Las Palmas Hotel

The Mennonite people are one...

by Turco

The Mennonite people are one of the many different ethnic groups that live in Santa Cruz. They are very peculiar, they are a lot like Amish people from Pennsylvania. Mennonites speak a dialect of German and the live in small communities all over Santa Cruz (there is lots of them). They are mainly farmers and you should be very respectful of their privacy and their traditions. They are friendly people, but they are not used to people from outside their communities (don not approach the women or the children). Many of them speak English because they emigrated from Canada to Bolivia.

witou's new Santa Cruz Page

by witou

Welcome to this page about my hometown Santa Cruz de la Sierra. This is Bolivia’s largest and most unexpected city.

Once one of Bolivia’s poorest cities, Santa Cruz was founded in 1562 by a group of 300 Spaniards and their families in the flatlands of Southeastern Bolivia in the midway between the Argentine Pampas, the Chaco, the Pantanal, the Andes, and the Amazon Rainforest. In the last century this city received immigrants from different parts of the world and from all corners of Bolivia, thus making Santa Cruz a very cosmopolitan city were many cultures have merged together.

The city is vibrant and exciting! Although most people think of Bolivia as an Andean country, Santa Cruz is anything but Andean. The climate is subtropical and the vegetation is exuberant and abundant. The food is super tasty and very diverse, and the nightlife is great!

Being a city of immigrant, Santa Cruz is a lot less conservative than the other South American cities (except Brazil!). The best times to visit Santa Cruz are:
Summer (from November to January)
Carnival and Pre-Carnival (February)
Beginning of Spring (Second half of September)

Porongo

by Turco

"Market Place"

Porongo is a small village 20 minutes west of Santa Cruz crossing the piray river. It is very typical and unspoiled. Check out the local market, very authentic!!! To get here, you can take a taxi or a bus from Santa Cruz, the taxi should not be more than $20 dollards round trip.