Sucre - capital of Bolivia & what a contrast!
Trip Start
Jun 01, 2008
1
20
22
Trip End
Jul 27, 2008
Sucre,
Bolivia
Monday, July 21, 2008
Well, we´ve moved on from Potosi and made it into Sucre after a 3 hour bus journey - no strikes, no road blocks etc which was pretty lucky!
Just driving into Sucre the difference in the city is just amazing. You can feel the wealth as opposed to everywhere else we´ve been in Bolivia. Sucre is the offical capital of Bolivia although La Paz is technically bigger and has more industry. There seems to be a bit of rivalry between the two cities. The nice thing about Sucre is that is situated at a much lower altitude. Therefore, it seems positively tropical in comparison with La Paz and everywhere else we´ve been in Bolivia. The buildings are stunning - huge, Spanish derived architecture everywhere - making the city really pretty. The apparent wealth doesn´t stop the plethora of beggars hanging around the streets though (particularly next to the ATM machines - funny about that!)
Cathedral in Sucre
.The hotel we´´re staying at is lovely - in an old Spanish colonial homestead. Very flash! The showers are hot and there is pressure - what a bonus!! Anyway, we enjoyed a pizza and bottle of wine in a little local pizza place which was fantastic. Best pizza we´ve had in SA which is saying something because there often hasn´t been anything else for vegetarians to eat on the menu - we´ve had our fair share of pizza over the last couple of months! We´ve ditched the rest of the group - not interested in drinking, partying and swearing lots..........!
Next day we booked in for a mountain bike ride with Joyride - a local company. Sounded promising - except they kept trying to tell us that the downhill ride was too hard and should we really be doing it. Not sure what it was - the fact that we are female or maybe because we are a bit older than the rest of the group. Anyway, we finally convinced them that we were up to it and the two of us and 4 others from our group hit the trail.
To sum up the ride we could say it was .......interesting.....! One of our group, Andy, had a pedal fall off in the first 3 minutes of the trip. An auspicious start to say the least
Check these seats out! Tourist bus in Sucre.
. Nic had a puncture 2 minutes later....! This meant that the guide had to donate his bike to Andy and stay in the support car for the rest of the day. We had no guide, we had no guidelines (and yes, again we´re talking 100m cliff dropoffs...nothing major!). Anyway, we all survived. The youngsters in our group kept saying how fast the oldies were going (much to their embarrassment) but it was all good fun.On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a little town not far from Sucre for some ´refreshments´. We stopped at this dodgy looking doorway and followed our guide inside to what appeared to be a local Bolivian ´´bar´´. Here we met this amazing woman who was knee high to a grasshopper (no kidding she came up to Pam´s waist) who proceeded to ply us with chicha - an alcholic drink made from fermented corn and other interesting ingredients! It was totally bizarre but good fun!!
Next day we cruised around, had a look at the ASUR textile museum which was really interesting as well as, of course, the local markets. Had a couple of crappy meals, one with the group and that was about it!
Tomorrow we fly back to La Paz with 4 others from the group who are also finishing there. The rest of the group is continuing on to Rio - lucky buggers!
Anyway, next stop La Paz for the final days of our journey.
Ciao for now!
nic & Pam
