Sleeping in Sucre

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Sucre is a nice respite from the chaos our lives had become in La Paz. We lived like vampires, staying out till dawn and sleeping while it was light, then each night attempting to pickle our livers for several days straight. Unlike those fictious beings, and unlike my previous days of college, I can´t handle rocking out like that anymore. Getting to Sucre, walking around the calm streets of Bolivia´s colonial capital, has been fantastic.

We arrived off our first night bus in Bolivia much more well rested than expected. We heard a lot of horror stories, and was expecting the worst, but it wasn´t that painful. I was crammed against a wall and couldn´t strech my legs much beyond a 90 degree angle, they couldn´t close the sunroof so it got to be around 50 degrees, and we were woken up at 6 a.m. by the Bolivian police doing a random drug search (me and Eric obviously looking like prime candidates with U.S. passports) but all in all I would say it was a huge success.

Sucre is a great city full of narrow, coble stoned, or bricked streets lined with white washed, pastel highlighted, colonial buildings. It isn´t nearly as hilly (maybe mountainous is a better word) as La Paz, but there is enough of a slope to provide views and to take your breath away (literally). Around every corner there is another church, remarkably similar to the one you just passed, and cafes that could as easily be in the middle of NYC line the streets providing nice places for respite. However, the enormous parks and lovely central plaza are much nicer, and I spent quite a few hours just hanging out reading and watching people in each. And that has largely been the extent of our activity in Sucre. Sitting in cafes eating great food (where free WiFi reigns supreme), walking the colonial streets, and wasting time in the plazas.

However, one afternoon, while Eric was wasting the day away in a cafe, Luke and I figured we would be active and check out some dinosaur footprints in the area. I thought it would be pretty amazing to see my hand compared to the foot of a Titanasaurous. However, I couldn´t begin to descibe the size of the dissappointment (Eric's edit: Yesssssss (fist pump). I know my roommates from college can appreciate that.)(Kyle's edit to Eric's: sent from his iPod.). We walked in and there were life sized, poorly replicated statues looking down on you as you walk up a hill with tacky, supposedly, dino-noises coming from the grasses around you. Eventually you make it to a look out area and about a 500 meters away you can stare at a several story tall wall containing numerous foot prints from a few million years ago. Trust me, it sounds much cooler than it is. It feels more like walking to the top of a huge hill and staring into a quarry. The highlight of my trip was the ice cream sandwich I bought at the restaurant. Luke slid down the slide in the kiddy park; that was exciting...

Anyway, Sucre has been great. Amazing food, great random places to relax, and (finally) a full nights sleep. Tomorrow we are off to Potosi; supposedly the highest city in the world and famous for its silver mines. Then further south to Tupiza and Chile.

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Photos

Park Bench
Sitting in the park relaxing, I noticed all of them had falcon heads in the arms.

Main Plaza
Spire of the Cathedral in the background.

Colonial Facade
Can´t remember the name of this building, but it had a wonderful, colorful facade.

Sucre Streets
This is a pretty typical view in Sucre.

Random Church
I cant remember which one this was, cause they are on every street corner, but I think it was Convento de Santa Teresa.

Knocker
I liked some of the details on the churches.

Jewish Cemetary?
We walked to the cemetary, which was really interesting and ended up stubling upon a sectioned off which was only for Jews. Eric said he felt a little more at home. I thought it was amusing that the one up front was a Dr. named Grunberg.

Dino Footprints
Exciting, right?

Weeee...
Lukes highlight of the Dino Park.