Santa Cruz

26.06 .- 01.07.11

My original plan was to fly from ASUNCION in Paraguay to QUITO in Ecuador….but as all flights were quite expensive I had only two choices….to either go all the way via bus through Bolivia and Peru which would have taken me probably 4-6 days or buy a cheaper flight to LIMA in Peru. As I definitely didn't want to spend 6 days in the bus I booked a flight from Santa Cruz in Bolivia to Lima in Peru…..and fortunately I found another cheap flight from Asuncion in Paraguay to Santa Cruz in Bolivia.

So I arrived in SANTA CRUZ at the airport on Sunday, 26.06.11. As I had 10 days until my flight to Lima I decided to take some Spanish lessons in the following week. But as Santa Cruz isn't a very touristy destination I couldn't find a cheap Language school and the Goethe Institute which was right in town charged 17 USD for a private lesson. The owner of the Hostel "Residencial Bolivar" was so kind to organise me a private teacher but after the second lesson I realized that he was crap. So I searched further and found "Gladys" who is teaching Spanish for foreigners at the KOLPING in Santa Cruz.

Gladys was very good in explaining the grammar but unfortunately she was the only teacher at KOLPING and was pretty much booked out. Therefore I could only see her for 4 days for 1 ½ hours. What a pity, I would have loved to book her for 4 hours per day….but it wasn't meant to be!

It was very; very cold while I was staying in Santa Cruz and I didn't feel very well and somehow I couldn't really fall in love with this city. On Thursday, 30.06.11 I caught up with "Ferrah" a Couchsurfer who lives in Santa Cruz but originally comes from Toronto in Canada. She was sooooo nice, funny, talkative and very positive that it was fun chatting to her.

So during this week in Santa Cruz I just went to my Spanish Classes, studied a bit, updated my Travel blog, met a few nice people (Farrah, Ariel from the hostel, Tess from Holland etc) and slept a lot. On Friday, 01.07.11 I decided to go to the town of SAMAIPATA which is lying in the stunning wilderness in the foothills of the "Cordillera Oriental".