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2 months later and im preparing myself to depart Sucre. This beautiful city is the old capital of Bolivia, and remains the constitutional capital. This means that it remains a centre of colonial architecture with white buildings, beautiful churches, a beautiful central plaza and a grid ike layout in the central old city. It is in the central-south part of the country and has a beautiful warm climate whch suits me fine. No more hot sweatiness like in Santa Cruz, and not freezing like Potosi. It also feels amazingly safe, its like a little bubble- I really couldnt have picked anywhere better to stick around for the past coupe of months... I will literally cry on the bus this evening! Having finished work on Friday I have had a few days to just chill out and enjoy Sucre, and actually try and visit some tourist attractions, I just feel like I know Florin´s Happy Hour pretty well and no museums or anything... oh well! Today I will end my time here by visiting the Mirador Recoleta viewpoint cafe and having Sangria with my friend. Perfect 😊
I have found Bolivans in general really friendly, and my visit to the maket
Recoleta
My favourite place in Sucre, photo shop, or police station (stolen ipod related!) have resulted in friendly conversations and discussions of my night out the night before, cant see them caring too much in random shops in harrogate! Il miss that.
Also the Bolivians Í´ve been friends with have been so interested in other cultures, places and political systems. They still haven´t got over not having a coast line since it was occupied (or according to my students´stolen´) by Chile in the Pacific War of 1879-84, and many will never see the sea. The laid back culture is second to none, and Bolivian Time is renowned and really important to bare in mind when you want to get anywhere This is great for forcing you to chill out though, and may even have helped me to actually maintain my voice the whole time here 😊. Sucre is clearly medicinal for me!
I´ve spent the last 4 weeks moaning about being stuck here and wanting to move on, but now I´m completely gutted to be leaving, this is has been a complete love/hate (more love), drunk/sober (more drunk), work hard/play hard experience and now I don´t quite know what I´ll do without my regular
daily routine¨:
- waking up to my housemates alarm at 6am- our rooms are seperated by white foam board and masking tape so there wasnt a great deal we didnt know about what we were each up to in our rooms...
- Spanish lessons (or lack there of)
- Hanging about in an internet cafe trying to steal lesson plans off the internet
- loitering in the market getting ripped off because im a gringo
- a leisurely lunch with Anna, whilst geting attacked by Sadrek (the CUTE puppy living in our house)
- teaching english.. or rather listening to my students debate politics, ghost stories and whether they would prefer to sleep with another man or an old woman
- going to the plaza to observe the day´s fiesta. count on it, there is going to be some kind of parade, celebration, party, day off or protest. bring it on! gotta love bolivia.
- a visit to Salsa lessons followed by Florin bar daily happy hour, followed by Joyride bar and Mitos.
Loads of people seem to have got stuck in Sucre, it is notoriously easy to do so. The people are great and friendly, its cheap (diet
coke 35p, any wonder I stuck around?), they love their parties and the weather is good.
Sucre has been a good loitering point, I really feel like I´ve managed to find out so much more about the country and have made some amazing friends here, I´ll be gutted to say good bye to so many people. Also It´s been a good stopping off point to visit other places at the weekends, although I´ve no idea how time has flown so quickly as there were so many other places to go! i feel like the only places iv got to know really well are the food market and the local pub! oh well, it was always gonna be the way!
I figured when I arrived here that I would make the most of being in one place for a while, join a gym and start running again. That didnt go so well. When I arrived here I spent 2 weeks living at my Directors house in the suburbs. Loved living there but it wasnt gonna last any longer. It was a 50 minute commute, with the last bus at 11, it was starting to impact on my social life
Childrens Day at Fox
There is some kind of day off or celebration most weeks (or in fast days), this was Childrens Day. Pretty scary clown was involved and that will not be tolerated! The neighbourhood was nice too, but i kinda stood out big style and my one running attempt resulted in 5 beeps, 4 whistles, a whole bus full of ppl laughing and chased by about 8 stray dogs. Anyone would think it was unusual to see a white girl going for a run n the outskirts of a Bolivian city...?! Additionally the taxi drivers had strange potentials occassionally. Its always a good option to go for the taxi drivers who had their wives and children in the car, which on one occassion I didnt do and it resulted in the Taxi driver having one hand trying to hold my hand,stroke my hair and/or grope me and the other hand holding his can of beer. Amazing!
So anyway, only stuck it out for 2 weeks in the ´burbs before finding myself a shared house in the centre. I rented a room in a house with 3 others, Yelson (Bolivian tourism student), Lizeth (another Bolivian tourism student) and Celine (Swiss volunteer), although because Lizeth was away a lot of the time, my English friend Anna was living in my house most of the time. The house
Party at my house
Anna´s birthday celebrations was dead central only about 3 blocks from the centre and 2 blocks from my favourite bar 😊 which is very important clearly! It had a cool outdoor area which was good for gatherings before our landlord barred parties! My room had no furniture but as soon as i scrounged a matress and bought some material as a blind then I was good to go 😊
House was a bargain of 1 pound a night which was good. Although the cheapness of everything kinda wasnt so cheap when I was also earning at the same level. Getting 1 pound an hour meant that without fail on Thursday nights I would spend my last pennies on beer and then be without food all day Friday til I got paid. And that was on a good week! Also my salary was way over and above what a lot of Bolivians get paid. I know that our expenses are probably very different as they wont go drinking beer in Gringo (foreigner) bars every night but it really did make me think how hard it must be to get by on so little. However I embraced spending while I was here anyway, and it
25 May parade
Me, Anna, Beth and Jacob... before the flags got taken away from us by the local students... gutted has got to the point that the Fruit Juice lady recognises me, I know the prices of the different sweet empanadas in the central market, and I have located which are the local shops that stock dietcoke. Like a local...!
