Avión Pirata and local market, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia (6 pics)

Avión Pirata means Pirate Airplane.

It is very strange to see a life size plane in a park, even more when it is near a busy street.

Yet it is there that we find "Avión Pirata", this Lockheed Constellation airplane which landed in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, in 1961 never to leave.

This tourist attraction may not be the most interesting in the city, but it commemorates an event that did take place at the city's airport.

This plane had been carrying out smuggling night flights for some time before it was forced to land by P-51 fighters immediately after a suspicious takeoff, with no flight plan.

The plane was used in several ways, it became a library, then a branch of the Banco de Crédito de Bolivia, and used in various advertisements.

Nowadays, it has returned to these origins and lost some of its luster.

That does not prevent people from going for a walk and enjoying a good ice pop, made by local vendors just under the plane.

Once you have seen the plane, don't miss out on visiting the local market which is nearby.

You can find good fruits that are just too delicious not to be tempted .

I love to walk in this kind of markets.

This one is quite imposing, it spans over several blocks and you can find a bit of everything.

It's fun to see people negotiating or just walking through the smells to really understand how the people of this city live.

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Photo taken with a Canon PowerShot SX500 IS.

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