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Ok, so basically a lot of interesting things have happened that are all impossible to completely make you understand what just happened.

I bought my ticket to Santa Cruz from a place in Filadelphia, but the problem was the bus did not pick me up in Filadelphia I had to go to another town. So after a few hours of walking around (and updating my blog pictures) I found a bus company (NASA, which is the best name I have heard of so far) that would take me to the little town. As usual on Paraguayan buses it was overcrowded and I ended up standing for about 50km or so. Then we got to the town only the town is not where I was supposed to be heading. I was supposed to get off the bus aways back and follow a kind of onelane paved road for a good 10km. Great.

So, rather than miss my bus and be stranded in a town with no cash machine or bank for exchanging money I decided to walk it. And really this is no big deal. I walked there, and immigration was there and the immigration officer was nice and we drank some beers and laughed awhole bunch, he especially laughed at me walking the whole distance and then I fell asleep on a mattress kindly offered to me and was awoken when my bus came to do all the paper work for the other passengers.

Now the real adventure lay in the walk. It is the weirdest desert atmosphere out there. It is like desert with giant thron bushes everywhere. Fortunately for me I was walking on a pretty well marked path with an almost full moon guiding the way, but regardless of all that, it was definetly the most off the beaten path I have been on this trip. I didnt discovery and great unknown sight or some crazy treasure, but I was alone, in the middle of the Chaco, with my bags and directions given to me in bad spanish (and my spanish understanding not being the greatest either). It was great, fortunately everything worked out great and I was even able to surprise the border guard with a grapefruit I had bought a few days before and forgotten in the bottom of my bag. They are apparently pretty special when you are in the middle of the desert.

The bad thing was I only got about an hour of sleep. The other bad thing was that I had no idea that Santa Cruz was a 20 hour bus ride after beginning my day with a five hour bus ride, then a one hour bus ride, then an hour or two walk and then an hour sleep. These buses are not the comfy ones offered in Argentina, Peru or Chile either, they are basically Canadian Greyhound buses crowded with too many people demanding to bring all of their things on as carryon and the great Paraguayan tradition of getting wasted on beer and cheap whiskey. I also got to watch every version of Spartacus (it was one of those themed DVD bootlegs) sometimes in Spanish and sometimes in English, it was at least entertaining. I also put a pretty big dent into the Mormon Bible, which for the life of me seems like it was made up as the writer went along. But I promissed that I would read it, and it is at least entertaining, so I will continue.

I arrived in Santa Cruz pretty exhausted and found myself in a completely different Bolivia than I had been in before. First, almost everyone is white (well, Mediterranean if you will). Second, there are hummers and SUVs everywhere. Third, shopping malls and other shopping areas have a very distinctly American feel to them. An interesting surprise (and I have also already found out how evil Evo Morales is in their opinion). I got a fairly nice hotel considering the fact that I am supposed to be pretty poor right now, but only for one night and then the adventure continues...south!

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