In Da Cruz

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Hola cariños,

I am finally in Santa Cruz since last night after more than a week trying to get here. I am here with Alexis - I guess I should introduce him to y´all as he´s gonna feature in all blog entries for the rest of my trip. We are travelling together to Rio from here, and I guess I should announce that he is my boyfriend! Its been a long time since Ive had one of those. But he´s lovely and we´re having a brilliant time being together - except for the last 48 hours of travel madness....

First of all I planned to come here from Cochabamba by bus last Monday night, after taking a Surubi back from Chapare to CBBA in the morning and picking up a few bits from my host family who I was supposed to mett in Villa Tunari - a town a couple hours from Puerto where my host family were last weekend for the Fish Festival - but never made it. But events seemed to be conspiring to keep me from progressing with my trip. First off, while I was staying in Puerto for the last time, I started having major problems with my stomach and after a few days I decided it needed medical attention - but I was feeling so unwell on Monday that I left on Tuesday to go back to CBBA. The next few days were very stressful since I had to go back to the TAPA office after having said all my goodbyes (and I prefer not to go back after Ive done that....) and explain to Erick, the resident El Doctor, what the problem was and ask for his help. I had to then wait until the next evening to get time with a gynaecologist (yep, thats right, what fun) and a private one at that as Erick advised that I would have to endure beig poked about by student doctors if I went to the public hospital. Lucily Ximena came with me as the doctor didnt speak english. After said poking about the doctor decided there was indeed a problem of an unspecified nature and booked me an ultrasound and other tests to be done thenext morning. The mention of the word ultrasound make me panic - what could bo that wrong that I´d need that? And the cost of the appointment and these tests came to nearly 400 bolivianos, which in bolivia is a couple of month´s salary and hurt my already thin wallet too. Then I wastoldI would have to stay until Monday to get the results. I was on my own in Cocha having left Alexis in Chapare to finish his TAPA project and all the other volunteers I knew in town had gone home - though luckily I saw my host family most days and went for ice cream with maria jose, which kept me from sitting in my soviet style dorm room and chewing my nails off with worry about the test results. The results came in on Monday evening:Ive got a simple urinary tract infection (yum!) and a week of antibiotics. After getting those results Alexis and I went to visit my host family for a final time, pick up some washing I had done there, get our stuff from our hostel and rush to meet our mate jonny for a last beer and pasta. Then we bolted to the bus station to make what I was sure would be an 11 o clock bus to santa cruz (ok officially i had no clue when the bus would go, but in all my time travelling in Bolivia Ive never once pre booked a bus, checked times before, or done any preparation - the beauty of bolivia´s unique take on organisation and industry means you can always just turn up to any bus terminal, find a cheap bus thats going your way, and get on it pretty much within the hour. As alexis has been living in the jungle ever since the start of his trip and the only bit of travelling he´sdone waspretty much organised by a couple he was with who organised everything for him and the rest of the group, I reassured him that we could do what I normally do, just turn up and go. But there was some sort of badmoon over us and it all went tis up. After cutting short our goodbyes with jonny - alexis and jonny are pretty close mates and Alexis was pretty cut up about saying goodbye - to make it to the terminal, there were no buses until 4 am. A guy shouted over to us that he had one going now, and it was a decent price so we bought our tickets. But we found out quickly that we´d been fucking ripped right off. First of all the bus wasparked in the street not in the terminal, which was dodgy: then we found that hardly anyone was waiting to get on and there was no driver and the lights were off: after a while I went and asked the guy we bought the tickets from when the bus was going and he very casually said 4am or maybe around then.... and I told him no, I bought tickets to go now. Then got into a big fight which pissed me right off. He said he would give me a discount and handed me back 40 or 60 bolivianos.... which I was considering accepting as me and Al could have gone back to the hostel or found a bar until then. But just as I was thinking that he took my ticket,which I thought he did to write me a new one, ripped it up and threw it on the ground. I asked him for my new ticket and he started pretending he didnt understand why I needed proof of purchase or some kind of evidence that I had done business with him and that he still held 20 of mine and al´s bolivianos. He refused ands refused until I was having a big stand off with him, with onlookers, demanding with a refund or two new tickets, neither of which he budged on. In the end I went off to find the police, and found a copy to whom I explained what had gone on and asked him to help - but this isbolivia and the police are not paid to help. He told me to fuck off. I found an army dude hanging about but he didnt want to know. It was coming up to 1am and Alexis, already clearly pissed off with having left jonny and beer behind and probably wondering why he listened to me, was hanging around in the cold on the dodgy bus road, so I decided I had done all I could do and we got in a cab and went back to our hostel. I spent at least two hours after that burning a hole into the ceiling with my eyes, I felt so fucking angry that this dude has blatantly ripped us off,. and the cops were useless, and I just couldnt physically get out of cocha and on my trip with alexis which was what we had both been looking forward to some weeks. The next morning we tried again but for some inexplicable reason, despite there being big lists of buses going to santa cruz throughout the day on several of the buscompanies walls in the terminal, we weretold that nothing was going until 8pm that night which would get us in to town 9 hours later in the middle of the night, which would mean trapsing around in a strange place looking fora room. By this point I was so pissed off I went full circle and gave in. Alexis suggested wego to Ivirgazama - the town nearest to Puerto, back in Chapare five hours away - anmd take a colectivo to Bulo Bulo and then from there to Snata Cruz, whicxh he thought would get us here for 9 pm the same night but at a cost of an extra 30 or 40 bolivianos. Normally when Im travelling alone I would always take the longer, cheaper option. But now I´m travelling with someone else, I have to start doing all that compromise stuff again, thinking not just about myself and whats best for me. And I was so desperate to get to the Cruz as with only four weeks left time is running out fast. We decided to do that but before we left I went to the cashpoint to get some money - and the thing nearly swallowed my card. I was seriously wondering if we were being punished for having a crafty snog in the top of Cochabamba´s Cristo Redentor the day before.... Finally we got into a Surubi and got to Ivirgazama, found a colectivo to Bulo Bulo - involving me and Al riding on the front like sardines in a tin, with three army dudes in full militia gear in the back - and another colectivo to Santa Cruz four hours later. Then when we got to the hostel Alexis had said we could stay at, it wasfull - and all of the pthers we phoned were full. Al trundled off into the night to find a solution and came back half an hour later with a reservation atthe rather downbeat but cool Hostal Oriente, and now all we´re doing is perfecting the art of loafery, eating ice cream, drinking coca cola personal fria, and enjoying the ceiling fan in our room.

