Santa Cruz, Bolivia

An overnight bus from Sucre, we arrived Santa Cruz bus terminal.


Our host, Rafael, suggested us taking a taxi to his place. As he said, going downtown was only B$18.


The town was in a circular zone system and Rafael's apartment in city centre was actually in zone 1.


We arrived at around 7am, rang the bell and no one answered. After a while, we quited. We left our backpack in the lobby and went for a walk in the neighborhood.


We found a wet market with food stores selling fish soup, pescaderia with huge fish cut into fillets, a few vegetable and fruit stalls, some shoes repair and clothes repair stalls and food stall selling yogurt with fruit salad, fresh juice, fresh empanadas, bread, coffee and tea. The fish soup costing only B$10 was so great! The meaty river fish goes well with the finely chopped parsley and spring onion. They goes with yucca, corn and lemon. We also had a small jug of fresh papaya juice, then coffee and empanadas. We are very glad to fill our stomach with all cheap local breakfast stalls. And I'm able to get my torn pant repair with B$10.


We returned to the apartment and found the guys just woke up.


Rafael is a 5th year medical student from Brazil, who lived with 2 others schoolmates. Eduardo is of the same year and Ricardo is in 4th year. We appreciate their hospitality despite their examination week.


We took care of ourselves by visiting the markets, museums and planning a 3d/2n trip to Samaipata, a serene town 2-3 hours away from Santa Cruz, which is close to Amboro National Park, with the hope that we could find cheaper ways to hike there on our own.

we came across the Bolivian pageant events for the sponsor of the crown

We checked a few travel agencies, which offer Amboro National Park trips for its South and North part. The unique climate make the North park a tropical forest, with trees and forest and a variety of birds, while the south part with more mountain, waterfall and subtropical setting. A 3d/2n trip cost over B$1000 each. The more joining, the cheaper. But we found no companion, so we searched more information and found that Samaipata would be a near and accessible town by public transport.


Our first two days in Santa Cruz was walking around town. We had lunch with the 3 Brazilian guys in a food court of a shopping mall, having churrasco, barbecue beef with rice and other assortments. Then, we went for a walk in downtown.


In the central area, there is the plaza and church. And the tourism information centre, along with some museums.


We stayed in an unusually tall building in Calle Cuellar, which is nearby the Los Pozos market. There are 2 more plazas around town.


We reached the museum, Museo Ethno-Folklórico in park El Arenal near Los Pozos market and found its closed and workers are bringing in logs. We don't know I'd it's under renovation or changing to something else.


Actually, we don't have much luck in Santa Cruz, except the unforgettable fish soup and nice, cheap fresh fruit juice. We visited the modern art museum on Sunday, which said it will be opened at 3pm-6pm on Sunday, when we reached there at 11:30am. We hanged around in the market and Central for some fruit juice and icecream, returned and found that the door was locked.


The first night, we made some Chinese fried rice for the guys. Eduardo prepared shisha after dinner and we had a good time chatting. (hope we haven't disturbed their study)


The second night, we visited a restaurant, Casa del Camba, recommended by Rafael and LP, which is famous for local specialties and parrilla. We reached there are only found groups and groups of tourist. It's a nicely furnished restaurant, with live music and a 2 person parrilla set, beer and a jug of chicha (local alcohol brewed by corn) cost us a total of B$144. Not too bad for tourist price, but the barbecue plate was composed of not thoroughly washed grilled kidney, liver, intestines (still keeping the unpleasant odor of beef) and there was only 1 piece of steak and 1 piece of sausage.

We spent 3 days in Samaipata and returned on Saturday to join Rafael birthday party. They started a barbecue in the roof top from mid day, while Ricardo was the chef. It goes on all day with beer, whiskey and nonstop jugs of caipirinha. The guys are all trashed and we managed to sneak out buying bus ticket for the next day. Being too old to party overnight, we see the young ones off at 1am, guys refreshed in shirt and pants, girls in full makeup and dazzles heading for pub to dance the night away.


A little more walk around town, we left on Sunday late afternoon. The house was still a little chaotic for the maid to sort it out, probably on Monday.


Good luck to the guys on their exam week and we are happy to join a great birthday party celebrated in Brazilian style.

More attraction in Potosi

After the mine tour, we went to the The Casa Nacional de la Moneda, which used to be the National Mint in Colonial time and now a museum.


We reached there at 3pm and was informed that there was an English guided tour just started. The admission was B$40 each but those taking photograph and video have to pay extra.


The door was locked everywhere after we visited and a security guard followed. I guess the exhibits worth so much, in monetary and historic value that only guided tour is allowed.


It contains ancient coins, wooden minting machines that was kept in the best condition around South America, precious stones and coin making equipments, showing the dark history of how indigenous and the black slaves had work here all day, dying of mercury poison.

