On our journey eastwards in Bolivia, we soon come across the next big city: Santa Cruz de la Sierra. As always with longer distances, we make several stages out of it so as not to get into a driving frenzy. And there are other beautiful places to see along the way. Here, for example: Samaipata.

Samaipata – Switzerland of Bolivia

We are excited to find out in advance that Samaipata reminds us a little of Switzerland or a mountain village in Switzerland. However, the comparison is not quite as close as we imagined. Nevertheless, there are two parallels. The rows of houses in the village center are well maintained and look beautiful, some with wooden beams and other wooden elements. They are somewhat reminiscent of a Swiss mountain village. Samaipata is also slightly higher than the rest of the surrounding area. Accordingly, we drive up a winding road, almost like a mountain pass, a few meters to Samaipata. The air immediately becomes a little cooler and there is a gentle breeze, making the climate in Samaipata very pleasant.

We take a leisurely stroll through the alleyways of the village – there are not many more than three or four – and stop off at one or two cafés. There’s not much else to do in Samaipata itself apart from rest and recharge our batteries for the next day’s drive. We decide whether we want to go on a short excursion to the nearby Amboró National Park. The prices are not so attractive, and the sights are less spectacular for us – we have already seen a lot of jungle and will see even more of it on our trip. It’s also the dry season at the moment, so none of the waterfalls worth seeing carry water. Therefore, no trip to Amboró National Park after all.

The journey continues to Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz – colonialist historical center

Santa Cruz de la Sierra has a long history as a city and the colonialist character of the historic center is still evident here. The cathedral and the most important government buildings are arranged around the main square. However, there is also plenty of opportunity to stroll around, as there are at least as many restaurants and cafés in the immediate vicinity vying for the favor of visitors to the city. We sit down for a moment in the beautiful park and are surprised. After all the cities in South America, we are used to street vendors. In Santa Cruz, however, they are on a whole new level: the coffee and tea vendors, who sell hot and cold drinks from countless thermos flasks on a small wheelbarrow, are all dressed in a uniform including hats. Quite impressive, maybe it has something to do with a kind of quality control, as they all come from the same local association of coffee sellers.

Apart from that, we don’t do much else in Santa Cruz. A trip to the new town district of Santa Cruz provides a bit of variety, and here again we see the drastic differences from district to district in one and the same city. The streets immediately become more modern and the buildings in particular leave a noticeably western impression. There are skyscrapers and shopping centers like in America or Europe. And a few streets further on, life is 10 times simpler, dustier and the houses are falling apart – or at least that’s the impression they give.

Diesel shortage and the consequences for tourists

And last but not least, we set off again in search of diesel in Bolivia. We still have a tank that is about two-thirds full. But if we can fill it up again, the diesel will last us as far as the Brazilian border. Just after the border, we can fill up again as usual and with excellent quality diesel. We drive from gas station to gas station. Many without a queue of trucks have no diesel. In the town itself, we only find very long queues or otherwise empty gas stations on this day. With that in mind, we try our luck a little outside the city. After some discussion, we get the OK from the petrol station attendant to join the short queue. After a 3-hour wait, the tanker finally arrives with new diesel. Great – things are moving forward. And when we are about two trucks away from the pump, inspectors from the state authority appear to check the petrol stations. Super – we should have been allowed to fill up according to the attendant, but of course it’s impossible with controls. Frustrated, we have to give up our place at the pump.
Well, frustration expressed out loud also has its good side: a Bolivian who is about to pick up diesel with a small tank trailer offers to sell us the 50 liters of his 1,000 liters that we that we need. At least we get some diesel, although we are turned away from the filling station after a long queue. By now it is dark and we follow the guy with the tank trailer on dusty side roads. And indeed, after five minutes we are able to fill up with the same diesel from him as we would have gotten from the pump, as promised. All in all, it was a frustrating day with a happy ending. But now off to Brazil! The most basic tasks as camper tourists, such as refueling, should be done there again in a few minutes. After the ordeal in Bolivia, we are looking forward to this more than expected.