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Santa Cruz, Bolivia - As America's 34 heads of state, the first ladies, and some 2,000 journalists prepare to convene here in early December for a Summit on Sustainable Development, the world looks at this South American nation and has the chance to rediscover it as one of the continent's best-kept adventure travel destination secrets.
My chance came last month, during a business trip to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, a far cry from the wind-swept Andean landscapes with roaming llamas that most tourists picture in their heads when thinking of Bolivia. Ranging from Amazon forests to salt plains, river gorges and mountain ranges, Bolivia's varied geography encompasses a lot more than the Titicaca Lake.
Sitting in a valley by the foot hills where the mighty Andes raise to form the backbone of South America, Santa Cruz is the doorway to the vast Eastern plains, and the capital of Bolivian tropics, a rapidly-growing town of immigrants which still holds on to its colonial flavor.
It is also frontier land, a city at the edge of wilderness. Santa Cruz is connected by train to Argentina and Brazil, and its airport has direct flights to Miami - its altitude of 1,250 feet making it possible for foreign airline crews to avoid the altitude sickness they would encounter in La Paz - but the trees of the main plaza are filled with wild forest-dwelling sloths; the area serves a center for cocaine smuggling but it is also the country's first source of rice, cotton and soybeans; you will run into German businessmen, Japanese agriculturalists, Canadian Mennonites, foreign oil workers, campesinos from highland Bolivia and environmental activists; its buildings are among the most modern in the country, but downtown is a Colonial legacy where weeds grow on Spanish tile roofs and everybody takes two-and-a-half hour siestas at noon.
Though I used the city of Santa Cruz mainly as a base to launch myself in trips on several directions, there are three places I found specially worthy of a visit. The first one is the zoo, located at the Third Ring (the city's urban design is cleverly conceived in concentric rings, the first one being downtown). Compared to many South American zoos, this one is surprisingly well designed and large.
It houses an exotic array of tropical and Andean animals, from capybaras (the world's largest rodent, found only in the Amazon region), tapirs, ant eaters, spectacled bears (the only bear species in South America), pumas, llamas, and naturally a host of condors and rare parrots. If you stay still under the trees by the entrance, you will see more sloths painstakingly making progress along the trunks. Entry is $1 and the taxi (there are plenty) won't cost more than $4.
The second one is the Cathedral, which is located in the Plaza 24 de Septiembre, and houses a museum with a magnificent collection of hand-wrought Colonial silver objects, jeweled crosses and religious art. It made me wonder how such an isolated community maintained that high degree of artistic standards.
The third one is El Cochero restaurant, which serves the best salte–as in town. Salte–as are Bolivia's version of the minced meat pies or empanadas found in every South American country. But salte–as are different because their filling of beef or chicken has lots of a sweet salsa. To the point that, you can tell a true native by the way he or she eats a salte–a : by quickly sipping the salsa trough a small opening in the pie. If not a single drop of salsa falls on the plate, you pass the test.
Wanting to know why so many of dishes in Bolivia have sugar in them I set out to do some research. And I found that a probable reason is that those recipes that originated in the highlands - salte–as being one of these - have added sugar in order to help the body cope with the altitude. Any mountain climber would corroborate that, as your tired muscles refuse to conquer that elusive summit, nothing boosts your energy levels faster than a bar of chocolate.
One more thing about Santa Cruz: Though I never experienced it personally, everyone told me to always carry my passport with me, as there are constant checks by Immigration. You should also beware of impostors claiming to be Immigration officers.
Of the several trips available to the visitor from Santa Cruz, I will highlight four. And this is just a sample. Depending where you set up shop in Bolivia, you have a virtually unexplored, still pristine, highly secure and vastly uninhabited playground for making contact with the outdoors, the kind of thing that is increasingly harder to find in the United States' crowded national parks.
The park has a guardhouse with three beds and you can stay there for free, specially during the weekdays. Or you can camp, under your own risk. To return, ask a guard to radio for a motorcycle taxi. The best hike is along the Macu–ucu river, near the entrance, to the campground of the same name.
