Sucre

---

Luckily, Sucre was just a two hour drive from Potosí, so we took two taxis there rather than a local ´chicken bus´, so called because you are very likely to have a cage of chickens plonked on your lap! It was 20 Bolivianos more each (the equivalent of 2 quid), and with The Beast (my obese backpack) to contend with, taxis were welcome! Arriving in Sucre, we all breathed a sigh of relief. It was beautiful. A far cry from the dusty streets of Uyuni, and the chilly, narrow alleyways of Potosí, Sucre felt warm and welcoming! White buildings with terracotta roofs, green parks, and the lovely Plaza 25 de Mayo. Plus, nice cafés and bars, local fruit markets and snack stalls, to cater for the large student population in Sucre.

Can you tell I liked it? I am currently in an internet café in La Paz killing time before I head back there tonight! I can´t wait to go back, it is definitely my favourite place in Bolivia, I am really looking forward to having a good two and half weeks there to learn some more Spanish (they have cheap private Spanish lessons in Sucre), chill out in the park, and enjoy some decent coffee! Also, it is where Vicky (a girl who use to work at Trailfinders) currently resides, so it will be nice to catch up with someone from home, and hopefully she can show me some of the more local places to go!

On arriving in Sucre, we checked into our very lovely hotel! Which was most welcome, especially for me, travelling for 2 months only staying in budget hostels. Ensuite room with a really hot shower! A bed with crisp white sheets! A TV with 90 channels! I was in heaven. Then we went for lunch and I had an amazing coffee, after months of only Nescafé with hostel breakfasts, and my love affair with Sucre was cemented! I had a little wander around Sucre and immediately thought "I want to come back here" and there and then decided I would head back once my tour to La Paz was over and stay for a couple of weeks.

The food markets are great, amazing fruit stalls with the biggest pomegranates I´ve ever seen, and the meat section nearly made me throw up! Cow heads just laid out in the sun, all manner of insides on display, just imagine the smell! Having had enough of that, I headed up to Recoleta, a little plaza at the top of the hill, with James and Susie. There is a beautiful little hippy café up there with an amazing view over Sucre, so we stayed for a while just enjoying the sun and the delicious fruit juices. And I thought, ´this is what this is all about´, because it was so relaxing, I felt very much at peace with everything! Although that may have just been the joint the bunch of hippies next to us were smoking!

The following day we headed to see some dinosaur footprints just outside Sucre. To get there you have to go on the ´Dino Truck´, an open-air truck with a big dinosaur head on the front! Unluckily, being an open truck full of tourists, we were a target for water balloons (the Sucre Carnaval is this weekend, basically a big water fight, and it has a long build-up!). But the footprints were well worth a visit, on a big mountain-side, viewed via a platform, with very enjoyable dinosaur sounds piped loudly all around the park! Our guide was hugely enthusiastic, being a fan of giant hand gesticulations! On a serious note, it was very interesting, if you ever find yourself in Sucre, definitely worth a visit!

It was nice having a few days in Sucre, so me, James and Susie (I always seem to get along really well with couples! I have lost the ability to tell if I´m a gooseberry or not. They were talking about going up to Recoleta to watch the sunset together one afternoon, and I was like "I´ll come, that sounds lovely", not realising that might be a very romantic thing to do as a couple! Not so much if I´m there sat between them going "Soooooo, what you doing?" I decided to talk to my own boyfriend on Skype instead...!) decided to go for a bike/hike trip. It was a really great day, there was a German girl who joined us as well, and it was nice to do some exercise! The roads were pretty dangerous though, steep edges on dirt roads and having to dodge the smelly noisy trucks driving up the hill from the quarry below. But it was totally worth it to walk to the canyon. Normally you can swim there, but it had been raining heavily the night before so the water was very brown and muddy which was a shame. But on the way back up to the 4x4 which was picking us up, we came across a clear river running down to join the main one, which created little rock pools and had huge boulders perfect for sunbathing. We were able to have an hour here just splashing about and catching some rays - perfect!

And to end the perfect day, we had a lovely dinner at a French restaurant, followed by karaoke! And if you have never been to karaoke, Bolivia is the place to do it! The bar was packed full of old Bolivian men each trying to out-sing each other with big Spanish anthems, old love songs and absolutely nothing I recognised! It made for a funny evening, Spanish song after Spanish song, randomly interrupted by one of our 80s tunes, "I Think We´re Alone Now" or "I Will Survive" being belted out by this odd group of gringos in what was quite clearly a Bolivian karaoke bar!

So, I was sad to say farewell to Sucre, but happy in the knowledge I would be back here soon. From Sucre, we headed up to Cochabamba by overnight bus. This journey in itself deserves a separate blog. You will see what I mean...

---