"La ciudad blanca" - and it really is

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- FOOD & DRINK: Salteña's (like empañadas but tastier), pastry covered in syrup, alpaca (yuk), the loveliest bananas and oranges.
Freshly squeezed OJ stalls, Chuflay cocktail (local spirit Singani with Sprite), chicha (alcoholic wheat drink - an acquired taste).
Very difficult to find a typical Bolivian restaurant amongst the tourist places.

- PEOPLE: SO very friendly and laid back, many in traditional dress, brightly coloured shawls used to carry the cutest babies on their backs, LOVELY Spanish teacher, knowledgeable 13yr old cemetry guide, sweet locals, shoe shine boys, patient salsa teacher, new friends!

- AREA: By far my favourite place so far. I LOVE IT (as you will tell from the length and detail of this entry!). White washed buildings set amongst stunning mountainous backdrop, pretty plaza, well kept park, peaceful view point overlooking it all. VERY cheap.

- THINGS TO DO: Very interesting museums on the history of Bolivia's struggle for independence and the tradition of weaving (see history lesson below). Excellent Spanish lessons, free salsa lesson, Dino truck tour to see dinosaur footprints, Tarabuco Sunday market (not so touristy), horrible nightclubs, great theatre performance, good shops, CHILLING.

- WEATHER: Hot and sunny in the day but pretty cold at night (and don't expect heating)!


Tue 17th May: When I woke from the overnight bus, I was gutted to see I'd missed the sunrise but amazed to see the beautiful view of a geyser amongst the stunning Andes. We were travelling on the narrowest, windiest roads - somehow I wasn't scared by the amount of crosses and flowers we passed.

The hostel I found was ok. At least I had a room to myself even it was a very cold one! Sucre is 2,800 metres high so I guess I'm gonna feel the cold a bit more here. After a freezing cold shower, which is also located outside (not liking this cold malarkey), I had a walk around the city. It is relaxed and laid back and has a very nice feel to it.

The Plaza is pretty with lots of trees but unfortunately also lots of shoe shine boys and old men in traditional dress who hassle you to death until you take a photo of them (for a price of course). The old man didn't seem impressed that I asked him to split the money with the shoe shine boy I'd allowed to be in the photo (after all, he could hardly shine my flip flops).

Motivated by the fact that I plan to be in Sucre for at least a few days, the sun, the fact that it's 'exam time' May and I STILL get restless at this time of year and the friendliness of the locals I can't communicate with properly, I took a Spanish lesson. Only one hour as the school I tried to enrol with were not sure they had space so I had a lesson with the hostel man instead. It was quite basic and slow moving though and I have a strong (and possibly mad) urge to learn at a fast and furious pace. I don't think the expectations I've placed on myself to be completely fluent in a few days are too high do you?!

I had a crap dinner of luke warm lasagne heated up in a tin foil dish (they couldn't even be bothered to move it from the tin foil onto the plate and pretend it was freshly cooked) and then suddenly had big pangs of missing home.
To cheer myself up, I joined the others at the hostel for a few Singani's (Bolivian spirit) and sprite (the combination makes a cocktail called Chuflay and is very nice). This did the job nicely and we went into town for another drink. Bibliocafe where we ended up is so made for the tourists and there were no locals at all in there but it was quite chilled out.


Wed 18th: I slept well and surprisingly wasn't cold. Got woken by a phone call from the Spanish school saying there was room for me to take lessons and could I go there for a test. Thank god the shower was hot and powerful today as it woke me up. After gulping breakfast, I legged it to the school for the test. My exam urge faded fast as I struggled to do the verbal AND oral test with a slight hangover. Lessons start this afternoon.

I discovered more of the city, especially why they call it 'La Ciudad Blanca de las Americas'. Practically all of the buildings are white washed and apparently regulation says they have to be repainted every year. It makes for a very pretty site, especially the square where the big theatre is. White buildings, houses with red roofs, all set amongst a backdrop of the Andes with a blazing hot sun. Perfect - I've fallen in love with the place.

The park is very well kept and I sampled some street food, confident that my stomach can take the pace. A very tasty salteña - bit like an empañada but has a stronger taste and these puff pastry type things covered in syrup. There are stacks of stalls selling the nicest bananas and oranges - even though they don't look too nice on the outside and also stalls selling freshly squeezed orange juice.

After all this lovely street food I was ready for the first of my three 4 hour long lessons with Carla. She is so very nice, friendly and doesn't speak much English so that forces me to try my hardest at Spanish. Just what I need.
4 hours is very intense hungry work though and my eyes were bigger than my belly when I ordered pizza which I could only eat half of. Luckily I could take the rest away so an old man wandering the streets looking like he needed a good feed got the rest.


