An Act of Kindness (Day 8): Offering a Place to Camp

With 1,5 million inhabitants Santa Cruz, in eastern Bolivia, is the second-largest city in the country.

Where can we spend the night?

Generally we prepare our visits to such large places, at least in terms of a place to sleep. For some reason we haven’t done that this time, but we do have a GPS waypoint from our previous stay in Santa Cruz 2.5 years ago and hope we can stay there once more.

The GPS waypoint is next to the airport: Asociación de Pilotes Civiles, the sign says. Like the last time, the place looks incredibly inviting with lots of shade and space. To our question whether we can stay here we get two answers:

1. Yes, it’s okay to camp here.
2. However, there will be a party tonight.

As the party will be held in front of the building, where the Land Cruiser is parked now, this is not a good place to stay. The caretaker thinks about it for a moment and then offers a solution, “Drive to the back garden. There lives one employee who is the cleaner-cum-guard. There is enough space for your vehicle.”

This is good news. We set up camp, meet Domingo, his two dogs, one of which just had ten puppies, two young cats and a yellow/blue macaw. A lively place it is.

We know from previous experiences that it’s not a matter of course to be allowed to camp in the garden of such a private club and are grateful. Not only that, our to-do list turns out to take more time than anticipated and it’s no problem to stay for a couple of days.

To learn why I write about acts of kindness by a stranger, please read this post.