Sucre
Trip Start
Apr 05, 2008
1
77
102
Trip End
Mar 20, 2009
After a relatively comfortable overnight bus from La Paz to Sucre (well Gareth had some old bat carrying a few extra pounds trying to pummel his legs by forcing her chair further back than was possible, so then he spent the journey kicking the back of her chair, sound familiar Glenys?) we arrived into Sucre early on a Sunday morning. In need of a coffee it was a struggle to find anything that was open before 12pm, actually it was a struggle to find anything open on a Sunday at all. We stumbled across a bar that probably hadn't closed from the previous night and ordered coffees which were pretty unpalatable. Sucre used to be Bolivia's capital city and is now a monument to the colonial Spanish aristocracy way of life. There are some incredible buildings around the main square and occasionally you stumble across other hidden gems still in relatively good condition around the city. Not a whole lot to see or do in Sucre so we decided to check out the city's most boasted attraction, Cal Ork'o, where dinosaur footprints have been found and identified as authentic in part of the cement factory. Not expecting much we were incredibly impressed. The footprints were discovered about 25 years ago when the factory was removing layers from the hill and came across these footprints. There are over 5,000 tracks spanning an area of 30,000 meters. Erosion has diminished many but some are still clearly visible. They identified three types of dinosaurs that were believed to reside mostly in Argentina and had passed through perhaps for water. We wondered how the dinosaurs had managed to walk down this sharp hill face only to have it explained that due to the tectonic movements this area was originally flat with a lake. It was incredible to learn how the landscape how changed so much over time and that the bodies of water once covering this area now only remained as Lake Titicaca (water which became trapped) whilst the rest had drained to the flattest region of Bolivia forming what is now known as the salt flats. Cities always look better from above so after returning to the city center we ventured up the hill to enjoy lunch with stunning views over Sucre and finished off our time here at the local cinema prepared to watch anything in English with hot popcorn.
