Santa Cruz and Sucre

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We crossed the Brazilian/Bolivian border alongside two Israelis and a Norwegian we'd met in the Pantanal. The paperwork was straightforward whilst the horror stories of five hour queues did not materialise. The buildings which greeted us on the Bolivian side of the border seemed improvised. Two locals, perched on well worn stools and with small wooden boxes, (filled with bolivianos it turns out) offered to change our money. At a rate of 3:1 they certainly received a significant margin on each exchange, the 'official' rate being 7:2. However, with no use for our Brazilian Real and a significant urge to leave the ramshackled border town of Quiljero with the aid of some bolivianos, we accepted.

We then squeezed into a taxi; five travellers worth of luggage in the boot, four guys in the back seat and Bekah in the front. No seat belts needed in Bolivia, our car didn't have them and even if it did there wasn't room enough to manoeuvre and secure them. We used the door to fix us in place instead. Comfortably packed together the driver took us to the bus station. The plan being to catch the first available bus to Santa Cruz.

The bus station appeared as if it had been built in the 60's from iron and asbestos and not maintained since. It also acted as a crèche. Each bus company had an enterprising mother selling tickets whilst her children used the 'office' (read bit of space behind the desk) as a playground. The father drove the bus. We negotiated a price of 90 bolivianos (£8.50) each for the overnight bus journey; we were finally out of the world cup bubble and into South America. Our bus didn't leave for another couple of hours so we left our luggage at the crèche and headed out to explore.

Dinner cost £1.70. BBQed meat, rice, potatoes and salad for me; rice, potatoes and salad for Bekah. The local mosquitoes had their dinner as well, tasty gringo ankles. We wolfed down the food, fled from the mosquitoes and waited for our bus at the terminal.

It may have cost £8.50 per person but the bus was modern and comfortable. Clearly the inclusion of free childcare at work makes for a very efficient company. The ticket vendor/childcare assistant now became the conductor and as we boarded showed us where our seats were. The driver checked in everyone's luggage by tying a tag to each bag and then handing us a piece of paper with the same number. Paper/bags would then be exchanged when we arrived.

We both slept reasonably well. We weren't thrown about and anti-sickness tablets were taken. We arrived in Santa Cruz (it didn't seem that far after all) the next morning and headed out to find our hostel. We've found this part of any journey to be the most stressful. New town, new language, limited sleep, early morning darkness, heavy bag; it all conspires to fray nerves. We found a taxi and gave the driver the address of the hostel.

We rang the bell. No answer. We rang again, after a few minutes wait the door opened. Apparently the person manning the the 24 hour reception was taking a shower. We checked into the hostel which although it appeared to be part of a modern terrace street of shops was instead a colonial era house, the rooms of which were arranged around two leafy courtyards. We caught up with a little sleep (something which was becoming routine after an overnight bus journey) and then set out to explore the centre of Santa Cruz.

The city of Santa Cruz was built to a grid system around the central plaza de armas. The traffic runs on a one way system so crossing streets is easy (especially in comparison into Brasilia) but the drivers are maniacs. A beep of the horn tells pedestrians or other drivers that they're about to shoot across a junction and the cars themselves are well worn and produce a deep grumble wherever they go; at least you can always hear them coming.

We wandered about town in search of WiFi; our hostel, keeping to the colonial era theme, apparently thought this was too much of an extravagance. A coffee shop called Alexander's disagreed and also threw in some suitably indulgent chocolate waffles to show the hostel up further. We demolished our late breakfast and set about this overstaying our welcome by using the WiFi for the next two and a half hours. After settling the bill (the staff appeared surprised we were still there when we appeared from out of the corner of the cafe) we headed out only to find everything closed for siesta.

The plaza de armas in Santa Cruz used to be home to a bed (group) of sloths; however, they had to be relocated to a local zoo after they kept being electrocuted by over head cables and involved in traffic accidents on the road around the plaza. Now the plaza seems only to be home to pigeons and a troupe of tourist cafés. We relocated ourselves from Alexander's to Cafe24 to skype Bekah's family. It was great to see and chat to those back at home, even if tales of the lovely weather did make us wonder what we were missing out on.

The next place on the list was an Irish pub for a Bolivian Guinness. The shame. I do have to mention that although Santa Cruz is pretty (at least the centre is) it's not the beating cultural heart of anything. I drank my Guinness (again, the shame) and Bekah had a local beer. Aside from the beer we did bump into a group of fellow travellers from London and our hostel, a group we would be destined to meet again and again throughout our stay in Bolivia. At this point we merely said hi and bemoaned the size of the Guinness available (330ml bottles, no draught).

After an early night to further catch up on our sleep we were determined to see a few more of the sights of Santa Cruz. Over breakfast we began chatting to an elderly, slightly eccentric, Argentinian lady who made sure we knew that there were pickpockets everywhere and that the Peruvians were the 'dirtiest' people in South America. She then joined us in a taxi to the bus terminal as she needed to reserve a seat back to Buenos Aires and we needed to buy our tickets to Sucre for later that day. It was an unusual encounter. We were marched around the terminal as she negotiated the best price for our journey; which was helpful. She also offered to (but didn't) split the cost of the taxi and when we ordered a coffee later that day she asked us to pay as she had no money, very suspicious. We refused and were left debating what had just happened. Either way we had our ticket and a new found suspicion of old Argentinian ladies who frequent Bolivian hostels.

