Believe it or not, but it has been 33 years since I was last in Santa Cruz, and 29 years since Lynley and I was last in Bolivia, so our visit was greatly anticipated.
The journey started at 3am with Pablo driving us to the Santiago airport, he stayed with us and guided us through the electronic checkin system.
The LAN flight left at 6am. It took 2 1/4 hours to fly Iquique, then another 1 hour 40 minutes to Santa Cruz. The trip was good. Cant praise LAN enough. The airplanes a clean and modern and they run to time.
Immigration and customs in Bolivia was all over in 5 minutes. Mariela, her baby daughter (Gloria) and mother was waiting for us. It was great to meet up with her again.
The trip to her house took 10 minutes. The family now live a secure complex in the 9th ring (1st ring is the original Santa Cruz), so they now live in the outskirts of the city. Their family complex is in a gated community. The family live in a newly built complex. Marila's parents have a house, Mariela has a house/apartrment and Mariela's sister Angela has a house/apartment. There is a swimming pool, kids play area, maids cooks etc. We have been placed in our own little apartment, with air conditioning, ensuite etc. Really very nice. The family has made us very welcome. We had a big 3 course lunch then had a rest.
Late in the afternoon Mariela drove us into the main plaza to change money. Driving on the road would leave me a quaking mess, but Mariela handled with ease in her sisters big Jeep. While in town we stopped for drinks as the temperature was 30 degrees with high humidity and very warm wind blowing. Cant recall the Spanish names for what we ate and drank, but I had a traditional dish made up of banana and a beef jerky and to drink I had a drink made out of dried peaches.
In the evening we had a family barbeque. Mariela's mother's sister and cousins attended, Mariela's husband did the cooking. An excellent night, which was a little cooler.
So our first day in Santa Cruz was excellent. It is a busy bustling city of over 1 million people. The majority are driving Japanese imports (they change the steering over to left hand drive here in Santa Cruz). The roads and roading system are not for the faint hearted. How they don't crash I will never know. There is plenty of honking of horns and flashing of lights. You just see a gap and go for it, hoping your car is bigger than the others. Most cars run on a mixture of CNG and petrol. It is very cheap, Petrol is NZ$0.75 per litre (approx) and the CNG is cheaper. See very Little BMW's and Merc's, seeing the state of their roads I understand why.
Today has Bean fun. Tomorrow we are having saltena's (a national breakfast pie) then we are going to an environmental park for butterflies and birds. Sounds like another great day is being planned.
As we were going to bed we noticed this large but fantastic looking spider, now Lynley has informed me there is a little frog sharing the shower with us....great.
The journey started at 3am with Pablo driving us to the Santiago airport, he stayed with us and guided us through the electronic checkin system.
The LAN flight left at 6am. It took 2 1/4 hours to fly Iquique, then another 1 hour 40 minutes to Santa Cruz. The trip was good. Cant praise LAN enough. The airplanes a clean and modern and they run to time.
Immigration and customs in Bolivia was all over in 5 minutes. Mariela, her baby daughter (Gloria) and mother was waiting for us. It was great to meet up with her again.
The trip to her house took 10 minutes. The family now live a secure complex in the 9th ring (1st ring is the original Santa Cruz), so they now live in the outskirts of the city. Their family complex is in a gated community. The family live in a newly built complex. Marila's parents have a house, Mariela has a house/apartrment and Mariela's sister Angela has a house/apartment. There is a swimming pool, kids play area, maids cooks etc. We have been placed in our own little apartment, with air conditioning, ensuite etc. Really very nice. The family has made us very welcome. We had a big 3 course lunch then had a rest.
Late in the afternoon Mariela drove us into the main plaza to change money. Driving on the road would leave me a quaking mess, but Mariela handled with ease in her sisters big Jeep. While in town we stopped for drinks as the temperature was 30 degrees with high humidity and very warm wind blowing. Cant recall the Spanish names for what we ate and drank, but I had a traditional dish made up of banana and a beef jerky and to drink I had a drink made out of dried peaches.
In the evening we had a family barbeque. Mariela's mother's sister and cousins attended, Mariela's husband did the cooking. An excellent night, which was a little cooler.
So our first day in Santa Cruz was excellent. It is a busy bustling city of over 1 million people. The majority are driving Japanese imports (they change the steering over to left hand drive here in Santa Cruz). The roads and roading system are not for the faint hearted. How they don't crash I will never know. There is plenty of honking of horns and flashing of lights. You just see a gap and go for it, hoping your car is bigger than the others. Most cars run on a mixture of CNG and petrol. It is very cheap, Petrol is NZ$0.75 per litre (approx) and the CNG is cheaper. See very Little BMW's and Merc's, seeing the state of their roads I understand why.
Today has Bean fun. Tomorrow we are having saltena's (a national breakfast pie) then we are going to an environmental park for butterflies and birds. Sounds like another great day is being planned.
As we were going to bed we noticed this large but fantastic looking spider, now Lynley has informed me there is a little frog sharing the shower with us....great.
The photo (top right is from Monday night -at the Chilean Good Boys floor show.
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