Thur 19th: I spent the morning in the Casa de la Libertad - an interesting museum with tour guides to explain Bolivian history. The museum was based on Bolivia's struggle for independence from the Spanish, which they eventually got in 1825 after 16 years of bloody battles and lost lives, with the Spanish using guns and the indigenous groups only using big sticks. The act of independence was signed here.

The Cholas (women who wear the big skirts (polleras) and bowler hats balanced on top of their heads) got the big skirt idea from the Spanish apparently who used to wear similar but longer skirts. As I strongly suspected seeing only older women and small kids wearing this dress, the tradition may well die in the future. The teenagers and younger women wear jeans etc (who can blame them - the traditional look ain't the most flattering!) but also it's much more expensive to buy the traditional costume. Especially for the groups that wear weavings.

There´s a lot of discrimination, even today, and even between all the different indigenous groups. But at least the indig. groups are treated more equally now since the Indian Vice President went with his whole family wearing traditional dress to a posh restaurant where previously women wearing the big skirts were not served.

The Bolivian flag gets its colours from red standing for blood lost in the fight for independence, yellow meaning the silver and tin supplies in Bolivia and green standing for agriculture and the Amazon. The national flower of Bolivia has the same colours.

Sucre is the official capital of Bolivia even thought the government moved seat to La Paz after silver became less important than tin and therefore Sucre was less attractive. Santa Cruz is now the city that makes the most money and problems could occur in the future due to them wanting the power to themselves and not sharing with the rest of Bolivia. This is unfortunate as Bolivia has enough problems with the military always being in power and the indig. groups striking, without the cities fighting against each other.

History lesson over, the Spanish lesson was good but exhausting!


Fri 20th: I learnt even more about Bolivian history by visiting Museo de Arte Indigena. Amongst all the many indig. groups who have their own weaving patterns, the museum only displays the work of the Quechuan Jalq'a and the Tarabuqueños groups. The weaving tradition was starting to fade until this project was started to help revive it. The project gradually gained the trust of a handful of weavers. Word spread and now hundreds of weavers are involved in the project. Male weavers are also now involved and have developed new styles based on original weavings.

The weavers perform 'good luck' ceremonies before the weaving begins which involve hitting the balls of wool with stones, wishing for the wool to last a long time and giving gifts virgin rocks. Yes, sounds strange and indeed is. A rock becomes a special 'virgin' rock if it attracts attention with its formation, position, colour when someone is walking past it. A virgin face is then painted onto it and it's worshipped! The gifts given to it include cigarettes, coca leaves, alcohol, chocolate, colour paper - all presented on a llama foetus. Nice. The whole weaving process is incredibly spiritual. 2 women were weaving in the museum - they only do 7cm a day and it takes 2 months to complete a weaving. They are so fast and the weaving is SO detailed, I was fascinated and bought a Jalq'a one (all Jalq'a weavings are red and black with fantasy animals and stories told).
The museum also covers traditional dance and music and is well worth the small entrance fee.

I still had time before my Spanish lesson so walked up to the Mirador where the views of the whole of Sucre are stunning. The climb is a steep one but worth it and it's very peaceful up there with a plaza containing the Recoleta convent.

After lots of searching, I found a traditional Bolivian restaurant rather than a touristy one and ate with the locals.

My final Spanish lesson left me with wrist ache as she was determined to pump as many verb forms into me as possible. But she allowed me a bit of break when she took me to the Recoleta cemetry where poor children give guided tours. The 13yr old boy that gave my tour was so knowledgeable and spoke slowly and clearly enough that Carla didn't have to interrupt him too much.
I was sad to finish the lessons as Carla was SUCH a good teacher and we got on really well.

The school offers free courses after the lessons, so I decided to give salsa dancing a go. Thank god all of us in the group were at the same level (non existent) - except for my partner who took it very seriously and had the hip movement down to a fine art. Don't think he was impressed with my more relaxed approach to the lesson - I'm British after all, did he REALLY expect me to know how to move my hips?!

Anyway, we had great fun and I made friends with 2 twin sisters from Israel who were lovely. We all decided to go for drinks after and had heard about a Bolivian party that was taking place which sounded good. The salsa teacher came with us and was very amused at our fear when a big protest group came marching down the road directly towards us, shouting loudly and struggling with the police. It was only after they passed he informed us they were a theatre group!

