The death train got nothing on me!

Still alive, well what ive been up to since my last post. i underestimated Campo Grandee, initially it looked like shacks but after a little exploration there was enough to keep me ocupied for one day. markets, sights and the local people. the bus to Corumba was fairly decent, managed to arrange it from the shop next door to my hostel. result. 6 and a half hours. arrived in Corumba not knowing the location of my hostel so i got a taxi. i got ripped off terribly! 20 Reals for a 5 minuets cab. the hostel was nice, a little weird as it had so many rules. i met this cool Greek dude who had been living in Scotland for 5 years, he was a true wild man, beard and all. he went with me to the boarder. 3 hours to get a stamp and that was it, welcome to Bolivia!. from there i located the train station hoping they would have a ticket for the death train spare, they did luckily. there i got chatting with a group of 3 dudes, one from Amsterdam, one from Holland and one from France, their on the same route as me to Santa Cruz and then La Paz. I've decided to tag along, there doing a different city and the salt plains before going on to la paz, ime considering taking along for that instead of spending so long in Santa Cruz. would be more exciting as there's most likely only about 2 to 3 days worth of activities in Santa Cruz. one is a trainee doctor and knows of my condition which is lucky (I have Chrons diseas for those of you that don't know).
the so called death train wasn't to bad, 16 hours at night is more like 5 because i spent mos of the time sleeping or trying to watch S.A.L.T (movie) in Spanish audio ANS subtitles. terrible. the only way the death train almost killed me what the sambas! really cheesy music videos.
I'm now in Santa Cruz with the group mentioned. tomorrow we plan on visiting some small town outside of Santa Cruz that has old inka ruins, and i hope to see the botanical gardens maybe on the following day. i also plan on visiting the several markets to have a bit of a mingle with the locals. one point to mention. there are less of the stereotypical fair skinned Latin Americans you see in Rio around. there seems to be a lot more indigenous people.
i have a few pictures to put up but as the computers are terrible I'll have to wait till i can upload them.
that's all for now.