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After Potosi we were due for a full reunion of the nut Ring crew. Donna, Troy and I were on a bus bound for Sucre, and Helen was waiting for us there having booked us a room in the hostel she was staying in. The bus on the way to Sucre was about on par with the rest of the buses in Bolivia in that the seats were like a Grandma’s flowery couch, it stank and had several kids lying down in the walkway where they would be sleeping for the night. This one was particularly bad though as even Donna was squashed when sitting down. This meant that for me, sitting in a normal position being 6ft 2 was practically impossible. One amusing thing that did come out of the journey though was when a pesky kid threw a water bomb at the bus; it hit the fella behind us square on in the face as he had the window open…. We found that rather amusing!

So on arrival we found Helen in, roaming the hostel and the NRC were all together once more…happy days! We spent the evening with a few beers, catching up on each other’s stories and headed out for a couple more beers and some food. Here in the Joyride café, there was a nice little promotion on where beers were 2 for 1, which is normally right up my alley, however when I noticed it was a certain beer that we had tried back in Uyuni, I was loathed to take up the generous offer. This beer, somehow, tasted of cheese…… strange I grant you, however it definitely had a slight pang of stilton, and as cheesy beer is not my thing (if I can help it), I moved onto the wine and left Troy to go try find some Ritz crackers to finish the beer off with!

The next day, we decided to go on a little wander around the town. To be honest, we were all a tad tired from the previous night, and as there wasn’t much open, we were all a little sluggish. We decided to rest our legs in the main plaza of Sucre where there was the promise of an alternative Eiffel tower; something we felt should not be missed. Once there though, the tower wasn’t quite what it was built up to be and awe made way for sniggers! Whilst in the lark, we also noticed several mischievous kiddies filling up yet more water balloons and were looking all too ready to use them (it was of course carnival time here, hence the water bombs), so we decided to move on after a few more chuckles at the tower and a banana or two.

On the way back, we decided it was time for a cook up in the hostel and therefore we all hit the market and got some ingredients for a stir-fry. Once we had been fleeced in the market, we trotted on back to the hostel where a very welcomed sight greeted us. It was Dave, back form Uyuni along with his bike, cheeky grin and the will to sink a few cold ones……it was great to see him, and perked us all up from our tired walk around the town.

We didn’t have much planned for Sucre, however one of the things we said we would all like to see was the dinosaur footprints that had been discovered near-by, and where they had decided to build a make shift Jurassic park as an aside to the prints. So, after jumping on the ‘Dino-bus’ (we were assured by Troy that every time the bus used it breaks, it made a dinosaur noise…..it didn’t. We were crushed!) We were taken a few miles out of town to the Dinosaur museum, and eventually on to see the footprints. The museum itself was pretty shoddy to be honest, as expected, and everything in there was a replica. ‘Wow, those T-rex bones are awesome, are they original?’ ‘No, the originals are in Buenos Aires’ What about the footprint moulds, are they real….no. They are replicas too’!!

So after the museum being a tad disappointing, we moved onto the obligatory silly snaps, followed by seeing the actual footprints. Here, we were all actually quite impressed, as to see real life dinosaur footprints embedded in the rock face really was pretty amazing. After seeing such wonders, we gathered back at the hostel with some more food to cook and more beer to drink, and decided some cards were in order for the evening.

Our last full day in Sucre was a chilled one. We cooked some breakfast, played some Ping-Pong, and all went looking for a few last minute Alpaca items. I was craving a new Alpaca jacket that wouldn’t look out of place on a 90 year old granny, and both Troy and Dave were after some stuff too, so we did ourselves a bit of shopping. That evening, we decided we needed to go out and get drunk as it was the last night that all the NRC (Dave was already sworn in back in Uyuni) would be together. So, we found ourselves a lovely place to eat some steak, had a few drinks, and moved onto the pub. Here, we ordered a Sambuca each that was easily four times bigger than a measure at home, and after setting it alight smashed it down to wish each other good luck on our travels once we had split. A few more beers and we decided to move on. Helen was hanging out for a ‘Superclub’, however as none of us could be bothered to go all the way to one in order to get ripped off and listen to Reggaton music all night, we decided to pull up at the Karaoke bar opposite our hostel and murder a few of our favourite tunes to a capacity crowd of about 4 other Bolivians and us! We had a great laugh in there; however I can’t see Simon Cowell knocking at any of our doors in the near future!

So, after a messy night and a crazy month in Bolivia it was sadly that time where we had to say goodbye to our nut ring companions. We had an absolute blast with these guys over the past 30 odd days, and it really was quite sad to say goodbye and go our separate ways. We knew that we would be crossing paths again with Troy and Helen in South America, but we wouldn’t all be together again. Or would we….?

Turns out that Dave and Helen are going to New Zealand also and will be there around the same time we are and it just so happens that this is where Troy currently lives. We therefore made plans to try meet up in NZ at some point, and carry on as we left off! So although it was sad saying goodbye to everyone, we knew that it probably wouldn’t be forever.

So, the next morning we said our farewells and jumped on a bus bound for Santa Cruz, which was to be our last destination in Bolivia. Farewell NRC, and Happy travels to you all.



‘It’s Possible…I mean, you can do it, but I wouldn’t recommend it’ – Troy Nichols, Bolivia 2012

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