The Bolivian party was very tame with everyone sat around a big square where local bands performed traditional songs. A few people danced but the dances aren't the most strenuous - luckily for us as after we'd sampled chicha which is a wheat based drink that I liked but no-one else did (the one voucher we each bought bought us a whole bowl of the stuff, not just one glass) and various other typical Bolivian drinks, we were up for practicing our dance moves. I really enjoyed the event and was surprised at how local it was with hardly any tourists there.


Sat 21st: Sucre is starting to feel like home as I bumped into Nira and Shira (the twins) and another bloke from last night as I was wandering around.

I decided to do the 'Dino truck' tour even though I suspected it would be very tacky. Which it was. But entertaining at the same time. The live cement works near to Sucre discovered dinousaur footprints in the walls of the mountains 10 years ago. Since then, some have been lost as the soft wall crumbles away, but others are being discovered all the time. The tour started with the woman showing little toy dinosaurs sat around a pool of water (hysterical) and then she walked us along the wall, flashing a mirror against it to show us the trails. There were STACKS of them and some of them were so clear. We saw where a mother and baby had walked alongside, where 3 toed and 4 toed dinosaurs had walked and where dinosaurs had ran (the claw marks were deep). Amazing but I was shocked that the site has not been protected and conserved. We were able to walk right up to the wall and touch the footprints. I´m sure in 10 years time it'll be a different story as they start to cash in on the tourism more.

I had lunch in the dreaded touristy Joyride cafe where the food was actually really nice and dinner in a lovely little Italian (pasta with vodka sauce - yum) and then I met Nira and Shira. We went to the Salfari bar which is so small and sweet with low light and nice locals (although I felt like their mother as they were all only 21). They took us to a club which was HORRIBLE. I knew there was a reason I haven't been to many clubs on this trip - sleazy British men pulling all the Bolivian women who didn't look at all impressed but were going with it anyway for the rich, European factor. So sad to see. The tunes were cheesy, it was a total meat market and I hated it. My early nights with a good book are far more preferable!


Sun 22nd: After only about 3 hours sleep, I got up early to take a tour to Tarabuco market. Here I discovered that I totally made the right decision to do this trip completely alone and not with a tour group as I had originally been contemplating. 16 people on the bus were part of Toucan tours and they were all glued together like sheep. The 2 old men on the tour (the rest seemed to be straight out of uni) told me how little time they had in each place before being shifted onto the next. They don't get to explore much on their own at all and all seem scared to walk off unless the others are all with them. SO glad I didn't go with it.

The market was not nearly as tacky and touristy as I was expecting and it was full of great present ideas. I'd stupidly gone without a fleece and was FREEZING so my first purchase was a nice warm jumper! There was a great food section which was so full of colour with the local women carrying food and babies on their backs in brightly coloured shawls. Me and this girl I started chatting to decided to risk the local food in the market for lunch. I think the meat was alpaca - whatever, it was horrible!

In the evening, Nira, Shira and I had an evening of culture instead of nasty clubbing. We went to the theatre where lots of different Bolivian bands performed traditional dance in many bright outfits. We had a box to ourselves (from which we could actually see) and it was really fantastic. The crowd was a mix of families and older people, with us being the only non Bolivians! To finish the perfect evening, we went for a drink at the Salfari again and then I had to say more sad goodbyes.

I am SOOO tempted to stay in Sucre, especially as it's 'Sucre Day' on Wednesday, where the president arrives and many fiestas take place. But I know that I'll just stay forever if I do as I love it so much. Loads of people here have been here a lot longer than they intended and I don't want to fall into the trap. Tough decision though.


Mon 23rd: Made the most of my last morning in Sucre by shopping and then sending a big package back to the UK (the post office man is VERY helpful). I was really sad to leave and nearly stayed as the bus didn't turn up!

Thank god the bus terminal staff, along with the police were all helpful and managed to put me on another bus. There are so many problems in Bolivia at the moment with protests, road blockades, tear gas and dynamite being thrown, that I didn't know if I'd get into Potosì ok.
Most of the problems are in La Paz which is impossible to enter at the moment but small towns have also had blockades. The indigenous groups want the government to demand more money for their exports of natural gas but the president is trapped and can only demand so much. He's tried to resign 3 times but isn't allowed! So it's political unrest galore.
A bit scary when you hear some travellers' stories, but it's hard to know what to believe as I'm sure Chinese whispers is the root of most of the fear.

Anyway, maybe as a result of this, the bus was heaving and I had to have my rucksack by my feet. The locals PACKED on, my MP3 battery died, the bus was uncomfortable, and as it climbed higher into the Andes, freezing. I also started to get headaches due to the high altitude. Why didn't I stay in Sucre?!!!

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