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Published: June 17th 2014
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We flew from Rio to Sucre via Sao Paulo & Santa Cruz, by the time we arrived we were happy to be hearing Spanish again and looking forward to having some lessons to help us improve our understanding.
We arrived at the Beehive hostel and were met by our friends, we previously met in El Chaltern, Cliff and Lorna. It was great to catch up and hear their stories from when we saw them last.
Sucre is a beautiful city with many white washed buildings and plazas. Sucre is where the declaration of independence was signed and is the capital of Bolivia (however the parliament is based in La Paz).
During our first weekend we did a mountain biking day trip in the surrounding area of Sucre. We jumped in the back of a ute with the bikes tied on the back and drove slightly out of town with the driver honking the horn each time we came up to an intersection. We unloaded everything after a short drive and took our bikes for a test drive, the back brake on Gary's bike was broken and the guide had no way to fix it so he gave his
own bike to Gary. Unfortunately this bike was a tad on the small side and the shocks were broken, so on the first bump, the front wheel locked and Gary went flying over the handle bar. Luckily he landed with grace so no damage was done.
After two weeks of Spanish classes in Sucre we decided that we were going to leave so went to get cash out of the ATM to pay our teachers only to discover insufficient funds. We knew we had money in the account so thought the bank had blocked Gary's card. We checked online and could see money in the account so I tried my card and received the same message. We went online again and strange amounts for online gambling websites had just started showing up. Gary called the bank and said there was fraud on our account and had his card cancelled, we assumed it was his card as I had hardly used mine. The next day Gary called the bank and asked them to confirm that it was his card that was being used, and as murphy's law would predict, it was my card, so that was also cancelled and we
organised for new cards to be sent to us in Sucre. The fraud team investigated our claim and found the details provided to the gambling websites were a London address and a name I had never heard of. They said my card may have been copied at anytime since it was issued but we believe it was copied the only time I used it in Brazil in a brach ATM. The fraud team quickly refunded the £850 taken.
We decided that as we would be waiting for new bankcards we would order new passports from New Zealand as Gary's passport only had one blank page left and both passports were due to expire in March and many countries require six months validity. We completed the forms online and uploaded our photos. In less than 48 hours I had confirmation that my passport was on its way to Sucre. Over the next week I followed my passport online as it went from NZ to Singapore, Germany - Frankfurt and Leipzig, Belgium, USA - Cincinnati and Miami and finally Santa Cruz in Bolivia. From here I was unable to track it any further as it was sent via normal post to
Sucre. Gary's passport left NZ a few days after mine but they both arrived together in Sucre.
At a similar time to when we were ordering new bank cards and passports our kiwi friends Deb & Nev arrived in Sucre. We previously met them in Puerto Madryn and then again on the Navimag ferry. They rented an apartment for a month so we caught up numerous times and were invited over for a lovely home cooked meal one evening.
We spent our weeks learning Spanish and in the afternoons I sometimes visited a museum with Deb. My favourite museum was the Indigenous Art museum with the different types of weaving from the areas around Sucre. I was amazed at the detail in the weaving and the huge amounts of time it takes to produce even a small piece.
We did a day trip into the surrounding area with a group of about 10 others mainly from our hostel. We headed west from Sucre and stopped in Chataquila where we visited a local church before starting down an old Inca pathway which gave us stunning views over the surrounding countryside. We arrived at Chaunaca for lunch before having
a swim in the river. Our last stop for the day was in Maragua, we visited a local house and met a young girl that was weaving in the local traditional style.
On May 14th it was Gary's birthday and around the same time there were three others from the hostel having birthdays. A group of about 20 people went out for dinner to celebrate the four birthdays. Two days later was Gary's actual birthday, with the help of a few others we organised a surprise party. We had salteñas (similar to empanadas), drinks and carrot cake before Gary was blindfolded and led outside to the piñata where he took great delight in smacking it open.
Each Sunday there is a market in a small town Tarabuco, approximately two hours from Sucre. People in the surrounding area visit each week to stock up on supplies and to sell products they have made or grown. Deb and I decided to visit one Sunday as we wanted to see the different products on sale and the locals in their traditional dress. The drive between Sucre and Tarabuco was lovely with the rolling hills and fantastic views. The market was smaller
than we expected but we enjoyed trying to get good photos of the locals in their traditional dress.
One of the regular activities organised by the hostel was Wally. It's a local Bolivian sport that is similar to volleyball but you play on a court similar to a squash court and can play off the walls and use any part of your body to hit the ball over the net. The hostel had a regular Sunday afternoon slot but we also booked the court at other times during the week.
Our bankcards finally arrived on the Friday morning of our sixth week in Sucre. We had no issues activating them and it was great to be finally debt free again.
Our last weekend coincided with Independence Day (May 25th) and a weekend of festivals, parades, music and celebrations. There were parades that lasted hours and hours on both Saturday and Sunday with many different groups of marching bands all playing similar songs. There was a chocolate festival with the opportunity to buy many different chocolate products and a choirzo festival which included a lunch of choirzo sausages and an afternoon of bands and dancing.
We left
Sucre on the Monday afternoon with a group of 10. We asked Sonya from the hostel to organise us a group transfer to Potosi. This was confirmed the day before but for some reason related to Monday's public holiday it didn't eventuate and we all rushed off to the bus station to catch the local bus. Our arrival at the bus station was well timed as we got the last 10 seats on the next bus to leave Sucre.
It was hard to say goodbye to Sucre and the Beehive as we had met some really great people and really enjoyed our stay.
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