City Tour of Sucre
My guide Karem (Yes, that is an M and not an N for some strange reason) returned to pick me up for my full day city tour. (By the way, Jesuralem is spelt Jesuralen ! Go figure)We started off by going to La Recoleta, which is located on a hill near the outskirts of the city. There we visited El Convento & Museo de la Recoleta, as well as the Plaza and the Mirador. Great views of the city.
Recoleta Plaza, Church & Convent
Mirador de la Recoleta
Ancient tree on convent grounds
Views of the city
Views of the city
Sun dial in the square: time is about 10:20 or 10:25
Pretty good for an 1855 sun dial !We then went back to the Main Square “Plaza 25 de Mayo” to view the Cathedral which was built in the 16th century. Unfortunately we did not enter and when I tried to visit on the 4rth, it was closed during lunch time (noon to 3 PM). The Governor’s mansion is located beside the Cathedral. It was supposed to be the main Capital building, but this ended up being in La Paz. Big conflicts still exist between both cities; no love lost here. From there we went to the other side of the square to visit la Casa de la Libertad, where the Independence Act was signed on the 25th of May 1809 (Independence from Spain after a brutal war) led by Simon Bolivar and _?_ Sucre.
Karem also provided some other interesting facts: Sucre is a university town of approximately 35,000 students from all parts of Bolivia and also from other South American countries (supposedly because it is less expensive to study here). There is no main campus, instead the various schools are located all over the city. Students are housed with families throughout the city as well, so it “shares the wealth”. The other nice thing about this is that great meals are extremely affordable in almost all the restaurants. At noon, it was time to stop for lunch (noon to 3 pm !) so Karem left me at my hotel and would be back at 3 to pick me up and continue the tour. I ended up walking to a nearby café for a Panini sandwich and some fries. Huge servings; I only ate half and brought the rest to the hotel to have for dinner.
Another “aside” which I may or may not have mentioned previously: the Incas did not use wars to conquer other tribes or other regions. They would normally arrange to marry off an important Inca to an important person of the other culture/city and negotiate some type of business deal, trade of goods, which would obviously favour them. It is quite interesting to note that although the Incas were only around for about 500 years, they are the ones everyone talks about. They were simply the LAST indigenous culture before the Spanish arrived and wiped them out.
Back to the city tour: 3 pm we take off again and head for Parque Bolivar, a huge park across from the Palace of Justice.
We also visited the Convent and Church of San Felipe, which provided access to beautiful roof top terraces and great views of the historical district.
From the roof the of convent looking down into the courtyard
From the roof of the church looking down to a park beside it.
From the top of the church, a view of the Recoleta and its Mirador on top of the hillAnd we went to the Cemetery to see all the decorations that families had left during the preceding days to honour their dead family members
Huge cemetary with lots of highrise tombs
Fountain and beautifully maintained grounds.We then drove out to the north west section of the city outskirts to visit El Palacio de la Glorieta. A bit of history here: A very rich couple, who liked to be known as the Prince and Princess, although they were not royalty, were great benefactors to the city and friends of Eifel (who built the Eifel Tower in Paris) They loved the French architecture as well. They had a theatre built and donated it to the city. They had a considerable say in the design of el Parque Bolivar, its arches (mimicking l’Arc de Triomphe), the fountains and statues, and even a small likeness of the Eifel tower as a play structure. They then had a palace built for themselves at La Glorieta. They could not have children of their own, so adopted two children, who inherited the Palace, but did not keep it. It was sold for a song to the military, who have opened it to the public, and use the remainder of the grounds as a military academy. Unfortunately, the palace was being fumigated and we could not enter the building. I ended up being able to catch a glimpse of the inside with Karem’s help.
La GlorietaAnother aside: there are lots of green parrots in the city! Very noisy parrots. The first day I arrived in Sucre, while spending the afternoon in my hotel room resting, a heard a cacophony of birds outside and opened my window in time to see a huge flock flying up into the sky. Too far to see them, but I did notice the strange noisy squawking. Nov 2, while I was walking around the city, I heard the same squawking and saw a number of green parrots with red heads, up in the trees. As I was getting ready to take their picture they took off ! And today at La Glorieta, the same squawking sound and lots of green parrots up in the tree tops.
