Blogs from Santa Cruz Department, Bolivia, South America - page 28

Having spent so long in Sucre I was looking forward to getting back to nature a little bit. Thus, I headed to the small town of Samaipata, about 10 hours north-east of Sucre. Only problem was that the bus would arrive there at about 4 a.m. and drop me at the side of the road - or that was the plan. Predictably, they forgot about me - but luckily I was on the ball and managed to get the driver to stop only 200 metres past the town!!! One of the big draws in Samaipata are the ruins of "El Fuerte", a pre-columbian site dominated by an absolutely huge rock complete with carvings that are apparently pre-Inca. Unfortunately, those pesky tourists that used to climb all over, and graffiti on the rock back in the day, ... read more

The way towards the Brasilien border involves crossing part of a vast plain called the Grand Chaco. This is a dry and thorny lowland is penetrated only by a mud track and the infamous death train towards the frontier city of Quijaro. This train got its name because it almost never reached the destination. The track was and still is challanged by its remoteness and occationally washed away by floodings in the rainy season. The deformed track made it derail frequently. Sometime ago the old death train was replaced by a more modern train that takes the journey at a real low pace. Still the train coaches jump like mad during the whole journey. I think it should be renamed from death train into shake train... A strange encounter were some missionary folks in blue overalls ... read more

This is Sara to narrate our last 3 days in Saimapata and all our exciting travels back to La Paz. Matt woke up on the morning of March 21 feeling very under the weather with a cough sounding suspiciously like the one Jill had. He decided that it was prudent that he did not go and we both concurred. So after having another wonderful organic breakfast at our dream hostel, La Vispera, Jill and I set off to the Amboro highlands for a hike among the giant ferns. We were introduced to our spanish speaking guide "Don Gilberto" who is reasonably famous as an expert tour operator in Saimapata (aka he is in the guidebook) as well as the Israeli couple who would be accompanying us. The other guide, a German, who was leading a group ... read more

At the airport we had a nice surprise when we found the plane was indeed not stuck together with cellotape, but was a rather modern jet, and the flight turned out to be very pleasant; the sky was clear for most of the time we were in the air and we enjoyed very good views of the Bolivian mountains and jungle. Our destination was Santa Cruz de la Sierra , the second biggest city in Bolivia. The city itself does not have much going for it, people use it mostly as a base to explore the nearby mountains or as a stop-over before moving on to somewhere else. We did spend a couple of days here, doing nothing much apart from resting and eating icecream (we went from being rather cold in Potosí only a few ... read more

First of all, Can´t believe today is February, just looked at the date and was surprised. As everyone knows, we are in Santa Cruz for the second time, chilling for a few days until our VISA´s for Brazil arrive, they should be ready in 2 hours if all goes according to plan! Last night we tied one on for Ryans birthday! Started things off right with Champagne and Fillet Mignon for breakfast, then we went to the Internet cafe call center so Jord could phone the FOX in Vancouver, was pretty funny, I had it on the live web cast (although it did cut out at the end -reliable Bolivian Internet) but thanks to Tara we have an mp3 of the whole thing, which I will try and post a link to on this blog when ... read more