Setting foot in Bolivia

Crossing the Bolivian border and arriving in Santa Cruz without incident we were duely ripped off for the taxi ride into town. If you´re going to get ripped off, in South America, then Bolivia is the place to do it. It´s so cheap. So instead of costing us round 1 euro, it cost us 3!! Again, not too much to say about Santa Cruz, although it is considerably more attractive than Corumba. It has a lovely central plaza that is a real draw to locals and tourists alike. On Sunday there was a huge street market where one could buy all sorts of everything, living or dead!! We also found an Irish bar (Cafe Irlandes) overlooking the plaza that sold fantastic frappochinos. The place was full of well to do locals. In fact there were very few gringos, i.e. tourists like us, around at all.

We really can´t get over the cheapness of the country though. A fantastic steak dinner costs about 4 euro, and that´s expensive! It´s difficult to spend money here. The most challenging aspects of Santa Cruz was our attempts to purchase bus tickets & ice cream. For ice cream it was dog eat dog at the counter - he who shouts loudest. I (Claire) was frustrated when a wealthy elderly Boliviano jumped in front of me (having been waiting for 10 mins) and managed to squeal at him in my best Spanglish & duly he relented!

Santa Cruz was also the place where we were introduced to both the humble Empanada (a pastry turnover filled with meat (or vegetables) plus egg & baked in the oven) and the colouful indigenous peoples.

It took us 3 trips to the bus station to finally book tickets on a bus bound for Sucre. It turns out you can only buy your ticket on your day of travel...and only in the morning. Even then it´s a fight with the locals who are already standing on top of each other using their fingers to secure places as per the bus seating plan. Aghhh. The trials and tribulations of independent travellers.

It was quite funny too because when we went to board our bus for the 16 hour journey, there was a disgusting, smelly, decrepit, 20 seater micro bus awaiting us (see piccie, but it doesnt really do it justice). Claire nearly burst into tears. Once we had a look inside (and got the stench of poo & urine) we decided this wasn´t for us. We went back inside to get our bags to spend another night in Santa Cruz. However, the guy managed to explain that that wasn´t our bus and before long we were laughing at our luxury on what was really no more than an ordinary bus...but it felt great to us.

.

Indigenous People Of Bolivia

The Quechua are a group of indigenous South American tribes, comprising the Quechumaran linguistic stock and living mostly in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. As direct descendants of the ancient and highly civilized Incan Empire, they are reserved and dignified. Their well-developed society survived the destruction brought by the conquering Spaniards. They were oppressed by the Spanish for centuries after the demise of their empire. Culturally and linguistically, the Quechua are related to the Aymara, a people group from the same regions of South America)