In South America for 3 weeks. I agree with you.

I'm sure there are some great benifits to flying international, but here are a few things I like about staying domestic:

I carry the local currency

I speak the language

I can understand ATC instructions and they speak the language

I fly under radar coverage

My longest flight has only 3 time zone changes

I can drink the water

When I get home I don't need a few days to "recover" from my trip

I've done some "long haul" stuff in another life and in another capacity. It was fun and I'm glad I did it, but for now good ole ABQ suits me just fine

Plus your phone works without paying international roaming fees.

Ha ha. And just what exactly is 'speaking the language' in ABQ these days?
"Welcome to New Mexico. Pretty much the same as the old one."

I'm fixin' to retire from international-only flying and commence to domestic-only with a fine Texas-based organization. On wear-and-tear alone it's looking like tall fields of clover. I don't recover from twelve time zones over a twenty-four hour duty day quite like I used to.
Does that make me old?

I was in Sao Paulo in 2001 when Argentina had a coupe. I've been in Soa paulo when the prison population was rioting and this affected the whole city.
But this in Bolivia has been brewing for a while. Santa Cruz is very modern city with lots of construction and liberal attiudes. La Paz the capital city is very pro-gov't. I like VVI a lot. Fun place. I thought I read somewhere that the Bolivian president wanted to rid Bolivia of everything SPanish. And to go back to the Indian language. I think it was called the axa indian or incan language.
I think that might have been one of the final straws.