Roth and Libby, who were the first two off the plane, beelined toward the yellow vests. That we didn’t have to go through the official customs line told me we were getting express service. Maybe Roth had paid for it, or maybe the red carpet was rolled out for all charter flights. Regardless, it worked in my favor.

Libby and Roth met the officials fifty yards from the plane and exchanged a few pleasantries, then Libby handed over the manila envelope she’d added my passport to. Both vests had clipboards, and they quickly began pulling the paperwork out of the envelope, flipping open passports, and pulling stamps from some sort of stamp holsters on their belts.

The camera guys and Egyptian Lara Croft huddled in a small group around a pile of bags. Andy stood a few feet from them, by himself. He appeared comfortable in his own bubble, which is something I could admire, though I think he was just happy to be on solid ground.

As for me, I was doing my best to look like a guy who wasn’t trying to illegally sneak into these people’s country. Sadly, this translated into me doing jumping jacks, then arm circles: a ridiculous mash-up of a guy who had taken a long flight and really needed to stretch and a third-grade gym teacher leading calisthenics.

Exchanges in Spanish turned my attention back to Roth, Libby, and the airport officials. It was evident Roth couldn’t keep up with whatever the Bolivians were saying, and he barked for Andy to come over.

Andy, who at some point had pulled a blue sweatshirt on over his ridiculous flying shirt, plodded his way to the group and began translating.

I knew there was a problem when, twenty seconds later, all eyes turned toward me.

Uh-oh.

I made my way over to the small group.

Roth cut his eyes at me, then said, “Apparently, your paperwork is missing.”

“Well, I gave my paperwork to you,” I said with a big smile. “What did you do with it?”

Roth didn’t have a chance to respond as one of the officials pointed at my bag and said, “¿Qué hay en la bolsa?”

Andy said, “They want to know what’s in your duffel bag.”

Oh, you mean my blue duffle bag that looked like it was filled with a bunch of cash, which in actuality was a blue duffel bag filled with a bunch of cash.

“Papagayo,” I whispered.

Both officials looked at me.

“¿Qué?” one of them asked.

I looked at Roth, then back to the officials. “Papagayo,” I repeated, this time with an accompanying eyebrow raise.

Nothing.

“Parrot.”

Nothing.

I started flapping my arms around and bawking my head back and forth.

I’m not sure what I expected—for them to both smile and nod and say, “Oh, now we get it. Take your big bag of money and enter our country”?

This did not happen.