Santa Cruz

Introducing Santa Cruz

Bolivia’s largest city may surprise you with its small-town feeling, lack of high-rise blocks and a lightly buzzing, relaxed tropical atmosphere. Many arrive here expecting to find a city of businesspeople and throbbing traffic, but in truth, though Santa Cruz is the country’s business center and most affluent city, it has kept its tameness. The locals still lounge on the main square, restaurants close for siesta and little stores line the porch-fronted houses and sell cheap local products.

Santa Cruz is certainly not where you’ll find the Bolivia you see in pictures, and you won’t brush shoulders with a llama (apart from in a zoo or on your plate), but this is the place with the largest population diversity in the country – from the overall-wearing Mennonites strolling the streets past local Goth kids, to a Japanese community, Altiplano immigrants, Cuban doctors, descendants of ex-Nazi run­aways, Brazilian immigrants, bearded Russians, and fashionable cruceños (Santa Cruz locals) turning sharp corners in their SUVs.

The cruceños are an independent lot. They voiced their overwhelming desire for the region’s autonomy in 2006, reflecting their wish to carry on the city’s growth – both physical and economic. Once a cattle-producing backwater on the edge of wilderness, Santa Cruz is now Bolivia’s most populous city and a trade and transportation hub.

It’s worth spending a few days here, wandering the city’s streets, eating at the many international restaurants and checking out the rich kids’ play area, Equipetrol, where nightlife is rife with naughtiness. Alternatively, simply chill out at the town square before moving on to explore the rest of the region.

Last updated: Feb 17, 2009