Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz was horrible, probably the most humid and hot place we had been, with hardly any indigeanous bolivian folk around.  The city felt like it was desperately trying to be european, but falling very short by comparison to Cochabamba. It had no independant little things going on just big american chains like tommy hillfigure and tgis, we decided to stay here for as little time as possible. We checked into the cheapest hostel we could find and it did what it said on the tin. The room was bare bones but it was ok for one night only.  That night it began to rain hard which made us so happy because the heat was unbearable and by this point it had become aparrent Jess had food posioning, so relief from the humidity was a blessing.  After an hour the rain started to come down harder than i have ever heard rain before, and the roof leaked, leaked alot, so we had to spoon our bags on our single beds all night to keep them dry.  I have to say, to paint the picture,  Jess was going back and forth to the toilet in the rain being sick across the courtyard which was two foot lower than the path and after the rain filled it so high you couldnt seen the path so she fell into the water in the middle of the night and threw up there and bawled.  By this point we hated santa cruz and just wanted out so we packed up and headed to the bus stop to samipata,only to find out upon arrival that the bus couldnt leave because the rain was so severe the night before, we were so fed up at this point, we picked the nicest hostel in the guide and caught a taxi there.  We arrived disgruntled to a stunning hostel in the middle of no where but close to an amazing market, with a swimming pool and kitchen and AC, so we decided to set up camp here for a night or two.  A night or two turned into almost a week of just sipping cocktails by the pool doing noothing much and play silly games and it was bliss.  We had a big tent as our private room which overlooked the pool and the stars, we hadn't had a kitchen in so long either, we cooked huge and delicious meals every night.     - Lyndon