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| Rodrigo and I in the Flota heading to Santa Cruz |
This
past weekend I went with a group of people from church to Santa Cruz de la
Tierra. We left Thursday evening on a
bus (they call them “flotas”). It was a
very nice bus with seats that reclined and had leg rests. Thank goodness because it was almost a 20
hour bus ride to get to Santa Cruz. As
we left we had to pass through El Alto.
I believe it was my first time in El Alto at night. There were Christmas lights strung over the
main autopista which made for a very beautiful scene. After we passed through the other side the
street lights became fewer and fewer until the only lights were those of the
bus. You could turn around and see El
Alto behind us in the distance with a dim glow as we got further away. Soon after, I dozed off to sleep only to wake
up a few hours later. It was very dark
but with the lights of the bus I could make out the sides of mountains as we
passed by. From what I could tell, we
were riding along the edges of mountains.
A few minutes later I could see the lights of Cochabamba off in the
distance. I decided to wait up to see the
city before I went back to sleep. We
were riding the edges of mountain cliffs winding our way down into the
valley. It was a little spooky because I
could see mountains on one side and on the other side everything just faded
into the darkness. About an hour and a
half after I first saw Cochabamba we were finally driving through the city. I will definitely have to return one weekend
to see the city. After we passed through
the city (which was about 3 in the morning) I closed my eyes hoping to get some
more sleep.
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| What I saw when I woke up |
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| What I Saw when I woke up |
The next
time I opened my eyes it was just starting to become light out. Once my eyes adjusted I was a little in shock
with what I was seeing. We were still
descending slowly down mountains but now we were surrounded by rainforest. Everything was green and trees were
everywhere scaling up the sides of mountains.
I was mesmerized by the green mountains and the waterfalls coming
down. It was the most green i had seen
since I left the states. Finally I again
dozed back off for another short nap.
When I woke back up we were out of the mountains passing through the
flat lands into farm lands and banana plantations. Here the rivers were wide and winding through
the forests. We had been riding for
about 16 hours by this point without any stops and I was becoming extremely
hungry. Luckily the bus driver was too
so he decided to make a stop at a, well I guess you could call it a “truck
stop”. When you are on these buses there
are no scheduled stops. Basically
everything is at the will of the drivers.
This “truck stop had a pretty good sized Cabañ
a
which was serving food. The special of
the day was Majadito de Charque for 10 bolivianos (about $1.40). Majadito is a rice mixture with some pork
mixed in. And on top there is a fried
egg and a fried platano on the side. It
is a typical Cruceñ
o plate from the Santa Cruz area. I was very impressed because it tasted very
good. Looking around as I was eating, I
began to notice how many fruit trees were just growing everywhere. I was surrounded by mango trees loaded with
huge mangos. We then all loaded back up
on the bus to finish our trip to Santa Cruz.
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| Majadito |
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| La Cabaña |
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| Me stealing a Mango |
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| Waterfalls on the sides of mountains |
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Finally
3 hours later we were in Santa Cruz.
Getting off the bus you could really tell the difference in the
weather. It was over 90F degrees and
humid. It felt like home in the middle
of July. When we had left La Paz the
weather was 60F degrees. It is amazing
how many different climates and different types of zones Bolivia has. The country is not even that big but because
of the mountains traveling takes forever, the weather is always different from
city to city, and one place might be desert while the other may be a thriving
rainforest; and all within hours of one another. At the bus terminal, we were greeted by many
people from the church of Santa Cruz.
After talking for a little bit we headed to the houses where we were going
to be staying for the weekend. I stayed
in the house of a brother from the church named Fernando. The first thing we did was take showers after
the long sweaty bus ride. I never knew
how much I would appreciate cold showers until I got to Santa Cruz. I know I have told you that I am amazed at
how my Spanish is improving. Well while
I was in Santa Cruz I could barely understand anything. I thought maybe I was stupid or something but
then I began to realize the different accent that Cruceños
have. To me it was like the Southern
Accent in the states but just in Spanish.
