We left Cochabamba and the Walt Disney Kindergarten and Ana Maria and her wonderful family late Saturday night and headed to Santa Cruz. It was a tearful, emotional goodbye on all our parts and shall be a blog entry in and of itself complete with tear-stained photos when I get back home. It was hard. Very hard to say goodbye to someone who gave us so much, and who I literally feel I owe my life to for giving us soooo much in a challenging time. There are very few people in this world who give selflessly and Ana Maria is one of the rare few. Thank you!
We got on the bus to Santa Cruz. I was feeling better and lasted the whole 10 hour trip with my gut fairly intact, thanks to banyo breaks and a very good driver. 5 Stars!!!! We landed in Santa Cruz early Sunday and found a great hotel for 140 Bolivianos (about $15 U.S.). That´s moderate expensive Bolivian style, but hey! it´s our last couple nights we´re splashing out.....cable TV, HOT WATER!, breakfast, right near the square!!! Ohhh man we lazed around most of the day. Good thing cause I started feeling real sick again.....ugh!
Bye mid afternoon I felt better so we got a cab and told the driver to find a Chinese restaurant. Wowsers! It was a huge banquet hall with Chinese buffet and then some.....besides every chinese dish you could imagaine, there were big bowls of fruit and a dessert table with cakes, pies, ice cream .... EVERYTHING!!! And everything was stellar and of the highest quality, it weren´t no Casino buffet. No siree. I enjoyed some of the feast but my stomach was still weak so I ate a bit lightly. Alia however ate like a pig. :) Back to the hotel where we lazed around and had a relaxing evening while my belly recovered.
This morning I was feeling great. My last day in Bolivia. Let´s go! We charged across the street to a Bolivian Artist´s Coop where we found the most incredible weavings. I was ready to lay down some cash so went to a bank machine to get some because I was OUT. This leads me now, to the Last Hurdle Before We Go, because this is where I discovered that my Debit Card was gone, gone, gone.......and started our whole screwed around day.
I remembered the last time I got cash in Cochabamba I was intensely ill. I must have left it in the bank machine, nauseous as I was. Damn! I tried my credit card but since I never use it to get cash this way I couldn´t remember my pin. I tried several guess numerical combinations and finally got locked out. This started a series of phonecalls to cancel debit card, try and get my PIN for my credit card ( they won´t do) and then trying to get money from the bank with my credit card ( the bank wouldn´t do it...needed some other kind of bank), until we finally remembered that Alia´s Debit had some cash left on it so got 1000 Bolivianos that way. Enuf to shop today and pay for the hotel room...PHEW! Time for lunch.
We had lunch then headed back to the Artist´s Coop to make my purchase where this whole thing started. CLOSED. I was then determined to go to the Folklore Museum as orignally planned. Walked a long way in the wrong direction, finally found a cab who took us in the right direction and found the museum closed for a month! FFS!!!!
We walk back towards the Artist´s Coop and by some miracle of the divine it´s OPEN and I´m able to buy a few Woven bags...thank you! Alia says let´s go shoe shopping...so we did. BTW, for those of you who know Alia and her shoe fetish, for the record I must state there have been no shoe breakdowns on this trip. However she has purchased 4 pairs while I have been here.
Now it´s nightime and it´s time to relax. Feeling a bit better. I am ready to go home. Santa Cruz is an interesting city, it is not as traditional Bolivian looking and feeling. Lot´s of high fashion. Big SUV´s, I read in my guide book...it´s all the Cocaine money reinvested. There´s also a settlement of Mennonites here. Outskirts of Santa Cruz is hugely Agricultural with huge dairy farms and the like. Okay, I´m on the plane early in the morning. About a 36 hour journey. Home Weds. night....later......
No comments:
Post a Comment