The long journey to Bolivia: single flight in 2 attempts.

If you don´t succeed at first, just try again.... This must be the motto of Gol, the ´aerolineas inteligentes´ of Brazil. The flight from Sao Paulo to Campo Grande before had a delay of 2 hours, so we were prepared for the worst (after a 5.5 hour bus journey that day from Bonito). And yes, there was a delay of 2 hours, again.

So we didn´t leave Campo Grande until after midnight, for the 1.5 hour flight to Santa Gruz de la Sierra in Bolivia. When approaching this city, our big white aero-sausage started circeling around.... at approx 2am, no sleep so far. The lovely city lying underneath, all lit up and pretty. After about 2mins of looping the city, the power comes back on.... uh-oh... no good news, and then finally after 2 mins the pilot comes on the PA with the message that we´re actually FLYING BACK to Campo Grande...... because of fog..... funny that, we did clearly see a city below us, without any clouds. Guess even Bolivia airports close..... but don´t think passengers need to know this.

Back on the ground in Campo Grande, we're not allowed of the sausage.... it´s 4am now. A bit of refuelling, and then just sit pretty for another half an hour. 5am, second attempt, take of. Another 1.5 hours later we land in Santa Cruz. Quick taxi in, to get to a hostel which we did have booked, but didn´t get a change to enjoy that night.

I think we pretty much just crashed out that day, had a snack and a movie in the afternoon, followed by a very early night. We´d do that a lot over the next few nights, early movies, dinner, and to bed around (or before) 9pm. Must be getting older, daddy-oh.....


There´s not much to say about Santa Cruz de la Sierra, capital of the Santa Cruz district/province. It has an older centre, with a few nicer older buildings. The cathedral is in red brick, and for a few cents you can climb to the top, where the average unexpecting tourist will get his/her eardrums bashed twice an hour by the bells.... There´s an irish pub as well, of course. The ´diner' style restaurants are interesting, as the food is quite fresh and cheap. Also, jugs, LARGE jugs of juice come cheaply and plentyfully here. Let's say Rene was again on a fruit-juice-induced high for a few days.

We´ll try to put some pics on soon as well, not that they´ll be very interesting.

Not being in the comfort of a truck tour, where all, if not most, activities are arranged for you proved a challenge, and because of this we probably stayed an awful lot longer in Santa Cruz then we wanted or cared for. despite it´s cleanliness, the hostel had a few too many itty-bitty rules that stopped you from feeling at home.


Taxis
Lest we forget the taxis.... in general, I think most will know now that an average taxi or bus driver in S America is a driving madman. In general, the larger the vehicle, the madder they are. One interesting observation was that some taxis had the steering wheel on the left hand side of the car, but it was sticking out of a hole in what once was the glove compartment, with the dials (speedo and odometers) on the right hand side of the car.... Even if they were in the correct position in the car, usually speedo and odo would only be there for decoration purposes, as they would not work..... Guess you even get cheap Jap imports in Bolivia !!


Vroom vroom !

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