Blogs from Chuquisaca Department, Bolivia, South America - page 15

Sucre has been slightly more lo key as we have been quite tired and thought we´d have a relaxing few day s in a city. Sucre is officially the capital in Bolivia apart from the fact that it comes second in every way to La Paz. We arrived quite late in the day and decided on a quick hostel. We found one close to the centre and went out for dinner in city. One of the things we had planned to do here was horse riding as we heard it was good around the city. Instead the next day we ended up booking a day of Rock CLimb in the mountains overlooking the city. I thought if I want to keep climbing mountains etc I should really have a basic grip of rock climbing. It really ... read more

This past weekend, Bolivia took the opportunity to celebrate Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day. Needless to say, everything was closed -- including a lot of transportation. Meaning I was stuck in Sucre, the judicial capital of Bolivia. I came to Sucre hoping to do some trekking in the surrounding valleys, but found that unlike the more touristy areas, the price is based on the number of people. And all the travelers I met in Sucre seemed to be more inclined to partying than hiking. On Saturday I took the "Dino Bus" up to the Crustaceous Park, which contains the alleged "longest track of dinosaur footprints in the world." It´s actually pretty cool (the tracks were made horizontally, but uplifting of the Andean plate has made them almost vertical), but felt more like Disneyland, ... read more

Hola Amigos and Amigas, Before I start I should note that all figures noted herein and in all future blogs are in Australian Dollars and certainly do not include GST! I will always report the figures as it will blow your mind as to how damn cheap it is over here! It is also worth me telling you that the national currency of Bolivia is "Bolivianos"- I could only wish for our currency to be called Australianos! How good would that be? We commenced our Sud American travels in Santa Cruz, Bolivia after 30 something hours of travel from Hamburg Germany. Our first flirt with Bolivian life was a 15 minute ($4.00 each) taxi ride from the airport to our chosen hostel in the south of the city. It was mental, no seat belts and seemingly ... read more

Our first impressions of Sucre as a pretty town were proven right. Apparently there is a local law that requires all buildings to be whitewashed once a year, and the local mayor owns a gardening store in town and is prone to giving herself a lot of business. The result is a town that seems very clean, bright and inviting. The town centre is also well laid out so we got our bearings fairly quickly. We arrived at our hostel in Sucre at 8am after the night bus. The owner kindly let us leave our luggage there until our room was ready. She also gave us a map of the town, a guidebook on Sucre and explained all of the main attractions. After a tour of the hostel we instantly decided to extend our stay by ... read more

After 20 hours on the Death Train we spent a few hours in Santa Cruz, a few hours was enough - not much to see or do. We then took an overnight bus to Sucre. Bolivian buses and roads are something to be experienced. The buses are very basic with no facilities, a bit of a challenge when the journeys are so long - in time if not distance. Once out of towns the roads are not much more than dirt tracks. So our journey of ~400km took 15 hours, about the same 30km/h average speed as the train !!!!! but it was cheap b$70 (US$10) per person. Our fellow passengers were all locals and an interesting bunch, the guy across the aisle smoked, spat, talked to himself, shouted and whistled at people we passed in ... read more