Sucre, Bolivia

Day 57

From Potosi we planned on getting a bus to Sucre which is about 3 hours. We went to the bus terminal that morning and there were a lot of people asking us if we wanted to go to Uyuni or La Paz and when we said Sucre they just pointed off behind the building. A bit confused we followed the direction they pointed which led us to a group of taxi drivers all speaking Spanish and saying Sucre and trying to get us to get into their taxi’s. I found it all very overwhelming and basically ran away. We still couldn’t figure out the bus situation so Justin went back to the pack of taxi driver’s and they said a taxi to our hostel in Sucre would be 40 bolivianos ($8 AUD) each so we decided to just do it. We had to wait a little as they tried to fill the other two seats of the car; and eventually they found one other person who also only spoke Spanish.

Our driver wasn’t the safest (he overtook on blind corners and his speedo didn’t work) but we made it 🙂 The drive was very pretty with many mountains, rocks and rolling hills. We made it to Sucre round 1pm and checked into our hostel. The hostel is very pretty with a beautiful courtyard which will be great to hang out in as were are here for 5 nights. Our first impression of the town is it is super cute, all the buildings are white with orange terracotta tiled roofs.

We went and had lunch at a vego cafe because thinking of meat after those tongues still makes me feel sick. The cafe also ran a walking tour at 3pm. The tour honestly wasn’t that great but that was mostly due to the guide we had. She wasn’t very good at explaining things so we plan to go to a museum at some point in our stay here. For example, she told us there were 17 churches in the main city area and they used to be all connected via tunnels, Justin asked “why are they all connected?” she said “so the priests could run away” but provided not detail on who or what they were running from! We did get to do a big walk of the city which helped get our bearings sorted. What we did find out was I am really good a at a coin toss frog game 🙂

She took us through the Central market which sells everything from fruit, veggies, meat, phones, snacks, household products, wool to handicrafts and more. She also took us into a random little pub, I am sure there is some historical significance to the place we were in, but because she didn’t explain things well, we felt like we were about to get robbed by 8 old Bolivian guys in the corner drinking. One of the guys had a bag of cocaine as well, he was like 70 years old! We finished at a view point in the Recoleta area and watched the sunset which was really nice.

Our hostel told us about free Salsa classes at a restaurant so we headed there for dinner and then stayed for the Salsa class at 9:30. We now like to call Salsa ‘Sauce’, as once when I was on a Spanish dance website google translated it into English as ‘Sauce’ which we thought was funny. Free Sauce classes! The class was fun and was actually a bit of a work out! We aren’t great but we learnt some basic moves. After the class the area turned into a night club, Justin loved this.. just joking. We had a quick dance and then were out of there fairly quickly 🙂

Day 58

Sucre is a lovely town that many travellers come to and spend a few weeks and mostly will take a Spanish lessons as they are quite cheap here. We didn’t plan the timing of our stay very well (arrived on a Thursday and leave on a Tuesday) so we can’t do a weeks worth of lessons which all start on a Monday. So we mostly plan on just hanging out at cafes, reading books and relaxing. Today thats who we did. In the evening we went to a cafe inside the bell tower of a church and had some wine while the sunset, pretty 🙂

Vino isn’t as cheap here as Chile which is outrageous!

Day 59

More chilling. We tried to go to another free Sauce class at 3pm but when we got there the place was closed. A french girl from our hostel was also waiting with us to do the class. Not sure why it wasn’t on.. oh well. I did some Yoga instead in the courtyard.

We had an explore of the cemetery which was more like a park, probably the most well looked after and green cemetery I have ever seen.

Justin spent over 4 hours in cafes today, I think he is happy he found coffee that is almost as good as Australia’s! And at half the price.

Day 60

I woke early and did some yoga in the court yard 🙂

We then had breaky and caught the public bus to a small town called Tarabuco (around 65 km southeast of Sucre) to go the the markets they have there every Sunday. We did a little research on how to get there online but when we got to the location we thought these public shuttle buses were going to leave from we were a bit confused. We eventually worked out that the small (14 person) buses would leave once each full and cost 10 bolivianos each ($2 AUD) for the 1-2 hr drive to Tarabuco.

From a quick google, Tarabuco is famous for the Sunday markets and the unique Yampara culture. Despite the large amount of tourist that go here each weekend the market is still largely full of local Bolivians looking to sell their handicrafts or purchase goods.

When we arrived we walked around the were stalls lining the streets, selling textiles, handicrafts as well as everyday items and clothing. The Bolivian locals on the streets, at the stalls and shopping were wearing a great mix of traditional dress styles. The range of hats the men and women were wearing was very impressive. I got talked into buying a bracelet off a Bolivian lady who basically just put it on my wrist. I then used this to tell all the other Bolivian ladies trying to sell me the same thing that I didn’t need anymore bracelets.

Day 61

Being a Monday most things are closed so we just ate and relaxed on repeat. I fit in a Yoga class to make myself feel better about not doing much 🙂 We also went to the Central market because I wanted a fresh juice off one of the ladies there. They all try and get your attention to get you buy a juice off them so it made me feel bad when I could only pick one. I got orange and strawberries it was delicious 🙂 It was fun to people watch from the stools in front of the stalls also.

Justin went for a run, he didn’t go very far because he got tired. He is blaming the high altitude but it probably has something to do with the 3 coffees, pizza & beers each day.

Day 62

Our last day in Sucre. Again we took it easy, I woke up and did some Yoga in the courtyard, we packed our bags, checked out and went to breakfast. After breakfast we went to the central market again to get me a delish juice. I went to the same lady as the day before because she was nice. On the way through we walked through the meat section and I swear I saw a bunch of dead giant condor heads and that made me feel sick again.

In the afternoon we visited the museum at the Casa De La Libertad (the Freedom House). We had a tour in English and the lady talked us through a lot of Bolivian political history but it was all very confusing and a bit of information overload. Hopefully when we are in La Paz and do a few tours more of this information will sink in. A few fun facts we do remember are:

• Prior to independence (1825) Bolivia was known as High Peru
• Bolivia has had many periods of politic and economic instability. During these periods parts of Bolivia were conquered by Chile, Brazil and Paraguay which meant the loss of a few provinces making Bolivia a land locked country. There are 10 stars on the Bolivian coat of arms representing the provinces, but Bolivia only has 9 provinces the 10th represent the land they lost to Chile.
• And yeah thats pretty much it for now.. sorry!

We then had dinner and went back to our hostel to get our bags and prep for our 12 hour night bus to La Paz.

More photos are here.