I have been working at an organisation called Fox Language Academy teaching English, and seeing as it has minimal resources it has been a really good learning experience for me and I have really enjoyed it. My students were amazing and gave me a great send off on my last day. They all met me at work as a surprise and treated me to food and beer which is the way to my heart. Additionally for my birthday some of them bought me a cuddly sloth... its as if they have known me forever!lol.
The downside of the teaching English is that I ended up with quite a lot of hours and studying English grammar all day didnt do wonders for my Spanish! I have been living with Bolivians and lots of my friends are Bolivian who dont speak English so I have definitely improved, but no where near as much as lots of my friends. Im either
25 May Parade!
The end of the parade! just a bit slow at languages, a bit stupid, or i need to focus for a few weeks when Im not working and have time for lessons. Either way, i really love the language and will def persevere! I know enough to get by and to have a chat with my friends when they are patient with me, but when there is more than one person and the topic goes to realms where I have no vocab then I get pretty stuck! However I have a new MP3 player seeing as my ipod got nicked (dont get me started on that one!) and my friend Maryelo has filled it full of music for me. Listening to spanish speaking music everyday hopefully should absord information into my head without me even trying! ideal. It will also always remind me of Sucre 😊
Being in Sucre for so long and with so many friends has really given me the opportunity to explore and try new things, especially seeing as I have had so many local friends, and also other travellers who have been here the same amount of time as me. We have gone off for a couple of weekend trips
and explored a bit.
- Went to a music concert of some of the most popular bands in Bolivia with my mates. Was great because there were such a mix of people. The traditional music is popular with all ages and I could dance my little heart out
-Visited the local market town of Tarabucu
- Went to a local town of Yotala with some Boivian mates to drink Chicha (local alcoholic drink made from Corn) and for the Best Ice Creams In The World
- Went camping in Nuchu with my mates. Without a tent. In the rain. Under the protection of the incorrectly named Protection Tree which just stabbed me with needles. Luckily the Singhani (massive bottle of vodke like alcohol for 3 quid 50) helped to ease the pain. To get there involved crossing a river or a mental old railway bridge, so was a bit of an adventure for my mental friends who arrived in the dark!
- Went to the local castle with my friend Milenka for a picnic. Castle randomly is based on anything European or Egyptian so is fairly random in the middle of the Bolivian countryside´
-went on a overnight trip to
Potosi, the highest city in the world! Went on a tour of the mines which terrified the life out of me. I genuinely think i nearly died, i have no idea how these guys work down there all the time
Additionally, I cant forget to mention the parade of 25th May... In much of South America there is bound to be a street or a plaza named 25 Mayo and this is due to the beginning of the revolution for independance in Sucre. So this parade is a bit of a big deal for the town and all the local organisations join in on the parade. Being a member of staff at Fox I also had to join in! Mainly just involved a lot of waiting around and I didnt get to carry the flag as promised but it was still fun! Randomly a lot of the bands seemed to playing the music of ´The Animals Went in 2 by 2´...amazing! Bolivia is nothing if not random...!
Its not only Sucre that I´ve now got a soft spot for, but pretty much all of Bolivia...Some of the best things about Bolivia:
1) Diet coke costs 35p
2) if
they dont have the correct small change they will give you sweets instead
3) Bolivia Time
4) sweet empanadas
5) fiesta or parade every day or so. standard
6) Sloths exist in the country
7) Bolivians are short and sometimes I actually feel tall 😊
8) 3 course Amorzar (lunch) for 70p
9) Everyone likes to dance
10) Its pretty random most of the time
11) Everyone is pretty political and has an opinion on the politics of the country and how things should change which I find so interesting to find out about... Peoples opinions on the presidant Evo Morales really differ and led to some fairly interesting ´discussions´in my class... on the following for example! http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/apr/22/chicken-causes-homosexuality-evo-morales
Some of the most annoying things about Bolivia:
1) Bolivian men! The whole Machismo thing can get a bit much. And cos iv got green eyes and blonde hair doesnt mean you can stare at me and call me a Puta in the street, thank you! (Luckily not all are like this and I have loads of really good male mates, but still)
2) The general view of gringos as fair game for being ripped off
3) Occassional homophobic tendencies and
The completed orphanage wall
We painted it in 2 days, pretty chuffed with the end result :).
I of course did the easy stuff that involved no artistic ability but still! conservative opinions in some people, never too sure how to react to those ones
4) Bolivia Time (its only a good thing when I´m not in a rush and being ´tranquil´suits me, alternatively when it makes me half an hour late for my own leaving party then its less exciting)
So anyway, annoying points aside, Im gonna cry when I leave Sucre. It wouldnt be so bad if I thought I could come back and see people again. But seeing as Evo Morales has decided to change the visa regulations it looks like my time is up and im pretty much barred from re-entering this year... 😞
Im heading off to La Paz with 2 friends from Sucre who have also been here a similar time as me. Then I will head off to the Amazon jungle at Rurrenabaque to try and find a sloth! so pretty excited about that one 😊, fingers crossed me kids!
Then will leg i through to Peru to meet Carrie in Lima for a 3 week adventure, The Green Sisters On Tour in Peru 😊 CANNOT WAIT!!!
I´ve attached a few pics so you can see my adventures in the bars
Ice cream in Yotala
Anna, Ademar and Orlando on our day trip to nearby Yotala in Sucre...! Hope everyone is well, I´ll not leave it so long next time to update you xx
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caroline
non-member comment
Brilliant pictures and reading as always!!! Wish you got a pic with your face in the cake though :p lol Cant wait to see you when your back. xx