Parrots near the Bolivian Gardens
Parrots at the GlorietaBy 6 pm I was back at my hotel.
Nov 4, Friday
Late take off today at 9:30 to visit to the Dinosaur Tracks (Parque Cretacico). In the North East sector of Sucre, actually outside of the city, is a huge quarry being used to produce cement. The excavation of this mountain has been going on for a number of years, however only a few years ago, after some erosion occurred and a portion of the side walls fell into the quarry, the dinosaur tracks were revealed on the rock wall of the quarry.
This is the exposed rock face with the dinosaur tracks. Go back 70 million years ago when what is now South America was largely underwater. As the ground rose up and closed off part of the sea, an inner lake was formed and became the home to a great variety of dinosaurs. And they left their tracks in the salty sand. Very volcanic area released toxic gases that killed off some of the dinosaurs. Time passes, the ground where the dinosaurs walked gets covered over by layers and layers of soil. The Cordilleras start forming and a great upheaval of tectonic plates occurs. The infamous Nasca plate which is the area where all the recent earthquakes have occurred was the culprit back then as well. So what was flat ground 70 million years ago, is now a vertical wall covered in dinosaur tracks. It is quite impressive. The big V you see on the wall in one of the shots is an extraordinary huge piece which cracked and fell a few years ago. It held the best prints of all. Unfortunately, they are still quarrying the site, and erosion is still occuring, so no telling how long the prints will last. 
Late take off today at 9:30 to visit to the Dinosaur Tracks (Parque Cretacico). In the North East sector of Sucre, actually outside of the city, is a huge quarry being used to produce cement. The excavation of this mountain has been going on for a number of years, however only a few years ago, after some erosion occurred and a portion of the side walls fell into the quarry, the dinosaur tracks were revealed on the rock wall of the quarry.
This is the exposed rock face with the dinosaur tracks. Go back 70 million years ago when what is now South America was largely underwater. As the ground rose up and closed off part of the sea, an inner lake was formed and became the home to a great variety of dinosaurs. And they left their tracks in the salty sand. Very volcanic area released toxic gases that killed off some of the dinosaurs. Time passes, the ground where the dinosaurs walked gets covered over by layers and layers of soil. The Cordilleras start forming and a great upheaval of tectonic plates occurs. The infamous Nasca plate which is the area where all the recent earthquakes have occurred was the culprit back then as well. So what was flat ground 70 million years ago, is now a vertical wall covered in dinosaur tracks. It is quite impressive. The big V you see on the wall in one of the shots is an extraordinary huge piece which cracked and fell a few years ago. It held the best prints of all. Unfortunately, they are still quarrying the site, and erosion is still occuring, so no telling how long the prints will last. 
So the cement company has created a park (Disney style with life size dinosaurs) with Miradors from which the great wall can be viewed from the opposite side of the quarry.
It was a very short visit because the guide at the site was really BAD ! We would have been better off on our own rather than with a group so that I could read the displays and get some interesting facts. After taking a number of pictures we went back down to our car and driver and returned to the city.
I was back at the hotel in time to check out by noon. Left my luggage in the lobby area and went out for a last bit of a walk-about and came back to the main plaza for lunch.
I think I mentioned that I was reading the book “Eat, Pray, Love”. I’ve read through Italy, India and am now into her adventures in Indonesia (Bali) where she finally gives in to the handsome Brazilian Felipe ! Well there’s no Brazilian in sight for me, so I decided to give into my other urges /passions and stopped for lunch at El Napolitano for a pizza (4 estaciones: black olives, ham, mushrooms, churiso with an added side of palmitos/hearts of palm) a nice glass of white wine, and some coffee flavoured ice cream for dessert !
