Sucre: A Bit Like Sugar but in Spanish.

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Jake:

Sucre was, as it turned out, a lovely city. Only as much brown as the other colours of the spectrum, as many taxis as people that actually wanted to ride in them and as many town squares with actual living trees and plants as the austre blocks betwixt them.

In the pages of our much loved, worn and beaten ´lonely planet´ we found a review of the ´joyride cafe´, a self confessed ´gringoified´ cafe beside the main square and it was there that we came to spend a good deal of our time. It was cosy, pretty, friendly and most importantly cheap, which is a good thing because we still had next to no money due to the palava with our card. I will say again and I´m sure it wont be for the last time: TRAVELLERS DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT GETTING AN STA TRAVEL CASH CARD. Had I known how much trouble it was to cause I´d have sooner taken an actual scorpion round in my pocket in its place because it would have stung less.

So, we spent much of the day eating, playing Hazza and discussing what the devil was to be done with regards to our predicament. The follwing was our conclusion.
We were unable to afford the tours and excursions that everyone on the street seemed so pleased to be able to offer us: one of which was to see - drumroll please - a genuine (fake) dinosaur footprint! Fancy stumbling upon something of such magnitude on your travels, what a hoot! But aside from that there were plenty of things we actually wanted to do but couldnt such as cycling, climbing, hiking, rafting etc. and that was gutting. We were also pretty sure that with the lack of diversity we´d actually been going to the same place over and over, just spending 14 hours at a time on round-trip coaches... Let me just cut a long story short. We booked a flight to Rio de Janeiro and cut our proverbial losses! After what we´ve put up with (and you know, if you´ve read the past blogs) it was high time for some sun, some economic development, some culture, some social integrity to speak of and some rest!

Rach:

Our decision to move on (yet again) was vindicated when we left the travel agents having booked our tickets (using money from our current accounts, while trying not to think about the extortionate charges from our banks) and found ourselves engulfed in a swarm of vagrants. It is extremely difficult to choose and purchase a snack while a whole family of hungry street urchins tries simultaniously to pull on your sleeves, get a share of your just-bought Oreos and snatch for your change, which they somehow seem to think they are owed. The shruken old, raisin-resembling women bare their gums at you in sickening smiles while their litters of children beg for your hard-earned coins, their arms stretched out and pleading looks on their grubby faces.
While of course I have every sympathy with the homeless, it is very difficult to appreciate a place when you cant actually move for the press of bodies who all want a piece of your Western bootie.

That said, Sucre is certainly a beautiful city, at least in comparison to those we had visited so far, and had we had access to money I would have liked to have stayed there longer. But as it was, Brazil was calling!

Rach and Jake x

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