We arrived at Santa Cruz airport to be greeted by Mamma Mechi, Ingrid and the Hulk. We felt very overwelmed as they kindly welcomed us with flowers and the hulk aka Luis Manuel, picked up a suitcase, 20kg plus in each hand and marched off to the car, we did mention they had wheels, but he was all over it... are you understanding now why we called him the hulk. We arrived at the house to meet the rest of the family, and have ENGLISH TEA!!!
Our stay in Santa Cruz was fantastic, the weather was BOILING, but we were also sweating the entire time, and got bitten alive, despite this, we loved lit. Every morning mama mechi would wake us...........girls...... breakfast... she would have banana milkshakes for us, ´very natural´ the bananas came straight from her garden and the milk straight from the cow! Eat, sunbathe, and swing in the hammock sums up the majority of our stay here. They took us to two different resorts that had pools, lagoons, and a natural park with beautiful flowers and animals, it was like paradise, we could have stayed there forever. We had one night out drinking and dancing, which was so so so sweaty we cannot even attempt to describe! But we have become attached to a lot of the music. Again we did lots of traditional things, ate lots of the foods, attended a salsa dancing class, played a few serious rounds of cacho, we were champions! Beginners luck im sure. The market we visited was insane, it was massive, again women knee deep in fruit and onions. They took us on a tour of the city, but this was a bit of a disaster as sarah fell asleep.
Altogether we had a fab time here and were sad to leave, perhaps our spanish has slightly improved also. Back to la paz for us. I think Ingrid would have sat on the bus with us to ensure we got there safely if she could... they couldnt have done more to help us.