It takes around five hours and you will walk and wade into the clear and inviting waters of the river which occasionally form ponds filled with small fish. At some points the river is walled by a 300-foot vertical canyon covered by plants. When the walls subside, the forest takes over again, thick with orchids and ferns, interrupted by islands of giant trees with 90-feet tall trunks. The park is home to butterflies, hummingbirds, macaws and some species of endangered monkeys.
It is always wise to ask how high is the river before attempting the hike, since wading through it can get dangerous during the winter months. You should also take your own food, and use a portable water filter or water purifying tablets: there is truly no one around to sell you anything.
With very little effort (specially if you go by boat or small airplane) you can access the Amazon rain forest, a seasonally flooded savannah, a gallery forest, a sub-tropical plateau, a vast marsh, several water falls, lagoons and rivers of literally all colors. Over 600 species of birds have been identified within the park's boundaries, including the Hoatzin, the Pompadour Cotings and the Harpy Eagle. Large mammals such as anteaters, tapirs and the Pampas Deer (hard to encounter anywhere else in South America) are frequently sighted during hikes, along with the perennial cries of the howling monkeys.
I did see pink dolphins in two occasions, as well as healthy populations of black and spectacled caimans.
Undoubtedly the most dramatic feature of the park is the Huanchaca Plateau, a table top covered by vegetation which rises vertically some 1,800 feet above the surrounding plain. The first to discover the Huanchaca Plateau was the legendary British explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett, in 1910. It is believed that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World was based in part on Fawcett's exciting accounts of the Huanchaca Plateau. The best way to see the plateau from a distance is from a helicopter or small plane.
The easiest way to access the park is with a guided excursion. You can arrange it either from Miami or from Santa Cruz itself, and some visits can be customized to the client (see box). Or you can rough it on your own, as long as you have a good map, patience to find a ride through the sparse roads of the area, and can spend extra cash to charter a small plane and/or a boat, if you don't want to miss the best. Take warm weather clothes but also a light jacket for the night and long pants to avoid mosquito bites and the thorny dense branches.
The missions, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, are true Colonial jewels, and a testimony of the Spaniards' obsession to convert indians to Catholicism. Unlike their counterparts in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, the Bolivian missions were never burnt or destroyed, and the churches, built around 1699, are in use today. The small frames were built entirely with carved precious woods, and the heavily-ornamented art work of natives supervised by Europeans reveals an interesting cultural fusion. Though they are most striking outside, the altars inside are generally covered with gold leaf and baroque paintings.
The Samaipata carvings, they like to say, are the place where ET's space ships took off before landing in Nazca. It is obvious, can't I see? one of the local guides tells me with bright eyes, while pointing at the carving of the Serpent, two parallel 600 feet-long canals running along the top of the boulder.
Obvious or not, it is still very intriguing, as it is known that this was some sort of sacred place inhabited by working priests.
Austere and mystical, Samaipata is yet another reason to celebrate Bolivia's captivating landscapes.
Landlocked and soft spoken, this nation, called the Tibet of South America, is perhaps the least talked-about country in the continent. Yet, it is one of the most secure, peaceful and inviting places I have ever been to. This, along with the natural beauty and diversity of cultures --more than 50 percent of its population are direct descendants from the Aymara and Inca-- makes Bolivia the perfect target for independent travel of discovery and adventure.
From Miami: Crillon Tours: 1450 South Bayshore Dr. Suite 815, Miami. Ph: 358-5353. This company also arranges tours in several Bolivian regions, including the Titicaca Lake (featuring a mystical encounter with Andean medicine men and other lake dwellers).
Los Tajibos. It's the largest. Also a five-star hotel, has a nive pool. Av. San Martin, 455. Ph: (591-3) 421000.
When in Santa Cruz be always prepared for the cold winds of the Surazo, the gusty unexpected air currents that come from the south, and can carry lots of rain: take appropriate clothes.
The author is a Miami-based, environmental journalist and can be reached via angela_swafford@discovery.com
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