After arriving in Santa Cruz we were shocked to realise that the town is pretty much shut on a sunday. After a taxi ride to Residential Bolivar we realised our reservation hadn´t been recieved but they had a double room (2 single beds) and could give us a matrimonial room the next day. While they were cleaning the room we found their residential toucan.

The toucan was gorgeous and very friendly. He was also fluffy due to the rain and had a bit of a scratching problem which hopefully was only beacuse of the rain. After being shown our room we decided to go for a wander and see what else was available (room was very simple - not normally a problem but for the price) and it was then we realised nearly everything was shut.

After locating another hotel we decided to change as we realised we may well be spending a lot of time in the hotel room due to the rain and lack of things to do.

After moving to the new hotel we spent the remainder of the day relaxing before heading out for tea at Cafe 24, a place we had seen earlier on and were happy with our tea (good pasta) and Phil has found a beer he doesn't mind, Bock. The wine I had was as usual great. I do like Bolivian wine and we're going to try to bring some home.

Back via the square and now it was packed with people. Everywhere people are selling toffee apples and toffee coated strawberries. After Phil´s initial keeness to try he changed his mind when he noticed the toffee was almost running off. Not being sure if this was due to the toffee or the rain he decided to play it safe with his stomach as we have so far been lucky to not get food poisoning in Bolivia!!!

The major attraction of Santa Cruz is their main plaza which is shadowed by one huge church. Its quite funny as the guide books actually say that the main attraction for Santa Cruz is the plaza.

The next day was wasted working out flights and we had a quick look at the local markets and found tea at the Irish pub where we had a great Irish stew and a coupe of beers, Huari, which is quite good. A wander back through the plaza to our hotel followed.

Sad things about Santa Cruz:
1. The number of beggars
2. The number of beggars who have their sleeping children next to them in the rain.
3. The number of children under 5 years who are kind of playing instruments or dancing to radios for money
4. The for for a city that size nothing is open on a Sunday.
5. Caiman ornaments - They actually catch the baby caimans then stand them in fisherman poses and sell them to the public. Kind of like what they do with the cane toads in Qld except the caimans aren´t pests here.

Also of note is no travel agents appear to speak any english. Very surprising considering every other place we have visited they have some comprehension. Santa Cruz is also a very different town/city to the rest of Bolivia. Where other places have markets and shops tat are more like stalls which spread out onto the footpaths, Santa Cruz has actual shops.

After organising our flight to Puerto Suarez it was an early night before heading to the airport. Found a bolivianita necklace I liked before heading to the airport and was happy as neither of us thought we would find something we liked. A lot of the settings were not very nice and the stones varied in quality quite considerably.

After a short flight - which left nearly an hour late - we arrived and were lucky enough to speak to an American couple whose guide organised our taxi to the border. We couldn´t have been more grateful as the guide books were way too vague on the border transfer.

And onto Brazil it was. . .