That afternoon we explored the city further and in so doing nearly missed the Brazil vs Colombia match. Luckily we stumbled across a bar showing the game. Luckily that same bar had two for one litre jugs of beer. Unfortunately Brazil won. As the game drew to a close we headed out of the bar, through the assembled crowd, who were peering through the doorway to chance a free cheeky glance at the game on the big screen.

The bus we caught that night was notorious. We'd read that the road was the worst in Bolivia, winding and so potholed that the bus companies would only send their old buses along the route for fear of their newer ones becoming damaged. This was entirely true, but we discovered a number of other things that evening. Firstly, you are allowed to take parrots on the bus; secondly, empanada's (a small pasty) are the most delicious thing served in South America; thirdly, even the most moderately sized gringo appears giant-like and is gawped at when boarding a local bus (all the other tourists had ominously opted to fly); finally we were starting to become used to overnight buses as we managed to sleep relatively soundly on the worst road in Bolivia.

Arriving in Sucre was a calm affair. An early morning taxi to our hostel, at a price we had been advised was fair by a little lady at the tourist kiosk. Early check in, a quick snooze, some breakfast and we were ready to explore.

Sucre is Bolivia's second capital city. It was the original capital when Bolivia became independent under Simon Bolivar. It now plays second fiddle to its more famous and higher sister, La Paz. Sucre remains a constitutional capital and retains the judiciary while La Paz hosts the government and finance functions of the Bolivian state. It's a quiet, colonial city, whose history is narrated by its architecture. A tiered tower tells of a battle between the government and local bakers; as the bakers incrementally and artificially increased the price of their bread the government added a new layer to the tower. An attempt to shame the bakers into maintaining their prices, it worked. A mock Parisian park, complete with mini Eiffel tower (designed by the same Monsieur Eiffel) was built to alleviate a princesses homesickness. The 'Eiffel' tower itself was built with bolts marked with swastikas, a nod to the South American Nazi links from the early 20th century. The derelict train station is testament to the train line that Bolivia once had; the trains were expensive to maintain as they were British built and BritishGerman engineers had to be shipped out to service them. The lines were sold to a Chilean company which failed to maintain them and now there is only one train line in Bolivia, connecting the mines to Chile.

Sucre was a great city to stroll around and we visited a number of museums. Although the architecture tells of a bygone colonial era, most of the museums in Sucre are devoted to its indigenous history; this is no accident and is the result of the administration of its first elected, indigenous president in the early 2000's. The highlight was a museum dedicated to the masks used in religious parades. This included the mask of coco, a creepy chap who the children are told will come and take them away if they are naughty. The fact that he has a pale white face leads some children in remote villages to be scared of white tourists.

We ate most of our meals (at least one a day) at the Condor café, a local vegetarian, not for profit, restaurant. Soups, rice dishes, stuffed potato, brownies, they were all awesome and for around £1-2 a meal, we kept going back. Aside from this we ate at the local market, a sprawling hive of stalls selling pretty much everything. The smell from the raw pig skin on sale was interesting and Bekah insisted we hurry through that section. Aside from every cut of meat imaginable, one stall (or instead a row of six stalls all with the same thing) served fresh fruit salad with whipped cream, yes please.

In spite of the glut of good food and picturesque streets, we had to leave but not without one final hurrah. The Germany vs Brazil semifinal. Our bus to the salt flats of Uyuni was scheduled for 2 hours after the final whistle. We'd bumped into those same Londoners who we met in Santa Cruz and agreed to watch the game in the local, German bar. We crammed into a small room, along with 100 other German fans and prepared ourselves.

At this point I should explain why we were supporting Germany. Firstly, European teams seemed to have taken a beating, away from the continent and around celebrating South Americans, a touch of continental solidarity seems to form. Secondly, imagine the arrogance of the English press in '96. Nothing compared to the Brazilian media who, although they hadn't printed a full page spread depicting the Brazilian team as champions (something they did in 1950 and then subsequently lost to Uruguay in the final causing them to drop their traditional white kit and adopt the famous yellow, green and blue they have today); they had come pretty close. So as we sat down we were right behind our German cousins.

The goals flew in. We cheered and clapped, the atmosphere in the cramped room buzzing. By the time the 5th and 6th were scored and the cameras panned to tearful Brazilians in the crowd the cheers turned to sarcastic ahh's of sympathy. Of course, Ozil missed a sitter after which Brazil scored a consolation; what else would you expect from the Arsenal man. The final whistle blew and the room bounced to 99 red balloons (of course in the original German). If only it had been England we were cheering on. After absorbing the revelry, we set out to catch our bus. The heights of the salt flats of Uyuni were calling.

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