I´m all out of creativity....
Trip Start
Nov 23, 2009
1
18
37
Trip End
Jun 29, 2010
Where I stayed
Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Saturday, March 6, 2010
We arrived in Santa Cruz at around half one in the morning; it took 2 hours to clear through immigration and then we had a further wait of 4hours until the buses into town started running.
The hostal we are staying in is in quite a nice central location, it´s right by a food market and also has a lovely shady courtyard which is home to a rather cocky toucon called simon and a parrot, which I rudely did not get the name of!
There isn´t an awful lot to do in Santa Cruz; it´s really just a stopping port for people wanting to do jungle trips in the nearby national park Noel Kemp Mercado- something that kris and I had originally wanted to do but soon changed our minds due to the expense and difficulty in arranging a tour. Instead, we´re going to visit a neighbouring NP which is targeted more at scummy travellers like ourselves!
Saturday was spent looking around the city and relaxing in its pretty central plaza, listening to the music being played and watching the world go by. In the evening we went for a cheap meal in a local bar; we paid one pound each for dinner - it was a bargain and there were absolutely no other tourists around...Awesome!
On sunday we spent the day at a fantastic holiday park which had a number of lakes and swimming pools to relax in and hide away from the scorching heat. The park also housed Bolivia´s largest butterfly and bird avery, which was kind of cool to look around. In the evening Kris and I and a couple of guys from the hostel went for dinner to a fairly plush Bolivian restaurant; we were pretty brave in our choice of food- we decided to go for a traditional Bolivian paridilla, which is like a mixed grill but it was of all sorts of random cuts of meat...it was quite an experience!
Whilst here we also had a look around a local food market which was near to our hostel.... It was quite a sight; lots of little stalls and shops squashed in to a covered corner building. As it was siesta time, there were lots of locals in there having lunch. So in the spirit of ´When in Rome´ we decided to join them; we found a little place right beside a slightly uncleanly looking Butchers and unfortunately for us, we sat perhaps a little too close to their meat cutting device (the experience was not a pretty one!). The food on the otherhand was fantastic - We tried a bolivian speciality called Picante or Pique Machu which cost around a pound again. The meal is made up of pork, various sausage meats, peppers, red onion, potatoes, fried banana (delicious), rice and a lush kind of sauce. It was seriously very good and we didn´t even get sick - Bonus!
