Last night we had the pleasure of going back to the Expo Cruz...frankly, I think we were both feeling a little uneasy about it given some of the things we´d seen the first time around. To recap, here´s some highlights of the disturbing things the event had to offer over the two days:

- A young Mestizo man wearing a clean, nice-looking shirt with a big swastika on the shoulder (possibly one person seen on two seperate occasions, or even more disturbing is that this is becoming a trend...weird)

- Potential genetically modified cows...you can´t get over that easily. Maybe it´s the hindu in me, but their eyes just looked so sad..

- This fair might has well have been called ¨autonomists rejoice¨cause everywhere we looked there were signs, stickers, even people signing a wall in a makeshift bar in support of independence from La Paz. It´s sometimes a little hard to postpone judgement since most of the same arguments (mostly economic) have been used by Albertans in favour of seperation...although we did find that it is in fact autonomy and not seperation that most people here are after

- True, sex sells, but its excessive use at the fair made us uncomfortable. For example, does the Santa Cruz Zoo really need women wearing pleather bikinis in order to draw in interest?? Don´t the llamas and capybaras speak for themselves???

Despite all the negative criticsms, there were definitely some positives. Most of all it was great to spend some time chatting (well, i did my best...) with German and Elva. They truly are very genuine people and have been so hospitable and wonderful to us! Although, it was a little awkward when we discovered that they fall into the autonomist camp and aren´t Evo Morales´biggest fan....we´ll have to see how this unfolds.