Dawn blocades in Sucre
Trip Start
Aug 06, 2007
1
19
36
Trip End
Ongoing
Sucre,
Bolivia
Friday, September 7, 2007
So it was up to our feet - 20kg packs on our backs and with another friendly French couple we set off towards the square where we had planned to stay. The black smoke that was filling the air from the tyres that were burning at each intersection was thick and choking. It is hard to tell whether the protests were strictly non-violent and it was also quite disorientating when you have just arrived in a foreign city - so we decided to err on the cautious side.
After panting up hills for 45 mins with our packs - Paul and I decided the safest option was to walk into the first nice looking hotel.....we would be safe there
A dinosaur - its real! Honestly!
. Hehe. This was the perfect excuse for us to stay in a dated and tired (but cool) 80s four star hotel. We seemed to score it lucky with a penthouse type sweet which seemed like luxury compared to our normal accomodation! It atually had a shower that you wanted to stay in for hours and carpet, and cable! All extremely exciting for us! So after staying mainly indoors until the protests had died down, we enjoyed being able to go into Sucres town square the next morning. It is very pretty - a colonial white city - a bit like Arequipa in Peru. The people here are vastly different from in La Paz - a lot more middle class - and there are many students as it is a university city.
I must say that EVERYONE here gets so into protesting. It is encouraged. So whenever there is an opportunity you grab your flag and join the march! This protest was that the local people wanted Sucre to become the official capital of Bolivia - and well - It wasnt hard to agree with that after coming straight from La Paz to lovely little Sucre!
The next morning Paul and I took the Dinasour bus out to see some fossilised dinosaur footprints. It was amazing that these fossils (that were made from the bed of a lake being forced up vertically due to techtonic plate movement) still had trucks from the cement factory next door working all around it - Im sure it would be far better protected in any other country - and this was apparently the largest area of fossilised Dinosaur footprints in the world! They had made a kind of tourist Dinasour park and viewing area - with life sized Dinasour replicas - which was actually very tastefully done and not too cheesy at all. Quite enjoyable :)
Paul and I spent the rest of the day wandering and enjoying the main square in the Sucre sun - and preparing ourselves for tomorrows 8am-6pm bus journey to Uyuni. Not looking forward to leaving our lovely 80s pad in Sucre - thats for sure! But onwards and upwards!