They spoke a lot faster and lower and they didn’t pronounce all the
letters in the words. For example in
Spanish a phrase is “Mas o Menos”. They
say it as “Ma o Meno”. Like in the south
where instead of saying “riding or fishing” we say “ridin’ or fishin’. It can very confusing until you get use to
it.
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| Rivers beginning to widen |
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| Small tiendas on the sides of the roads |
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| Small fruit kind of like a lemon |
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| The inside of the fruit |
Our
first night we had a dinner with some traditional food of Santa Cruz. The plate was called Keperi. It was like a chunk of pot-roast with cheesy
rice, a yucca, and a vegetable salad. It
was extremely good. We hung out for a
while getting to know everyone. Eventually
before it was too late we headed back to the house. That night I was able to ride a little bit on
a motorcycle around some of the city. It
was a great feeling because it was a bit cooler. In my opinion, it was one of the best ways to
see the city. To me Santa Cruz felt
exactly like being at the beach… just without a beach. Most of the restaurants are open air and have
small patios. There are palm trees
everywhere (almost like weeds). Everyone
was wearing shorts of swim trunks. Even
the taxi drivers where wearing flip flops and sandals. Most of the people had the laid back beach
feel to them. It was a great
experience. I really enjoyed everything
about it. But, I was beginning to miss
La Paz while I was there. Saturday we
went to a park for the day. Everything
was green and beautiful. It was the one
thing that La Paz is missing; parks with trees and green grass. I felt like I was at home almost as people
were walking their dogs and kids were running around playing. It was a very different feel from La Paz
where dogs and kids both run around alone in the streets. While in the park we played a game of soccer,
La Paz against Santa Cruz. Since we were
over 10,000 feet lower than La Paz, we had an advantage with the benefit of the
thicker oxygenated air. But the extreme
heat played a big factor on the people from La Paz where the temperature rarely
hits 70. Luckily I had a bit of an
advantage since I grew up in North Carolina where we go from both extremes in a
week’s time.
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| Beautiful Green Parks |
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| Keperi |
Our
final night in Santa Cruz we had a Dance/Karaoke party. It was a blast until they started playing One
Direction. I and the other guys took
that as a cue to sit down and rest.
Afterwards we started singing some Karaoke. I sung a few songs (in English of
course). Everyone told me that I had an
amazing voice. They must have been
confusing me with someone else, but I just smiled and said thank you. The next morning, which was our last day, we
woke up and got ready for church.
Fernando, Jorge, and I went to grab some breakfast before church. We had a typical Bolivian breakfast: Coffee,
empanadas, and other breads. We were
able to talk a bit and learn more about each other before we headed to
church. At church I was amazed because
it was the first time I had been in an air conditioned room since I left the
States. We had a great service and
afterwards we went to a restaurant (again open-air) to eat. Of course I had one of my new favorite
Bolivian plates, Keperi. A few of us had
to eat rapidly because our bus was leaving for La Paz at 2. We ate, said our farewells, and ran to catch
a taxi. We caught our bus just in
time. After a long bus ride we finally
arrived back in La Paz a little after 7 in the morning on Monday. I had just enough time to go home and take a
shower before I had to be at work. I
look back at my time in Santa Cruz and I know that I definitely want to return
to spend some more time in the city and see some more of the sights. Additional to that it really had opened up my
craving to travel and see more of the country and South America every chance I
get before I have to return home.
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| A view out the window of where I stayed |
So I am
very excited to say that I received my first package from home. I would like to thank mom and everyone from
Orange County Schools Board of Education that put something in and wrote
cards. Thank you all so very much. It was great to receive some words from
people at home and also to get a nice box full of candy. I’m not sure you guys know how much I
appreciate it and to also know that you all keep up with my blog. I have already hung up the Christmas cards on
my wall and have started digging into the Reeses. Again thank you all for sending me a little
bit of home.
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| MY FIRST PACKAGE FROM HOME!!!!!! |
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| Things that make me HAPPY |
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