Blogs from Chuquisaca Department, Bolivia, South America - page 33

We caught a flight from La Paz to Sucre on 26th August with the idea that we would spend some time doing more spanish lessons in Sucre. Becky and Tim were still there and we met with them. Sucre is an absolutely beautiful place. Very european looking and quite middle class for Bolivia. It houses one of the foremost universities in South America we were told. The majority of people are well dressed, the buildings are sparkling white (because there is a law which requires the buildings to be painted annually), all in all its beautiful. That is until you are unfortunate enough to catch someone pissing in the street! We saw quite alot of this. Men stand openly pissing into the road looking at you as you walk past, old ladies pull a Paula Radcliffe ... read more

we crossed over the border into a little border town which we cant remember the name!!! here we got into taxis and our guide told them not to take us over the railway tracks as he thought it was too dangerous, the driver agreed (after we walked away) they when we were in he took us that way anyway which Bryan really wasn´t happy about! in the town they were having a dispute over what their taxes are spent on so the route over the railway tracks avoided the picket line. the driver took us that way instead of just to the picket line which is what he was supposed to do, think he wanted more money but Bryan just hid in the hotel away from them!!!! Bryan had got us a room for a few ... read more

The rest of our time in Boliva involved alot of travelling but we stopped off in Sucre and Santa Cruz for a while!... read more

The city of Scure is nice: very much on the gringo trail - you spot lots of tourists trying their best not to look like tourists then you go to certain pubs and you could be in a pub in either England or the States. Some pubs actually advertise in the lobby of our hostel as the preferred gringo hangout! Granted we went there on Sunday during the race car rally and sure enough it was filled with non-locals watching the World Cup but the food was good. Orginally, we planned to take the train southward but we missed the weekly 315PM train because the laundry we turned in on Monday morning wasn't going to be ready on time! Ugh, the nice owner said it would be ready at 4PM which meant staying an extra night ... read more

Sucre is a delightful old university town; founded in 1538, it has retained much of its colonial charm thanks to numerous plazas surrounded by grand building painted in their original colonial white. It’s no surprise that the city was chosen as Bolivia’s constitutional capital. On my first afternoon in Sucre I jumped on the aptly named dino-bus, which ferries groups of tourists to a nearby archaeological site/quarry in a mock safari type vehicle. The site was created in the Cretaceous Period when a big swamp was frequented by huge numbers of dinosaurs whose muddy footprints were preserved, then fossilized in the soft algae ridden mud. The upshot of all this was an 85m high cliff covered with footprints of such famous dinosaurs as Velocoraptor and Brontosaurus; seeing the footprints of reptiles so long extinct was very ... read more