The English guide explained in fine details, but didn't have much information about how many people worked here or how many hours they worked. The casa was probably locked up when it's was in production, without much written record apart from the standard of the silver coins, which was most important at the time.

The next day, before we left, we went to the plaza for a walk and found that there was a line of student parade in full fancy local costume. They were probably celebrating a Don Bosco festival

 Then we took a micro and left for the terminal.

At Rio Gallegos

We went to Rio Gallegos for the sake of going to Puerto Natales, in Chile, where the famous W-track of Patagonia located. We heard comments saying that if you only got 3-5 days for hiking in Patagonia, the W-track is a must visit, as it carries all of the best landscape of Patagonia, including mountains, lake and glaciers (although the Argentine may not agree).


By road, we heard that Rio Gallegos is the gateway to Puerto Natales, however, when we get there, we found the bus going directly from Rio Gallegos to Puerto Natales does not run daily, only Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from two different company, Ar$100 each. However, alternatively, there is daily bus, at 12:30pm, 1:30pm, 2:30pm and 4:30pm from several different company heading Rio Turbio (Ar$118, 4 hours), where there are many different companies offering frequent service to Puerto Natale (70km).


Due to the bus schedule, we spent a day going around town of Rio Gallegos.

Maria's first time in youth hostel dorm

It's a small town with only 3 buses running, Linear A, B and C. Not too frequent and we are told that it take at least an hour circulating the town, hence the hostel guy, Mikel recommended us to take a cab instead. 10mins taxi costing around Ar$20. Our budget travel however, got us walking.


Despite the chilly breeze from south pole, it was not difficult to get around town by walking, with a map.

a museum near the hospital having generous showings of fossil

The main street is on Roca and there are quite a number of museums, though many closed early or simply closed down.

The casa was a nice one though. It is a small house with the coal heater still in use. Inside was a collection of old town photos, Edison telephone, typewriter, sewing machine, soda water machine, coffee grinder, meat grinder and the stories of its past occupants. A cozy and well presented museum with entrance fee on voluntary basis.

On the seaside was the train museum that was already closed down, we managed to sneak in the wires and witness the train cemetery.


The best about Rio Gallegos for us is the succulent cordero (lamb), costing only Ar$30/kg in the carnicería, while lomo cost Ar$65 to 78/kg (and we are told that in Patagonia, cordero has better quality than beef)! We grilled the lamb rack for lunch and had pan fried lamb shank with stewed mixed vegetables with its bones for dinner. This is heaven! It's juicy, sweet and extremely tender!

the lovely dog in bus station

The next day, we headed for a bus to Rio Turbio at noon.

銀城遊踪

由於不太懂乘巴士，里安度也不太懂，我們也不打萛因為留三天而花時間學，這幾天我們都是步行遊歷。當中看過當地的大 教堂，它是全阿根廷最大的教堂，但我們所參加的彌撒是在小教堂舉行，我心想:起咁大間嘢 (起咗一世紀)把拓咩? 我唔覺得咁大座嘢會令人同神近啲距離囉...

令我哋目不暇給的還有自然科學館，裏面有恐龍化石，好多好多動物標本，亦有中南美土著生活館 (原來有好多土著文明，我太孤陋寡聞了)。
 

 

波利維亞的嘉年華服飾

免了40peso那麼貴的入場費，我們在外面看 Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (較多人認識嘅 Le Corbusier) 設計嘅前衛建築 (喺30年代咁樣已經好前衛，但係其實呢位老兄無見過個客，只係畫兩畫，又無喺現場監工)。從外面看，好多高柱，使裏面的空間很大，棵樹其實在建築物裏面。

我們也經個銀城馬術會，可以進裏面隨便看，發現有隻年輕的雌馬在散步，我們有幸可以和她相處一下，她也散步得有些悶，經常走過來看看我們，我們亦餵她吃點草，她就讓我們摸摸了。

我們在銀城的日子很愉快，比原定的三天過多了二天。亦很高興見到里安度的姪女Carolina，她非常可愛，在家裏受萬千寵愛。 我們離開里安度的家有點趕，因為他們要早些離家去他姐姐的生日派對(我們只在兩小時前才知道)。我們還是感謝他的款待。

在車站渡過四小時，我們跳上巴士，往 Patagonia 進發。 

Museum going in Montevideo

We turned out going to 10 museums in our visits of Montevideo. All have Spanish descriptions only for the exhibits. It is a good practice of our spanish with the iphone dictionary handy.

My most favourite museums were the Museo de Historia del Arte and Museo Nacional de Artes Plasticas y Visuales. Both are free and have rich collection that one day is not enough to see each of them.