Real Audiencia Sucre

... padlock for the door. I promptly managed to break it, the top round part of the lock came off of the bottom square bit. Felipe tried to fix it, with the result that when the key was turned, the top round part when shooting across the room with a springing sound. Fortunately he found this as hilarious as we did. Eventually we decided it worked just fine, you just had to be ready to catch the top bit as it went flying. (After a day or so, Toni managed ...

... instapten ontdekten we dat de taxi een disco-taxi was. De vloermatten waren van geribbeld goud, er hingen twee discoballen aan het plafond en toen de auto begon te rijden bleken er knipperende lichtjes tussen ons voeteneinde en rondom het achterraam verstopt te zijn. De chauffeur had een verzamel CD met Europese disco hits uit de jaren 80 opgezet, en de lampjes knipperde met het ritme mee van de muziek. Op het moment dat hij SMS-end een ...

... to La Paz which is the capital and apparently a very cool city, potentially a great place to spend my birthday this Saturday. Then we spent the afternoon in the cinema, of course, some spy flick with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. Was quite good but apparently in Bolivia the cinema is the place where teenagers go to make out and be a general nuisance so I now know how to say "shut the f### up!" in Spanish. Had a relaxing evening before catching up on some much needed sleep.

Next ...

Took day bus from Potosi to Sucre. Beautiful ride along green valleys and mountain passes.

Arrived in Sucre, walked to al centro...ended up what seemed like 7 miles.

Most beautified city we have encountered by far in Bolivia. Whitewashed historic buildings line the street, flowers, manicured grass. Was the first Spanish Colony, and de-facto capital with La Paz. The buildings/architecture surrounding downtown are largely impressive.
Sucre, Chuquisaca, Bolivia lexicon.

... are happy to be reacquainted with him! We continued our wanderings and came across a mini Eiffel tower which was quite strange in a city in the middle of Bolivia!

All in all we had a wonderful time in Sucre, really relaxing which was much needed as me and Eugene seem to be suffering from a never ending cold at the moment! We headed on an overnight bus heading to La Paz and then onto Sorata to start our biking adventure!

xx

... I was feeling pretty tired.

August 25
Woke up feeling like I had carbon monoxide poisoning; I had a hideous headache and felt all lethargic for no apparent reason. I crossed the road to the market once IŽd got ready and got another outrageous fruit salad from Granny Fruit-Salad, who was understandably overjoyed at my promised return. After this I went to the bus ticket agency IŽd been to with the girls two days previously. The girl on the desk was well-meaning but a bit of a retard ...

... seen so far on my travels. On arrival, and after weŽd checked into our room, which delightfully even had a wardrobe and bedside tables with little lights, we went out in search of dinner. We settled on a place with a view out over the plaza, which looks really pretty at night, especially the Cathedral. After our meal, we went to a Dutch-run bar down the road and drank too much, had a silly argument, made up afterwards then drank too much more!

... by the Spaniards, considering this wonder they had been able to build.
Near Machu Picchu, you do the necessary stop-over at Cusco, the former capital of the 'Inca's'. A beautiful town on the first day, but one you get sick of rather quickly, as on every street corner people call you and try to sell you a hot stone massage or a tour of several days, calling you 'my friend'. No gracias, amigo. But I did get to check out highest Irish Pub in the ...

... middle, with a little cheese, avocado, and tomato, I think it might have been one of the most tasty lunches I have had on a hiking trip. The hike itself was beautiful, it started out on the other side of this huge mountain range west of Sucre, it followed a road through some mountains into a crater, which was absolutely spectacular, the rocks surrounding the crater had really well defined layering patterns and the whole crater had just a very strange ...

... for having the most inhospitable mining conditions known to man. Apparently our little minibus was going no further and we were getting a transfer to another company to take us to Sucre. A transfer which would be 3 hours of excruciating noise, smells and touching (I'm not big on touching).



The first half of the trip wasn't all that bad, except for the fact that us 6ft 3 gringos were given the seats right at the front, which meant that anytime anyone opened the ...