Day 12 Buena Vista

Happy New Years!  We woke up excited to be leaving Santa Cruz, which neither of us liked very much.  As we had traveled along, we heard of many people who were intentionally travelling to Santa Cruz to partake in the New Years Celebrations.  Jo and I were intentionally leaving it.  We left our stinky hostel a little early because I wanted to grab some of the same vegetarian saltenas I had had the day before.

Jo grabbed a saltena for himself along the way.

We took a taxi to Buena Vista and arrived midmorning.  About five minutes after arriving in Buena Vista, we found a starving dog on a doorstep.  Really.  Who knows how long the poor thing had been there, but it was just skin and bones and clearly close to death.  We gave it a saltena I had brought along and walked away, but just couldn't leave it there in that pitiful state.  Just minutes after leaving it, Jo suggested we find a veterinary hospital so that the poor thing wouldn't have to suffer any longer.  We quickly found a hostel that was close by, set down our things, and headed back to where the dog was.  Luckily, there just happened to be a vet office near by, so we carried the dog over and the vet kindly euthanized it, ending its misery.

Now, we saw our fair share of street dogs in Bolivia, and although most of them were on the ragged side, for the most part they appeared to be doing alright for themselves.  I've never seen a creature so starved and close to death as that dog, and it saddens me to think of how many people must have passed it and seen it in its miserable condition without bothering to help.  Bolivians in general do not place as much importance on their pets as Americans do, but this level of disregard for the suffering of an innocent creature shows a callousness that I think is inexcusable.  I'm sorry that our stay in Buena Vista began on such a sad note, and am glad to be with a man who simply cannot be witness to needless suffering without doing something about it.

Luckily, the rest of our stay in Buena Vista was extremely pleasant.  Jo found a restaurant whose owners agreed to make arrangements for us to get into Amboro.  Rene and Cynthia, the owners, turned out to be a perfectly lovely couple who invited us back that night for a New Years dinner they were having.  We did have to make one quick trip to a neighboring town called Montero since Buena Vista doesn't have ATMs and we were running low on cash, but other than that we took it easy until nightime, when we headed over to the restaurant to get some din-din.  Turns out that Cynthia was an awesome cook, and we both enjoyed our meal.

After dinner, Buena Vista rang in the New Year with fireworks at midnight.  Happy New Year!

Santa Cruz Flip Flop Shots

No, Santa Cruz is not our favorite place in Bolivia.  But it sure does have some interesting tilework around the city.  To demonstrate, Jo and I decided it would be a good idea to take pictures of our flip flops on in various locations around the city.  Observe:

Day 11 Santa Cruz

Let me start by saying that the route between Sucre and Santa Cruz is not some obscure route.  It's not a route that only a handful of people use during only a handful of months each year.  It is a major route that connects two popular cities.  The reason I mention this is because the route was unpaved for large stretches at a time.  I mean, at one point I'm pretty sure we were following a dry river bed. I asked Jo why they wouldn't have paved the road by now, and he said that it's just the way they do things in Bolivia.  The busride was bizarre.  Both Jo and I had a fitful nights sleep because the seats didn't recline very much.  I remember waking up and seeing strange rock formations glowing in the moonlight, almost like a dream.

Anyway, after a bumpy, dusty, uncomfortable night on the bus, we were happy to wake up and see lots of green surrounding us.  We were in some mountains surrounding Santa Cruz, and it was refreshing to see so many trees after coming from a dry, arid climate.

We shared our seat with a young boy named Reuban, who had boarded the bus at some point during the night and who had been standing up for who knows how long, since all the seats were full.  We shared some breakfast and made small talk before he and his dad exited at some stop close to Santa Cruz.

One peculiar thing about Bolivian travel is the sales people that hop on busses and hawk their goods between stops.  Sometimes it's food, sometimes it's toothbrushes, and sometimes it's snail slime that you rub on your face.

That's right.  You heard me.  Snail slime.  That you rub on your face.  A pretty girl boarded the bus and preceeded to sell us some pink goop that was made from slime.  Apparently, the regenerative effects of snail slime is a miracle worker for dull, tired skin.  As ridiculous as it sounds, there were quite a few ladies who seemed interested in the product and ponied over the cash to take some of the bright pink slime home to try.

Finally, we reached Santa Cruz.  After being over charged for a taxi (10 bs apiece), we followed the LP's suggestion to an area where there was a cluster of hostels.  The first one we tried was full, so we settled on the second one we came to, even though it smelled slightly like urine and was very bare bones.  At 50bs, we couldn't complain.

After a quick shower, we headed down to the plaza to grab a bite to eat and plan out our day.

Jo stopped along the way to grab a saltena.  We asked about vegetarian restaurants, and were directed to a place that sold all veggie meals for dirt cheap.  I had a squash meal and a veggie saltena.  Yum!  Jo said the vegetarian saltenas weren't as good as the "real thing," but he admitted that they weren't bad.  I thought they were awesome.

While we ate, we decided that the best thing for us to do would be to get ourselves to Amboro National Park ASAP.  Our first impressions of Santa Cruz weren't all that great, and what we both craved was some JUNGLE.

It was still early, and we headed back to the plaza.

Here's a trashcan we passed along the way.  What a happy little trash can.

The chuch across the street from the plaza.

