and every member of staff I
met throughout the journey was so incredibly helpful. Yes, you could probably take this trip in luxury on Avianca, Iberia or LATAM, but would it be anywhere near as fun as three flights on ancient aircraft through an exotic country like Bolivia? Gracias. I took a cab to downtown Buenos Aires where my hotel was waiting for me. Gracias. Okay. So here then at my hotel
in downtown Buenos Aires. Boliviana, well, they were no where near as bad as I expected they would be, which is a good thing really. Their business class product was shoddy, to say the least, but hey, you don't fly with airlines like that for luxury and flatbeds. If you want that, you fly
with Iberia or Avianca. You take airlines like this
for the novelty factor I guess. Let me know what you
thought to BoA Boliviana in the comments section down below. Is that an airline you'd like to try? And also, if you've got
any other random airlines around the world that you
would like me to go and try out and fly, I'd love to see
your suggestions for those down in the comments. In the meantime, as always, thank you for watching, take care and I'll see you next time.
