Blogs from Chuquisaca Department, Bolivia, South America - page 23

The last 10 days in Bolivia have flown by, but as usual we have managed to cram plenty in. Due to a road block we took a circuitous route to Copacabana (on the Bolivian shore of Lake Titicaca) from Puno (Peru) via La Paz - 11 hours on a bus instead of 4! Still, the effort was well worth it as Copacabana was fantastic. We arrived to beautiful sunshine and happened upon a festival of some sort, with cars adorned with flowers and bands playing! Darryl even found a bar showing English football so he was very pleased! We found 2 large hills to climb - one with bizarre rock formations which were stunning to explore; the other hill was a perfect perch for watching sunset over the lake. We even found a lovely hotel with ... read more

Een gemakkelijke busrit brengt ons in Sucre. De weg is zo vlak dat we bijna vergeten dat we in de Andes zijn. Na aankomst verkennen we onmiddellijk de stad en zijn aangenaam verrast. Men noemt Sucre ook wel La Ciudad Blanca (dat is De Witte Stad in ‘t Nederlands) vanwege de traditie alle gebouwen in het centrum in het originele koloniaal wit te verven. Het resultaat is een streling voor het oog. Vermoedelijk is het centrum letterlijk schitterend als het zonnetje schijnt! De jure is Sucre de hoofdstad van Bolivia, t.t.z. zo staat het in de grondwet. Na een burgeroorlog in de jaren stillekens zijn de wetgevende en uitvoerende macht naar La Paz verhuisd en blijft enkel de rechterlijke macht over om hun aanspraak op de titel van hoofdstad te rechtvaardigen. Deze degradatie is al die ... read more

I only had about a week and a half to go through and see as much of Bolivia as I could. I came into the country through Copacabana and moved on to La Paz. I Loved La Paz it had so much going on and the food was for the most part good. If your a fan of street Markets of any and all types then its the city for you. I felt like I was in Asia or what I think Asia would be like. It was in La Paz I did the trip on the Death Road. Then I moved on to Potosi see the mines. After I went to Sucre which is kind of a hot zone for Politics at the moment. I found it to be a great city all in all. ... read more

The second half of our stay in Sucre was much better. The rain stopped and the sun came out. We were even able to wear shorts and sandals occasionally! Our day out to Jurassic Park was interesting. The hostal owner told us to take "Micro A" to the end of the line which was the entry gates to the park. That would have been the case but our driver went home for lunch, or at least that's how it seemed, and we were left with a 20 minute walk past the smell cement works. Then we had to climb a muddy slope to the gates as the road up isn't quite built yet, in fact they are still excavating it!! Once inside we were treated to half an hour of the BBC's Dinosaur documentary (royalties presumably ... read more

Sucre organized a grand march. Thousands of people from Sucre marched down four main streets to meet at the plaza de mayo. My street was one of the streets where the march started so i went with one of the aunts and her children. Everyone was wearing Sucre for capital shirts.. waving sucre flags.. and setting off loud fire crackers. Once we got to the plaza, there was music.. everyone singing songs.. and organized chants. for some reason, i kept getting choked up and felt like crying. I really have never met people who was so proud and cared so much about their country and wanting to be capital. I took tons of pictures so once i put them on a disk.. ill post some up. i contacted the US embassy in La Paz to make ... read more