Santa Cruz, BO - Friday-Saturday, Final Days in Santa Cruz

Tired from the movie we watched the night before, we woke up late again, and scurried down for a quick breakfast before they cleared everything off the buffet. We didn’t have much to eat before the food was taken away, and we headed back to the rooms soon after. Vee stayed back in the rooms to hang out with the family, and I went down to the wi-fi area to get caught up on emails and blogs and pics. It was not long after I sat down before Andrew popped by with his PowerBook to work on his seminar program that he was giving in La Paz the next week. Sonya joined us, and eventually Vee came down too. We had a few cappuccinos and another very nice conversation. They were very nice to offer to go to the HyperMax grocery store and by tickets for us to the ExpoCruz tonight and we took them up on their offer. While hanging out back in the room, I worked on the computer a bit and Vee spent some more time with the family. We eventually made our way down to the pool and had a few drinks, and then Mom and Vanessa came down too. After some conversation, and the disappearance of the sun, we went back to the rooms to get ready for the big night out. We caught a taxi to the the ExpoCruz and walked around for about 4 hours, highlighted with a delicious meal in a small restaurant on the grounds where I had some more trout, and a tasty shrimp bisque. The expo was quite an affair with live bands playing, mascots walking around, and a huge number of “azafatas”, or Bolivian models, who were representing every kind of product imaginable, including cars, motorcycles, industrial products and services, electronics, foods, liquors, beers, agricultural products, real estate and vacation packages, etc. Most of models were handing out flyers detailing whatever product they were selling, or just standing there looking pretty. I made sure to not look at any of them out of fear that they’d approach me and I’d be helpless with my horribly limiting Spanish. One of the few that actually did approach me was none other than Miss Bolivia herself, and being completely unaware, I gave her my usual “no gracias” and continued on my way. It was not until afterwards that Vee told me who she was, and we had a good laugh over it. Outside, we saw the Miss Bolivia from the prior year, and with video camera in hand, Vee went up to her and asked her to say a hello to Philadelphia, which she graciously obliged. After a lot of walking, we decided to call it a night, and taxied back to the hotel and to bed, as Saturday was going to be an early, and long one. We woke up Saturday morning around 5:30, packed, checked out, got our last breakfast buffet, said our goodbyes, taxied to the airport and began the long trip home. The air turbulence was pretty bad, and we got held up in Miami customs, but otherwise the trip was fine. When we got back to Philly, the R7 was done running, so we took the R1 to 30th Street, and taxied home.