Santa Cruz Hotels
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Tchau Brazil, Hola Bolivia
Entry 15 of 61 | show all | print this entry |
The miles are starting to take their toll now with the longest travel times yet. We left the Pantanal at 7am and trucked it to the Bolivian border, crossed, and then caught the overnight train to Santa Cruz, finally arriving at our hotel at 9am the following morning. The next morning it was up at 6am to catch an aeroplane to Sucre, but at 3pm the flight was finally cancelled due to bad weather and we begrudgingly resorted to a 16 hour night bus.
On the truck: the journey out of the Pantanal was long, hot and dusty, on red-dirt roads that stretch straight to the horizon in either direction. We got the overwhelming feeling that we had always been in the back of this truck, and that we always would be! Apart from crossing the Paraguay river on a ferry, the monotony was only broken by the excitement of a vehicle coming the opposite direction.
The border: there is a strange set-up in the border town, Corumba (Ay corumba!) where you have to get stamped out of Brazil and then drive 10 minutes to get stamped in to Bolivia. When we arrived at the Brazilian side, the border officials were in the middle of their two and a half hour lunch break, and while we waited we began to hear rumours of a strike, a road block and how the train we wanted to catch had been cancelled for 2 days. Our tour guide, Augusto, said we shouldn´t believe anything until we were told officially, so we stamped out of Brazil and got to the border.
There was indeed a road block, formed by taxi drivers and other road users, protesting about the fact that the government will not provide tarmac to surface the roads in the area. So, we walked across the border and then watched Augusto have heated negotiations with taxi drivers on the other side to get a good price to the train station. During all this reporters from a local TV station drove up and the presenter started questionning us on camera to find out what we thought of the strike. We helpfully replied by pointing in the direction we wanted to go and saying ´Bolivia`! Peter (the crazy dutchman) cheekily asked if they`d give us a lift and to our amazement they said yes - so 7 of us and all our bags crammed into the back of a tiny, tiny van, and just as the door was closing a Bolivian lady with her little bay girl squeezed in too. They could only take us a mile or so to the next road block and then there was more haggling for taxis before we finally got to the train station. Wonder if we had our 15 minutes of fame on Bolivian news without knowing it! When we eventually got into the cabs we found ours had a cracked windscreen, in fact it was so cracked it looked like a spiders web and was only held together by stciky tape! The steering column, brake pedals etc had all been moved to the left-hand side of the car so the passenger had all the instrument dials in front of him, crazy! and the drivers seats were just washing line wrapped around the seat frame...then the drivers themselves are nutters, they cut up other cars at every opportunity and at crossroads it seems whoever can beep their horn the loudest gets priority...
The train: it turned out the train wasn`t cancelled at all (a rumour circulated by hotel owners in Corumba maybe?) and there was some excitement about travelling by rail rather than road - we thought it would be smoother and quicker etc. Oh how wrong we were! The train never got above 30 mph and swayed to and fro in an exaggerated fashion - the hostesses have got pouring the drinks in those conditions down to a fine art. Intriguingly, the train is referred to as the `death train´ but we never managed to work out why. The guide book just says it is aptly named. Maybe someone was once rocked to death?
Santa Cruz: The second biggest city in Bolivia and the economic centre, Santa Cruz is mostly modern with sprawling suburbs and a small old centre. But Bolivia is the poorest country in South America so a wealthy city here is still a stark contrast to Brazil. There are a lot of unfinished buildings (with precarious wooden scaffolding) - hollow shells where we assume they have run out of money. Oh yes, and the electricity poles are made from an entire tree trunk, so they go off at jaunty angles half way up and no two are the same. We are trying to get used to a huge drop in prices. Things are very cheap here (including chips!). A big slice of cake, for instance (couldn`t think of a better example) costs 14p.
The airport debacle: After the wearing-down effect of successive night buses, a plane ride was a real treat. We`d asked Augusto about the bus journey from Santa Cruz to Sucre and he`d chuckled and shaken his head and said it was one to avoid. Why then, after 7 hours waiting in an airport were we having to vote for whether or not to take the damn night bus on this notorious journey? It was all so unfair - 16 hours on a bus instead of a 40 minute flight! Our plane had finally been cancelled after succesive delays because the clouds were too low in Sucre (which is at 2800m). We had the option to stay another night in Santa Cruz and hope that the weather improved the next day (forecast was inconclusive), and if it didn`t get the night bus anyway (thereby meaning we wouldn`t have any time to explore Sucre) or getting the night bus that afternoon.
Nightmare nightbus: so we chose the night bus by majority vote. It smelt like a lame wet dog. After all the seats are booked they then take on kind of semi-hitchhikers who can haggle for a lower ticket price. So all along the aisle were people standing, people sitting, people asleep, and all their luggage (they don`t have the luxury of being able to use the hold). A lady next our group had two (very well behaved) children who slept half under Angela´s seat and half by Barbara´s legs. On one of the stops, Darren spotted someone climbing into the luggage hold and closing the door on themselves. We thought it was another hitchhiker, but our guide said it was probably the 2nd bus driver after his shift had ended! There`s no toilet on the coach so every few hours it stops at some remote outpost cafe and those unfortunate enough to need to relieve themselves have to climb over the sleeping children and bags in the aisles and traipse through muddy fields to outbuildings where there may be a curtain and a hole in the ground. Most of the way was on paved road but a section in the dead of night was on dirt road - Darren peaked out of the window and had to close the curtain quickly again as the bus was careering down a hair-pin track clinging to the edge of a hill. But waking up high in the mountains, to see the early morning sun light casting dramatic shadows across the steep barren rocky brown hillsides and wide flat valleys was almost worth it!
Hello Sucre and stereotypical Bolivian scenes.
Latest Comments (1)
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hello (reply)
Oct 8, 2005 03:27 EST by jimbob0
i hope you get this, as im clueless with computers,i was gonna say im sorry to hear about SWAT but thats not big or clever.sounds like your living the high life have you tried any of bolivias finest export? you know im talking about coffee.got kevs party at wshop tonite,you know it wont be the same without you dazzer.in 2 weeks also hosting cheyennes 16th god help me!everyones fine and dandy bac... show all
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