Life is sweet in Sucre

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We stayed in Uyuni for two nights, acclimatizing to the altitude and dining in a gringo style pizzeria run by an American. Otherwise, there wasn’t much to do in Uyuni. One of the days we were there, there was a fantastic market, where I gave in and bought a proper coat made of llama wool, finally admitting to the harsher climate of the high altitudes of South America!

Following our stay in Uyuni, we took a short bus ride to Potosi, only 5 hours away, bliss! However, Potosi was not so blissful. Potosi is the highest town in the world, at 4060m above sea level, so the altitude sickness hit us both, with headaches, shortness of breath and nosebleeds! We stayed our first night in a really cheap hostel, 30 Bolivianos a night, approx 3 euros. Wanting a hot shower and a bit more comfort we checked into another hostel for our second and third night, which was probably the best thing about the town. The hostel was comfortable, colourful and had cable TV! We checked out a few of the museums and ate in some nice café’s, but the town was rough, unsettling with lots of robberies and muggings reported. Several times, as we walked down the street; we were met with deriding laughs and shouts of ‘Gringos’! Potosi was one of the few places we were happy to leave.

We caught a bus to Sucre, approx 2-3 hours bus ride away, according to Loser Planet. We boarded the bus expecting a short bus journey and were confronted with the scariest bus journey of our lives! Leaving Potosi was easy enough, the bus taking a dirt road high up into the mountains of the Andes, (we had been forewarned to get down to the low altitude of Sucre, and we must go up to 5,000m above sea level before going down). Then, I began to notice something was not quite right. The bus turned off the dirt road crossing over river beds and streams and I realized we were in unchartered territory. This can hardly be the normal route between two of the bigger towns in Bolivia! As we began to circle around the winding roads up and down the high mountains of the Andes, a wave of panic came over me. I told myself that I was over reacting and thought I should relax, enjoy the adventure, this is how things are done in Bolivia and tried my best to calm down, as we teetered closer and closer to the edge of oblivion! As we careened around another corner, high in the mountains, we were brought to an abrupt halt. In front of us, a massive luxury style coach was dangerously positioned on a narrow corner trying desperately to get around it without falling down the Andean mountain. All the people on the coach had disembarked, leaving the bus driver to do the dirty work; they all proceeded to walk down the dangerous road, a much safer method of transport! Our bus was smaller, similar to a mini bus, but still too big for these narrow Andean roads. I had no idea, how the luxury coach in front of us was going to get around these narrow bends. We waited for the coach to make the treacherous turn, all the Bolivian people on our bus standing, staring out the window and I began to realize I was not over reacting. This wasn’t normal for them either! The coach slowly made its way round the corner and then it was our turn! Our bus followed and made it around also and we collectively breathed a sigh of relief, thinking we were near the end of our journey, as three hours had passed at this point. Little did we know, we weren’t even half way to Sucre! Our bus gradually wound down the mountain, behind the luxury coach that had to be extra careful taking each turn. At one point, the driver of the coach in front of us (who looked about 15 years old!) got out of his coach to tell our driver to overtake him. At this point, every Bolivian on the bus stood up and started shouting at the bus driver, trying to persuade him not to overtake the coach; it was too dangerous and too narrow, with steep ravines at either side of the bus. But the driver, with grim determination, slowly overtook the bus, while everyone held on to the seat in front of them with white knuckles. We made it! I thought, surely we must be near Sucre now? No, we had to endure another three hours of pure hell, winding up and down several more deadly Andean mountains. Welcome to Bolivia!

Finally, we made it to Sucre and if the town was smaller, I would have hugged it! Not only because it marked the end of a death defying bus journey, but the town is beautiful with whitewashed buildings, terracotta roofs, colonial charm and a warmer climate. Sucre is 2,000m above sea level, a welcome drop in altitude compared to Potosi. Since arriving in Bolivia, we have been eating like Kings. The food is so cheap and generally very good. We ate a three course meal in a cool, artsy style café that would set you back about 20 quid in Dublin for the equivalent of 3 euros. On our first night, still a bit shaken by our bus journey, we decided we deserved to get pissed on cheap Bolivian cocktails and beer.

We booked a horse riding trek on our second day. Horse riding, the ultimate hang over cure! Our guide took us out to the mountains nearby for a four hour trek, where we cantered and trotted across the breathtaking mountainous landscape. What was so treacherous the day before was so beautiful to us now! Our guide took us to the town of Yotalla, where we were met by the friendliest old woman, who took us into her home and fed us Chicha (an alcoholic corn based Bolivian drink - similar to cider) and some bread and cheese. She spoke to us in Quecha, which is the indigenous language of Bolivia. Thankfully, two Americans, who had previously worked in Bolivia, were on our trek and spoke excellent Quecha, so could translate for us! Our guide told us that this woman never married or had any children as she was the youngest in the family and an old Bolivian tradition states that the youngest in the family must never marry as they need to look after their parents in old age. This was so sad to hear, as we could tell that she loved nothing more than having people around.

While we were in Sucre, we reminisced about the Life Festival which was taking place in Ireland at the same time. For the first time we felt homesick, for our friends and the small, wonderful festival which we are staples of at this stage. We went out one night with our group from the Salt Flats tour and discovered our own festival in Sucre. As we walked down the street, towards another pub, we happened across a live brass band marching down the street, with hundreds of young people following the music and we decided to tag along. We grabbed hold of each other’s hands and weaved in and out of parade of people that marched down the street. We later learned that the reason for this mayhem was to welcome the new accountant students to the University of Sucre. Accountants know how to party, it seems, in Sucre!

Another notable event during our short stay here was a major protest that took to the streets. We came out of a café in the central plaza to the noise of gunshots in the distance and were wondering why everyone was just going about their day to day business so casually, oblivious to the fact that there were gunshots in hearing range. Becoming a little ill at ease, we could hear the sounds come closer to us, but we soon realised that they were in fact fireworks or flares to alert the people that a protest was passing through. The people held banners, but unfortunately my basic knowledge of the language could not assist in translating what the banners were in protest of. We later learned that the mayor of Sucre, having recently been elected, employed many of his relatives to sit in office with him and the people of Sucre were protesting because of this. Nepotism, in this day and age!

Sucre is famous for dinosaur tracks that were discovered in Fancesa’s cement quarry in 1998. We took the Dino Truck out to the famous cement quarry and were given a brief tour of how they remained preserved for millions of years. The surface that they had once walked on was part of the same prehistoric salt lake that we had visited in Uyuni, but over the years, as a result of tectonic movement of the plates, the Andes was formed which pushed up this particular flat piece of ground, which the dinosaurs had walked upon and this along with thousands of other strata formed the mountain, so the dinosaur tracks remained preserved inside this particular Andean mountain. As the builders took apart the mountain, to make cement, they stumbled across this discovery and since then it has become a major tourist and paleontological attraction. It was fascinating to see such unusual, massive footprints along the side of the mountain and we imagined there must be countless other examples of this hidden away in the Andean mountains that surrounded us.

The rest of our time in Sucre consisted of chilling out with cocktails, taking in the view from one of the highest lookout bars in the town, kicking back and relaxing and laughing with new friends we made during our travels.

Oh no, back up to the high altitude of the dizzying capital city of Bolivia - La Paz!

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Photos

Dinosaur footprints
discovered at Fancesca's cement quarry