Felimar Hotel Santa Cruz

... do too much fo that). In La Paz tomorrow we might have the time and equipment to upload some pictures (Snorkeling + Santa Cruz).<br><br>Off to the bus<br><br>Mardi 10 Novembre<br><br>Petit tour au marché local pour acheter de quoi survivre sur le bus. Haut en couleurs, odorant, bref on commence a etre depaysé. Achat de feuilles de coca pour l´altitude. Arrivée a la gare a 16h00, le train doit partir a 16h30. II ya apparement des ...

... not. Near the coast i take a boat to a town called....(i dont remember) but the town floats. A good few thousand people live there on reefs they have been linking together for the last few hundred years. Very pretty and touristy. The boat only takes you to a few places where they try to sell you all of their useless crafts and over priced fish. I decide not to spend the night and catch the next morning bus into Bolivia. <br><br>The bus ...

... were before. There is no question over whether I´m still a part of the family or not, and I´m so thankful! I´m staying with my sister (well host sister but by now you get the idea) and her husband and son at their house. Daniel who was just over a year when i left is now 3 and he is so different! He´s a lot of fun now because he talks and has a mind of his own! Which he shares a lot! haha!<br><br ...

... we reached a small town, the first since we broken down at midnight. We stopped to find out we were still 100km from the border. The passengers were angered and everyone wanted off the bus. For an hour there was arguing and standing around, but eventually a small bus passed through the town taking us to the border for the same amount of money we spent on the entire bus ride from Santa Marta to the border.<br>

... himself around on the ground. <br><br>Anyway the flight over was relatively pain free, LAN is a great airline, it was cheap, the plane was new and clean, and the food was decent (as far as airline food goes). As we were landing, just minutes after we started our descent into Lima I could look to my left and see that we were lower than some of the peaks in the Andes coming up through the clouds. Once in the Lima airport, I quickly forgot any Spanish I knew when someone ...

... were coming back into Brasil. But we ended up safe and sound back in Brasil and had another exciting 4 hour taxi ride back to Tres Lagoas. In total, the trip took 16 hours, cost ~$1350USD for two people, and required only a little bit of insanity. But we did get quite a story AND two 5-year Bolivian Tourist Visas out of the mix. And since I had to do this to stay in Brasil for work, the company paid for all of it except Jacqui's visa!

... benches to sit at. Lots of old folk sit and play chess, families convene on benches, school children feed the pigeons and there are numerous one man shoe shine stalls looking after the suits. The locals wear lovely bright coloured clothes, mostly white with red, yellow and orange designs. You see a lot of older women walking around with large multi coloured bags on their backs full of food or clothes. Julie noticed that the hundreds of small buses that run ...

... turned up at 6am from Aguas Calientes, therefore beating the trekkers. They should either open the last trekkers checkpoint early or they should at least allow the trekkers time to savor the place for themselves first before allowing the day trippers access.... The day I visited the world's most notorious jail The start of one of the strangest days of my life began when I called a guy named Stuart on his cellphone and arranged to meet with him at ...

... couldn´t initially understand, but after a while - by process of response elimination - I worked out that he was asking how long I was staying and if I had any money. From here we were all escorted into a bizarre army camp, where about 20 soldiers were milling around in full uniform, where we were ticked off on a list by a soldier. One of the senior officers attempted to call the soldiers into an imposing formation but it was the worst display I have ever seen - they slowly wobbled into ...

... arrives to pick up their portions on the 5th. I was able to meet 26 of the 36 families during this exercise. My role was to measure up the contents of the handouts and to greet the families. (see my pics under my Bolivia, Santa Cruz entry on this blog. <br>We also spent a whole afternoon making and baking bread!! (see pics). I had never done this before so it was a great learning experience. We made over 400 rolls and over 70 empenadas with onion and Cheese ...