I don't know what to say except that Jo and I are obsessed with pigeons.  To be fair, we had planned to figure out how best to travel to Amboro, but it was lunchtime and most everything was closed down.  What better way to waste and hour or two than to feed pigeons in the park?

When we were finally pigeoned out, we walked a few blocks to an ice cream shop to buy what turned out to be the most amazing lemon ice cream.  The perfect treat on a hot day, I'd say.

At around 2:00 things started opening up again, and we found a nice man who suggested that if we wanted information on Amboro, the best thing to do would be to go visit a place called Amigos de la Naturaleza.  We boarded a bus and drove almost an hour to get there.

Grape sellers we passed along the way.

And, of course, the place was closed.  We were hot and sweaty and ready to get out of the city, so we decided to head back and look for tour agencies that went into Amboro.  Heading back actually wasn't as simple as we would have liked.  It took a while to catch ride back.  We stood on the side of the road, way outside of the city, looking pretty pathetic.  We did see a little pony pulling a cart, so I guess the trip wasn't a complete waste of time.

 

We finally did get a ride back, only to have an incredibley difficult time finding a tour company.  Jo went and looked while I went to an internet cafe to research our options.  What with Jo's unsuccessful trip at finding a company, we decided to go ahead and move on the following day to a town called Buena Vista, where we figured we could find a way into the park.

We had had a frustrating day, so we treated ourselves to a movie at Santa Cruz's modern theatre.  For 30bs apiece, we watched Brangelina in "El Turista," was was not very good, but fun all the same.  There was one bitchy lady whose snot-nosed brats talked through the entire movie until I wanted to just punch them in the face, but I'm not bitter.  I'm just sayin'.

Day 10 Sucre

Do you like my flowers?  We thought the room needed a little livening up. 

The plan was to try to get out of Sucre today, so we got up early and walked to the bus station again to see if we could get tickets.  Much to our delight, we were successful!  The rate had gone up (from 80 Bs to 122 Bs,) but we were so happy to be moving on we didn't care.  It's not like we had anything against Sucre, but we had places to go and people to see, so we both wanted to get a move on.

Before going back to the hostel, we made a quick stop at the market to get some more of the fresh bunuelos that Jo had brought me the day before.  We were served by the funniest lady ever, who was loud and boisterous and called everyone "papito," and "mi amor."  I liked her just as much as I liked the bunuelos, and that's saying something.

After breakfast, we packed everything up so we could be ready to go.  Here's the hostel where we were staying at.

The plan was to meet the friendly college student, Daniella, who we had met the day before and he would take us to the Seven Falls, an series of , well, seven falls that was about an hour from the city. In the meantime we found some nice Engrish.

Jo and I would have liked this; we are both passionated tourists.

We were both ready to high experiences.

I'm going to fast forward through the next part.  Basically, Seven Falls turned out to be a fail.  The guy came and we tried to take busses to the waterfalls, but we ended up being dropped off out in the middle of nowhere because the busses decided to stop running due to the gasoline fiasco.  Sooo...yeah.  We walked back, paid the guy 20Bs for this time, and tried to come up with a plan B.

We went back to our hostel to see if we could store our bags until our bus left that night.  While we were there, we played with a cutie patootie who insisted Jo hold these magic wands and use them while we played a card game.  Jo obliged.

I bet you can't guess what our plan B ended up being.  Yup, that's right.  More PIGEONS!  We headed back to the plaza to waste some time.  I'm tellin' you right now that we had a lot of free time on our hands and there were an awful lot of hungry pigeons, so what followed is pure pigeon mayhem.  Obseve:

This is what Jo and I referred to as a Frenzy.  That's right, with a capitol F.

Jo loves pigeons.

Look how cute this little kid is as he gets his ice creamy treat.

I learned that Jo loves few things more than reading newspapers in the park.  It's a luxury he rarely gets a chance to indulge at home, so he made sure to partake in some relaxation while he has the chance.

And I love few things more than fresh squeezed OJ, so I made sure to indulge as well.

This picture has some 'splaining to do.  Jo pointed this out and it cracked me up so much I had to take a picture.  The story is about a murder that took place.  Since the picture was apparently too violent for the general public, they cut out the image of the bloodied, dead body.  And then circled it in case we weren't sure what we were looking at.

The pigeons would roost up in the surrounding trees when their bellies got too full to hold anymore corn.

Here, Jo is demonstating his pigeon-whispering skills.

And his dog whispering skills.  This sweetie moseyed on over for some attention.  And, of course, Jo obliged.

We decided to make one more trip to Locot's to fill up on some good food before the bus ride.  To start, Jo got an old Bolivian classic:

For food, I got some sopa de quinoa:

And this giant potato stuffed with egg and covered in a tomato sauce.

Jo got this beef dish.

Soon after, we collected our bags and said goodbye to Sucre, this time for good.  We boarded our bus without mishap and hit the road for the seventeen hour bus ride.  We made one stop before it got dark to get some food at the little roadside stand, but Jo and I didn't get anything because we had already eaten.  Plus, the road food in Bolivian can be questionable as far as sanitation goes and there is almost never anything vegetarian to eat. 

We did find some pigs as we walked around to stretch our legs.

This is the bus we took, "normal."  As I mentioned, we had seventeen hours to go, so we bedded down as best we could and braced ourselves for the long haul.