SUCRE
After our experience on the bus from Lima to Cusco, we were a little nervous of taking another long bus ride from La Paz to Sucre. But we were advised on the most reputable company for booking our tickets and were even more reassured by the video that played over and over again once we were on board, boasting of the regular mechanical checks, the experience of the drivers (although film of them crossing themselves was slightly worrying) etc. etc. Sadly we were misled - the transmission played up throughout the long hours climbing up and down mountains, involving regular top-ups of oil. The Bolivian passengers regularly got off the bus to rant at the driver for taking such an un-roadworthy vehicle onto the road, but eventually we limped into Sucre. As we left the bus we noticed a pile of coca leaves around the driver’s seat - no co-drivers on long distance Bolivian buses, just plenty of coca to chew to stay awake!
Ed and I quickly fell in love with Sucre - the ‘white city’ and former capital of Bolivia. It was large enough to have plenty of life but small enough to be intimate and full of character. The market was amazing - full of every fruit on the planet, many of which we had never seen before and testament to Bolivia experiencing every possible climate in its various regions. We would go every day for a fruit shake or a bowl of fruit salad, neither costing more than 50c US. There were rows of cakes, sacks of potatoes, herbs and spices, meat, local cheeses to name but a few on the ground floor, upstairs were food stalls selling local dishes for next to nothing.
The main plaza was always filled with slices of life, the blind man who sat patiently until someone came and said a prayer for him or helped him to where he wanted to go; the shoe-shine boys, some as young as four, who all wanted to learn English so they could be tour guides when they grew up, lying through their teeth about the truth of their lives because all they knew was that lying got them what they wanted. They talked of living on a farm outside the city, although this was never the case and many of their parents were alcoholics or worse.
We stayed in a hostel in a colonial building with a wonderful sunny courtyard for two weeks, attending Spanish school every morning. The third week Ed wanted to move on to visit Potosi, the mining town that had produced so much silver from before the Spanish invasion hundreds of years ago. Standing 4,200 metres above sea level I was reluctant to repeat my experiences in Cuzco with altitude sickness, so I stayed on for an extra week of Spanish school, moving in with a Bolivian family. I had a great time with the family - Freddy Sr. - a gynaecologist, his wife Delfina - a former Dean of a university in Sucre, and their son Freddy Jr., a lawyer. Breakfasts were fruit feasts and the lunches were equally bountiful. Three blocks north of their house was a high plaza containing Café Mirador, with spectacular views over the city where I did my homework.
I had heard from other students that the Dinosaur Park just outside Sucre was worth a visit. Situated next to a cement quarry, dinosaur footprints were discovered by workers cleaning off moss before dynamiting the rock face. Sucre had originally been a lake, and the dinosaurs came to drink water, leaving their footprints in the mud. Seismic movement had forced the flat shores of the lake up to a vertical position, and it was quite impressive to see evidence of these ancient creatures.
It was time to join Ed in Potosi, so I said farewell to all the amazing people I had met in Sucre, and promised to return one day.
Later in the week two further guests came to stay with the family, Robert and his wife Daisy from Ecuador - travel writers who were updating the latest edition of the Footprints guide to Bolivia. We took a bus together to the Sunday market in the neighbouring village of Tarabuco, where the indigenous people still come to market on their donkeys, and make weekly phone calls to their loved ones from the call shop. Tarabuco itself was pretty remote, with very limited facilities and one could only imagine how isolated their villages were. It was hard to take photos as the people are very shy, but I managed to bribe one of the women to pose for me. And, of course, the donkeys didn’t have a problem with my intruding camera. Daisy bought some lupin seeds that had been washed in a flowing stream for two days to get rid of their bitterness, and she made a delicious Equadorian cerviche back at the house for us to share (see food photo in Sucre post).