Santa Cruz seems to have no sights, it has a decent plaza for loafing but nothing more. The weather is the draw though - its proper tropics, 29 degrees, high humidity, blue skies. Exactly my perfect weather. Cant be arsed to do much in it but luckily Alexis is a fellow loafer. Cruz has a reputation across bolivia for chica calores - hot girls - but so far the only evidence of this is the ludicrous gas station girls who, as we crossed from Cochabamba department into the Santa Cruz dept, were to be found at every gas station pumping gas in the tiniest neon yellow and pillar boz red mini skirts and halternecks, complete of course with high heels. My contribution or attempt to de tourist-ize is wearage of my new favourite item ofclothing, my skintight bright green knock off adidas knee length trousers I bought in La Cancha. I think the most productive things we will do here are our washing and buying train tickets to Brazil. This is definitely a richer city than the pthers Ive been to in Bolivia - as we drove in we passed alotof shiny car dealerships, a kawasaki bike dealership, and a fake ceasars palace club, and I passed a Diesel satore, which is unheard of in Bol. Oh, and they have AIR CONDITIONING..... It freaked me right out when I went into one of those glass booths to get some cash out and found myself faced with a jet of cold air.

Finally, a bit about the change of travelling solo to travelling with a permanent travelling buddy (and boyfriend) after ten months. Well, its always been a dream of mine to see some of the worlds with a willing participant who would ideally be my significant other. When I saidto Alexis that he should come travelling to Brazil with me I never thought he´d be up for it. But here we are and so far its great, aside from the catalogue of comedy errors we had up until last night just to get here. We dont have much time left and when I go home he continues north to The Guianas, so I really want to make the best of the time we´ve got together, and seeing the sights with him is really exciting. Learning to share my space, my stuff, to consider two people in my decisions, its something I´m adjusting to and he is too, but I´m enjoying it. Maybe turning up to the busd station at no notice andgoing, then rocking up to any shitty dive and taking whateverhellhole bed they have left, is not gonna be so easy now that I´m part of a pair. If I´m honest, I feel amazingly lucky to have this gift of seeing brazil - a country Ive long dreamed of visiting and still cant believe I´m gonna be there in a few days - with Alexis. We´ll see how it goes and how long he can put up with me.

x

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