060706 - SANTA CRUZ, BOL

I an boarding the flight to Santa Cruz, Bolivia and the next thing that comes to my ears is the annoucement of the flight attendant saying "Please fasten your seatbelt as we are decending to Santa Cruz. Current temperature is 28 degrees Celsius." 28 DEGREES CELSIUS!!! Wouh, what happend? Did I accidently got on the wrong plane? Well, as I said earlier, I had no idea what would await me in Santa Cruz, but when I looked out the window I saw tons of palm trees. And it looked like as if I was back in Panama. Lush, green rain forests as far as the eye could see. Amazing. Getting of the plane and stepping outside I got hit by this wall of warm, humid air. Yeah... where is the Carribean Sea? ;o)

Downtown I checked in with the Hostal Bolivar, only 2 blocks away from the Central Plaza. A lovely place with a miniature jungle-patio, some hammocks, a friendly staff and even some house pets. (The colorful tucans)

Santa Cruz as a city doesn't offer that many interesting sights nor things to do even though it is the economic powerhouse of Bolivia. Currently the district Santa Cruz is among three other districts seeking from governmental independence from La Paz where mainly everything is steered from. So it is no surprise that the cruceños made up for 155 demonstrations in the last have year. Only in Santa Cruz itself. So there is basically at least one demonstration a day. It will be interesting to follow this process since Evo Morales (the Bolivian president) is totally against this autonomy movement.

From Hamster I heard that he was stuck in Sucre and couldn't get a bus ticket out of town. Holiday season plus tickets are only sold on the day the buses leave town. So you'd have to go to the bus terminal at 6 or 7 in the morning, get in line for the bus that leaves at 9:30 and hope that there's still a spot available once you get to the counter. It took him 2 days to accomplish this mission, meanwhile I was waiting in Santa Cruz getting to know a few backpackers.