My Santa Cruz De La Sierra Layover: A Little Complicated

After flying Boliviana de Aviacion’s A330 business class, I had a very long layover at Viru Viru International Airport (VVI) in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. I arrived at around 5:30AM, and my next flight (in GOL’s 737 MAX premium economy) was at 1PM. Of course spending that much time at an airport sounds incredibly unpleasant, but I’m used to it, and I’m fortunate to be able to work from anywhere.

Since I was connecting internationally with just a carry-on and had my boarding pass, my hope was that I’d be able to stay in the international transit area. Well, that’s not how things worked out. Let me tell you about my adventure in Santa Cruz de la Sierra…

I was denied international sterile transit

Upon landing in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, I followed the signage for international connecting flights. The staff member asked where I was connecting to, and I said Sao Paulo. I cleared the transit security checkpoint, and then headed to the immigration counter, where I believe they’re just supposed to do a passport and boarding pass check, before you get back into the international sterile area.

Well, this is where the problems started. The staff member was confused about how I was connecting onto GOL rather than Boliviana de Aviacion, and insisted that I had to clear immigration, even though I was connecting internationally, since it was on separate tickets.

Now, I’m not sure I really get the policy, but if those are the rules, those are the rules, and I wasn’t going to argue it. I guess the airport doesn’t offer sterile international transit unless you’re traveling on Boliviana de Aviacion the entire way. It’s not that different than the rules at Jakarta, for example (and for that matter, the United States doesn’t offer sterile transit at all).

So I then cleared immigration as instructed. At least I have a German passport as well, so I wasn’t on the hook for the $160 visa fee I would’ve had to pay if I were using my US passport.

I was then denied access to the airside

Immigration was pretty efficient, and within minutes (around 5:45AM) I was in the arrivals hall and check-in area.

So I headed back to the security checkpoint, ready to get back through security.

There are little “gates” where you scan your boarding pass, and then it lets you through. I was able to get through without issue, but then a guy came running after me, asking what flight I’m on. I showed him my boarding pass, and he explained it was too early to access the airside.

I asked him when I could access the airside, then. After looking at my departure time, he said I could come back through at 11AM, two hours before departure. That seems rather restrictive, no? I asked to confirm that this was the earliest, and one of his colleagues just chimed in to say that 10AM was fine as well. So I’m not sure if there’s some actual policy here, or if he was just making stuff up as he went.

Enjoying coffee, mosquitos, and the observation deck

At this point I was prepared to spend around four hours in the landside area of the airport. Okay, Viru Viru Airport is far from glamorous, though I’ve gotta say, the whole situation could’ve been worse. At least there were a couple of half decent coffee shops where I could plop down and set up my “office.”

There were only two issues:

• The Wi-Fi was excruciatingly slow, to the point that it reminded me of when Wi-Fi was first introduced on planes (and for whatever reason, my international tethering wasn’t cooperating either)
• Holy crap, the check-in hall was full of mosquitos

But I had no real choice, so I sat there, and did the best I could to get work done while avoiding getting bitten by mosquitos. My review trips are glamorous, aren’t they? 😉

I enjoyed a cappuccino, and later on had an açaí bowl, which was actually half decent for the departures hall of an airport (and certainly better than the Boliviana de Aviacion breakfast).

I knew there was an observation deck at the airport, so eventually I checked that out. It was more impressive than I was expecting, and it’s so nice when airports offer this. It’s just too bad how it had such “tight” wiring, which made it really hard to snap pictures.

The airside situation wasn’t much better

While the airport employees had told me that I could only clear security at 10AM or 11AM, I decided to try my luck a bit earlier. GOL check-in opened at 9AM, so I figured if check-in for the flight was open, then I should also be able to clear security for that flight. Sure enough, I was able to get through security without issue.

At this point I realized that I wasn’t missing out all that much by not having access to the airside this entire time. The international departures hall has two Priority Pass lounges.

One of the lounges is like half a living room area, and half a cafe that’s open to the public. The buffet is laughably bad, but you can also order a couple of things from the bar area.

The other Priority Pass location is a more traditional lounge, though it wasn’t exactly great. Every time someone tried to charge an electronic device in one of the outlets, the lights throughout the lounge flickered repeatedly. No bueno. The food situation wasn’t much better either.

Bottom line

While I didn’t have high expectations of my layover in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the whole experience was a bit more of an adventure than I had hoped for. It seems you can only do international transit at the airport if you’re traveling on Boliviana de Aviacion the entire way, or else you have to clear immigration (hopefully that’s useful for the two other people every decade who attempt something like this). 😉 On top of that, there seem to be some arbitrary rules about how long before departure you can clear security.

The whole thing wasn’t a big deal, and if anything, was an adventure. Different countries have different policies regarding sterile transit. So I believe the country has restrictions on transit on separate tickets, though how long before departure you could clear security seemed to be a bit more made up (at least that was my interpretation).

Please try not to be too jealous of my review trips, as I can promise you that spending over seven hours at a not-great airport isn’t a pleasure. But it’s a small price to pay for finally having the privilege of flying with Boliviana de Aviacion. 😉