Blogs from Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia, South America - page 7

One of the reasons I stuck around in Samaipata and Santa Cruz was that I kept hearing how awesome the Santa Cruz Oktoberfest was going to be (and inevitably delaying going to more expensive countries like Argentina and Chile). Santa Cruz is the largest city in Bolivia at around 1.5 million people, although it´s so spread out you wouldn´t know it. Also, it has more of a Brazilian feel (and climate, at 500m ASL) than the rest of Bolivia -- not sure how accurate this is, but I´ve been told that Santa Cruz tried to seceede from the rest of Bolivia, and I wouldn´t be surprised given the political stability in this country. On Friday I did a really awesome canyon hike for FREE (sans transportation) that followed a river several kilometers, at some points too ... read more

Yo! Ok, this is a quick special report, especially for VLM. We went to the Santa Cruz Zoo this afternoon. This is a seriously wacky zoo. For instance, there were almost as many animals roaming freely about the grounds as there were safely in cages. Among the animals that scampered accross our footpath were: a sloth (well, it more slothed than scampered), a capibara, and an alarmingly large monkey of sorts. That one was actually sitting on the fence OUTSIDE of the monkey cages of its same species (see photo). The main purpose of our visit was to find and photograph a giant Anteater. (For those of you who don´t know, Stephen´s mother, Vicki is an avid collector of all things Anteater/Aardvark). We searched the joint for hours for the illusive beast and it was not ... read more

Once back from the Madidi trip we got a flight to Santa Cruz (via San Borja and Trinidad). Our main reason for coming to Santa Cruz was to see if we could get a trip to Noel Kempf Mercado NP. The Bolivian jungle in Madidi was great but Noel Kempf is noted as one of the most biologically diverse areas on the planet. It doesn´t have the infrastructure that the Madidi does but that was part of the allure. First though we lobbed up in Santa Cruz and stayed at the Jodanga hostel. Not usually into plugging hostels but this one is a gem.. a converted villa (in an area where I´d say most the Bolivian rich live) with its own swimming pool (and not one of those ones that has never been cleaned and only ... read more

5 Weeks at Ambui Ari A story if slow blood loss, mortal fear and beast walking!!! No electricity, long drop toilet, about 30 other volenteers from all over the world, 22 cats, 12 monkeys, lots of birds, 2 deer, a tapier and a dog!... read more

Yesterday, a group of us from World Concern traveled to La Victoria, a small community on the outskirts of San Julian, to have a meeting/celebration with one of the CAMS groups. This group has been a very successful group for microfinancing within World Concern, and yesterday was the 8th anniversary for the group since its start. So we drove out to the community bringing cake and drinks to congratulate them and coordinate for further work. Also, I'm putting up some pictures from the weekend... Just some pictures of the house I'm staying at and also a few pictures from the restaurant we ate at after church. I should have taken pictures of the dishes though, since they definitely had some interesting cuts from a cow that I had never thought of eating, such as udder... ... read more