So Santa Cruz de la Sierra was recommended to me as a nice place to hang out for a while. And it was. Probably bordering on a bit boring but that was fine as I’d been doing it hard for a few days and the next leg of my journey would be even harder, My plan was to leave Bolivia and head to Brazil. And even more specifically the geographical centre of South America which happens to be about 4 hours across the border. I’ve done the most north, the most west, and I’ll be doing the most south and most east points so it just sounds sensible to do the centre point as well. Right?

As I have mentioned a couple of times, I usually look at booking dot com or Expedia to sus out places I might stay. I then sometimes wait until I arrive or just book one night, depending on how long my day will be. Fiori Apartments seemed nice and so I booked two nights there. And they were really nice. As was the lady who checked me in. I should have paid her for Spanish lessons. Or her give me free accommodation for my English lessons. Great views over the city. I don’t have a photo of the apartment block. I could buy an apartment for $45,000AUD

My apartment was pretty luxurious. The block was about 8 stories high, and I had a room at the back on the 4^th floor over looking the pool. On a side note, it had a balcony where I could put my fuel container, and my smelly riding boots and socks, but during the night one of my socks blew away. Despite a serious search including all the bins, it went to sock heaven where all the socks go to from dryers.

 After my second night I wanted to book a couple more nights but they said I would have to change rooms because they had a maintenance issue with the floor above. Turns out my new room was even better. It faced the setting sun and had mirrored windows which just begged artistic photography. It had the same ultra comfortable bed (probably the nicest bed I have ever slept in) and one of the nicest showers I have ever used. And it had a bidet. And I realised that my plumbing career is almost over and I never installed a bidet. And then I realised that I’d never even used one. Well, I’m up for new experiences but I’m probably starting to share too much info now.  

I had pictured Santa Cruz to be a sleepy rural town and it sort of was, but with 2.5 million people. I have no idea where they all were? It’s the largest city in Bolivia and growing rapidly. It was founded in 1561. The age of these places still amazes me when you consider the first cities in Australia were in the late 1700’s or early 1800’s. Like the rest of Bolivia there is a large indigenous population and also the mixed ancestry of locals and Europeans. The main income centres around agriculture, petroleum, manufacturing, and services, and creates a large proportion of the countries GDP. This creates political issues. Not unlike western Australia who feels like they provide all Australia’s wealth. But I’m not going down that rabbit hole. Look. A jesus statue and a tree whose mother was a fig tree and its father was a boab.

One thing I did do in Santa Cruz was eat well. There were a lot of nice restaurants and with my dodgy dollars they were a great price. Around $10-15AUD. It would be more than double that at home. And there was the lady selling empanadas under the tree on the corner. Freshly made and $1.50AUD each and so good. Normally a couple of those with a coke for breakfast and then a nice dinner somewhere. You can see by the photo that the empanada lady has loyal customers. Speaking with the lovely lady at reception, she said there were a lot of rich people in Santa Cruz and they had a lot of money to spend. Sounded like they farm some sort of white powder for export.

I did go to the Zoo. I don’t know what I expected. It was sad. I hadn’t been to a zoo in years and the write up on this one said how healthy and happy the animals were. It was just like a zoo from my childhood. The poor animals pacing around in cages. The saddest for me were the condors. While it was nice to see one up close, I much preferred admiring them from a distance as they soared above Colca Canyon. Same for the flamingos. There was a bigger bird enclosure which wasn’t too bad and the tortoises seemed to be having fun. But the poor toucans and the cats. So sad. No big cat photos. Maybe I could lighten things by saying one photo has a onecan and the other toucan. And that weird anteater thing? No idea how that thing evolved.

I know some of the animals were rescued and wouldn’t survive in the wild or were born in captivity. I tried to console myself with thinking it’s the same with people. Lots of people don’t travel and are quite happy in their safe place. They like the security it allows. Or they may be trapped financially or emotionally or with family or health issues. So many other reasons. I’m think i’m just digging a hole here. The cleaning lady just appeared with my missing sock. How awesome is that?

From here I am heading back the way I came for a couple of hours then doing a big loop over towards Brazil. On the way I will be visiting several churches and most likely every service station I see. I have to pass through San Julian again, so I am hoping my coke petrol lady is still in business. It’s about 720kms to the border, with almost half of that on dirt roads and I have 750kms of fuel. What could go wrong?

KMS 12185