Sucre: Supreme Court and Dinosaur Tracks

Trip Start Dec 07, 2005

Trip End Apr 10, 2007

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Flag of Bolivia Sucre, Bolivia
Tuesday, April 25, 2006

on our first day in sucre, we took the �dino truck� (which is a dinosaur itself) our to the site with the largest collection of fossilized dinosaur tracks in the world. it�s a pretty impressive site; a prehistoric lakebed that was pushed nearly vertical when two techtonic plates colided and formed the andes millions of years ago. the wall was discovered in the �40s by quarry workers. today, a company is still excavating the surrounding area for limestone, and the wall is protected by UNESCO. i think the reason the company didn�t put up a fight for the wall is because it has a lot of magnesium, making it useless to them. the wall itself is soft, sandy material, and even the wind blows the surface away. this means that there are old fossils being eroded away and new ones appearing all the time. we saw some fossils that had only appeared 3 weeks before. apparently, we are among the last batches of tourists to be able to walk up close to the wall: they are building an observation post a couple hundred yards from the wall, and that�s as close as people will be able to get in the future

Thats us at the dino trails

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we�ve also spent some time walking around town. plaza 25 de mayo is especially nice. it�s surrounded by whitewashed buildings, including a cathedral and the casa de la libertad (house of liberty). sucre is the official capital of bolivia, and the supreme court is based here, housed in an impressive neoclassical building across from another pristine plaza. in fact, the plazas here are the most spotlessly manicured little parks we�ve seen on our trip; it looks like they imported some english gardeners.

the highlight of sucre so far, though, has been the markets. schoolkids are gathered around stands selling futbol trading cards and making trades all afternoon and all evening, while old women wearing traditional hats with long ribbons sell snacks next to them. you can also find food, bootleg movies and music, entire stands selling just hairclips and combs, and the fruits and vegetables market is incredible. it is full of stands selling produce fresh enough to make wholefoods jealous: lettuce, avocados, gigantic squashes, fat carrots, yucca, tomatoes, and all kinds of other roughage. there are also stands selling spices in bulk from burlap sacks, and there is also has a meat market where you can buy a whole chicken or cuts of beef. it all combines into quite the kaleidescope of colors and smells.

soon we are off to potosi (the highest city in the world) and the to the salt flats in uyuni (world�s largest). everything in bolivia seems to be the world�s highest this or the world�s highest that...oh, and there�s the world�s most dangerous road in La Paz. i always thought the world�s most dangerous road had to be in rhode island somewhere. yet another example of how this trip is broadening my perspective on the world.