Our flight from Campo Grande was a little bumpy, with a brief episode of freefall, but otherwise was fine. It took an hour and a half to get to Viru Viru International airport from Campo Grande. The flight time was at it's originally planned time of 12pm, not 12.45pm as the boards claimed - that could have been disastrous if we'd not been suspicious of the last minute change!

As you may have heard, and everyone says, Bolivia is cheap . Not pennies cheap, but significantly cheaper than Brazil. We arrived at our hostel from the airport, spotting an apparently wild emu (we think) along the way, and discovered that, though the hotel claimed to have air conditioning and this was part of our room deal, it did not in fact have air conditioning. And it was baking. About 34 degrees, this was possibly one of the hottest places we'd been to (or so it felt). The hostel also claimed to have both spanish and english speaking staff - not so. The shower was cold, which Jayna found refreshing; Ken did not. And the next day we discovered that breakfast was meagre.

Not to be deterred, we spent a little time at the hostel, having listened to The Thrills' song, and headed out to the centre of Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz is constructed in concentric circles, which makes is relatively easy to navigate your way around. We were staying just off the first circle, and the centre is widely regarded as the Plaza 24 de Septiembre . We took a stroll there, looking for a non-existent Infotur and another booking agent, also not there (Lonely Planet lies again). We took in the sights when we arrived at the Plaza, immediately climbing the bell tower of the San Lorenzo Cathedral in the square, for a pretty view over the city. Next we ate empanadas in the Plaza, whilst people and pigeon watching. We finished our evening by going to the Irish Bar on the Plaza, as it was in fact St Patrick's Day! There we ate chips and drank beer and cocktails. It was not cheap but it was fun.

The next day, Ken did some organising and looked up the tour options we'd been given by helpful people along our journey. One was the Che Trail, following Che Guevara's movements and the place where he was assassinated. This is a three day tour, taking in countryside well outside of Santa Cruz. We decided that it would take too much time and so didn't take this option. Instead we concentrated on Santa Cruz specific things to do, and, as we are all about the animals, decided to go to the Zoologico Municipal . It cost 10BOBs to get in, that's £1. The place is small but packs in a lot of animals, sadly because the cages are often small. We read that the zoo's animals are rescued animals, and the place is run by volunteers. Which made us feel a bit better about it. There we saw, amongst other animals, jaguars, pumas, ocelots, tapirs, anteaters, Andes condors, sloths, monkeys, llamas, macaws, flamingos, iguanas, snakes, caiman, tortoises, turtles, terrapins, emus, a spectacled bear, capybara, owls, harpy eagles, parakeets, armadillos, fish, spiders, foxes, deer, and a variety of farmyard animals.

We saw feeding time for the monkeys on their island. There was an aviary to walk through which was good for getting close up to the birds without bars in the way. In the aviary we heard a bird which made a noise just like a truck reversing (it was not a lyrebird). We watched a sloth fall off a sloped wall and his very slow efforts to get back up the wall again . We watched a tortoise get turned upside down by another tortoise, and as it couldn't seem to right itself, Jayna turned it the right way around. It was a fun afternoon.

Having only managed crisps and cookies for lunch, we made our way to a vegetarian place we'd spotted the day before. To get there we took a dodgy taxi, with a smashed window and a smoking driver! The veggie place was a strange mix of religion and health food shop. We ordered a hamburguesa and chorillana, not knowing what the latter was. It was a tofu dish with loads of rice, chips and salad, with fried onions and topped with an egg. We ate well.

In the evening we went back to the Plaza, and went to a pizzeria for drinks.

Santa Cruz has a nice relaxed feel about it, though the driving in Santa Cruz is somewhat crazy, and dangerous at times, with cars and bikes making a two lane road into a four lane road. The people seemed less engaging than in Brazil and we found it more difficult to communicate in Santa Cruz than in Brazil, despite our pequena (small) efforts to learn a bit of spanish before arriving in the spanish speaking countries!

Next stop, Sucre, Bolivia!