Arrival

Two red-eye flights in three days, 29 hours in Durham to pack up everything I own into either my suitcase or my closet, and I arrived in Santa Cruz. I slept for about 15 of my first 24 hours here, and today I´m ready to start exploring.

My first impression of Santa Cruz is its similarity to just about every other large Latin American city I´ve spent time in - same architecture, same traffic (and same honking and lack of traffic signals), same sidewalks just wide enough for one person, even the same smells. I´m staying in a room about the size of my bathroom (those of you who have seen my bathroom will believe this) in a hostel that I am sharing with a large missionary group from Arkansas. Today they were out practicing some kind of percussion-chant-skit thing that had something to do with Jesus. We´re a couple of blocks from a central park where kids run through flocks of pigeons and people sit around on benches drinking coffee and reading the paper. It´s a pretty chill town.

More later on what I discover in my wanderings around town. For now I´m going to find a spot for lunch - probably more empanadas.