Santa Cruz, Samaipata & Sucre

Toucan!

We’ve dropped the ball a bit and arriving at 2am in Santa Cruz the mental note to book accommodation never developed further. While we’re negotiating for a better rate with the night doorman our taxi speeds off and our bargaining power disappears. But even the inflated price is a bargain compared to Brazil - $20 for an air-conditioned room with en suite. Welcome to Bolivia.

Santa Cruz Plaza - not a sloth in sight

There’s not really much to see in Santa Cruz itself, but we spend a day wandering around the plaza and take a trip to the zoo. Nic is desperate to see a toucan as they’ve eluded her since Iguacu Falls. The zoo delivers on this front, but otherwise is fairly depressing with big jaguars and pumas stuck in tiny cages. No sloths either.

Escaping from the heat

The next day we head for the hills of Samaipata, a small village 3 hours away by shared taxi. The higher altitude gives some relief from the heat of Santa Cruz. It’s our first experience of Bolivian transport (more to come on this) and is pretty straightforward in the end. Nic gets an unexpected shower in the back seat as we pass a truck spraying down the dusty road. In a slow motion moment we spot the incoming wave but can’t reach the open window in time to save us from being flooded.

The hills around Samaipata. The track can be seen to the right, but disappeared shortly round the corner.

The next morning we manage to flick the switch back into adventure mode and hike to the middle of nowhere. But we must have become accustomed to traveling in a group, because neither of us pays much attention to where we’re actually meant to be walking. We get some direction from a local girl who also suggests we’d be safer walking in shoes vs jandals – muchos serpentes and she motions a rattle with her hand.

When the track disappears at a river, 3 hours and a large mountain behind us (but no snakes disappointingly), we call lunch and draw on the lessons of Man vs Wild. We ditch the shoes and wade downstream in the hope of finding civilization. Bear Grylls deserves credit here because not only do we manage to find a road and hitchhike back to Samaipata, we also reach a waterfall that gives some relief from the scorching heat.

The TV never lies

Pre-Incan ruins at El Fuerte, Samaipata

And so for our memorable trip out of Samaipata. 

It delivered on every scrap of bus travel conjecture surrounding Bolivia. It's apparent when the bus arrives (an hour late but there's nothing inauspicious about that in itself) and passengers crawl out from the cargo hold that we're in for something special. On board we have to evict chickens and their owners from our seats. Which are situated directly above the rear wheels. 

I imagine that the optional extras list must be overwhelming for the new bus buyer in Bolivia. Because I'm certain the base model comes without suspension, shock absorbers or seat squabs amongst a number of things. In fact, it seems that all you need to claim it as a bus is four wheels and a horn.

To be fair to the bus company, it's not their fault that our tummies were misbehaving too. Or that the agency oversold the journey. Or that the nursery of children on board conspired to wake-up on hourly rotations with pungent loads in their pants. 

The hillsides are littered with overturned vehicles

The bus breaks down at some point during the night - only a flat tire as it turns out - I clamber over the mess of animals, people, dirty blankets and food scraps strewn down the aisle and dash outside for some relief. I swap seats with Nic to give her some relief of her own from an unconscious man who'd adopted her leg as a pillow.

We somehow get a little sleep and awake thankful to have arrived in Sucre. Only we're still 150km from Sucre because there's been a landslide across the road and it's going to take 2 hours to clear. It defies belief that we can still be upbeat when we eventually do arrive but somehow we are. It's the journey not the destination, right?

Landslip. Grateful it didn't happen as were passing because just out of shot is a cliff plunging hundreds of meters.

The next day a jumbo sized bowl of fruit salad and yoghurt for 50c. Opted against the local specialty containing a whole egg (shell included), a shot of beer, milk and fruit (MULTI-VITAMINICO on the menu shown).

Sucre is beautiful, but we had only a couple of days to explore as we were meeting friends to begin a tour of the salt flats. We had planned to come back and see more of the city afterwards but unfortunately it escaped us. 

Right, we're only 2 weeks behind now. At the moment we're in La Paz, back from a fantastic experience in the jungle. It seems hard to believe that we're just over half way of our whole adventure, while at the same time looking at our pictures from the first week in Chile it could be from another time altogether.

Keep reading and sending messages, always great to hear news from home.

xN&G