Sucre (plus more pictures)

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Hola,

I travelled from Santa Cruz to Sucre last night and the journey was TERRIBLE. Proper roads do not exist here. In terms of luxury of buses it seems that BoliviaSo the bus was bad. No toilet, only 2 stops in 18 hours. The seats went most of the way back (almost 180degrees) but were pretty solid. The roads were unbelievable. Much worse than the train, you couldnt sleep for the rocking and bouncing. I was sitting near a woman with a new baby, I would be pretty surprised if the baby didn´t have concussion from the trip. The landscape was pretty dire at points too. Very dusty, dry, barren. Many of the houses we passed in little villages were derelict or bricked up. Not pretty. But it is nice to be back near mountains. When we first saw Sucre it was many bright glints as windows reflected sunlight back from the city, which was shockingly pretty.

So I arrived in Sucre a little downcast, and worried about how long to stay/where to book a bus to. I settled on leaving Potosi (mining town, world cultural heritage site) for a future trip and head straight to the Salt Flats at Uyuni. I booked into a hostel close to the bus station in Sucre where I met an Israeli traveller who offered to visit the centre of town with me. We walked around to get a sense of the utterly gorgeous architecture and had lunch. Many of the buildings in the historic centre remain white with amazing stone arches and doorways. We returned to the hostel as he was leaving at 5 and I needed a kip after an awful nights sleep. Met a Brit and am heading out tonight with a few others to visit some student bars (two universities here - lots of students!).

Am feeling the altitude a little, and it makes my hair a bit static, but it is truly onwards and upwards from here. I have heard rumours of temperatures on the Salar de Uyuni dropping to minus 15 at night so am definitely going to pick up some warm clothing on the way! Everything here in Bolivia is ridiculously cheap which is a nice change to Brazil.

2 and a bit weeks to go.

(more pictures up under http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v211/StephieB/travel/Pantanal/ password is the same as before.)

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