Got back to the hotel at 2 pm and worked at labelling my e-photos until 4 pm, when Karem was picking me up to take me to the bus station for my 3 ½ hour ride to Potosi. Bus was supposed to leave at 5 pm but was 20 minutes late taking off. You should have seen the baggage loading process ! The luggage was on the second floor of the building and the busses are, obviously, on the ground floor. Some of them were using wooden slides to let the luggage simply slide down an 80 degree ramp and crash to the cement floor below. The company I was booked with had a rope and were lowering the luggage down with a hook, but there was no one at the bottom to unhook the luggage, so the guy on the second floor would bang the packages on the ground until the rope came loose ! What a mess. Thankfully we were there (Karem, our driver and me) when my huge suitcase was lowered down and we were able to unhook it before it got damaged.
Trip to Potosi: This was a local bus, but supposedly a direct one which was supposed to take 3 ½ hours. RIGHT ! The bus was full when we took off and I guess they have strict regulations that say that no one can be standing in this area while the bus is in motion. After we left the station however, the driver stopped a number of times to take on extra passengers, who all remained in the front of the bus with him. We ended up being 45 minutes late getting to Potosi.
I did get to see some of the scenery before it got dark: very arid hills with cacti on a nice 2-lane paved road. Then we got into the mountains going from an elevation of 2710 meters in Sucre to 4067 meters in Potosi. Quite the climb. The odours on the bus were also very…. Interesting…. I think I mentioned that they don’t have a lot of water around these cities and majority of the people wash all their clothing by hand. And probably not that often, so the AROMAs were quite strong. I kept my nose close to the windows (which could not open, but did provide a tiny bit of fresh air) for most of the way. I must also admit that I contributed to some of these odours as well. Have you ever noticed that if you have an open bottle of liquid, and climb to a high altitude, the bottle kind of shrinks because the air gets vacuumed out? Well the same seems to apply to the human body. Any air that’s in your system will find a way to escape. Burping, and…. You guessed it ! The other end of your body passes all that air right out of your system. Try as you might to keep it in, it’s like a slowly deflating air mattress. But then everyone on the bus had the same problem as I had. This was an extra LONG bus ride.
So the lights of Potosi finally show up and we stop at least four times to let the bulk of the people out. They only have hand luggage and don’t need to get anything from the storage area. So I have to keep asking, each time the bus stops, if we have reached the terminal? No; not yet. We finally stop in front of a gas station and the bus driver announces that this is the stop for the terminal, so I get off the bus with my small back pack and look around to try to figure out where the bus station is. The driver points down the street as he takes my HUGE suitcase out of the storage area. It’s past 9 pm now, it is very dark, we are in a not very nice part of the city (and I’m not sure there is a nice part), so I ask him why he isn’t driving into the terminal. He points again down the street and I understand that he is telling me the station is just down the street. So WHY is he dropping me off here with my EXTREMELY HEAVY suitcase, instead of driving into the station? No explanation ! He simply gets back into the bus, pulls a U’y and drives away. I AM FIT TO BE TIED ! ! ! I’m swearing as I try to pull my suitcase and my backpack down the street to the station. Sidewalks here are NOT wheelchair accessible, so I’m hauling my suitcase up and down the sidewalk, across the streets, heading for what I’m hoping is the bus station. I get to an open gate and make my way up the ramp into the station. It is huge. So where exactly should I go? Where is my guide waiting for me? I decide to just stay near the main entrance since I’m hoping that the guide is still around somewhere and will eventually come out through the main door. Maybe. Hopefully. OK, maybe not such a good idea. By now my anger is changing into fear and a bit of panic and I can feel the tears welling up into my eyes. KEEP IT TOGETHER JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER. I’ve been standing there less than 5 minutes when I spot a group of people waiting just outside the main entrance. One of the 4 ladies is talking on a cell phone. So I haul my luggage back outside and explain in Spanish that I seem to be stranded, that someone from this company (and I show them my voucher) is supposed to meet me at the station, but that the bus dropped me off on the street, etc, etc. I ask if she could call the cell phone number indicated on the voucher to see if someone can come and pick me up. The lady holding the cell phone doesn’t seem to respond, but one of the other ladies, slightly older, grabs her son’s phone and dials the number for me. She has understood exactly what I have tried to explain and quickly relates this to whoever answered the phone. She hangs up and tells me that the guide is inside the station and will be out to meet me in a few minutes. She tells me to be careful of my luggage and helps me move everything against a wall so I can wait in safety. I thank the group and especially the lady who took charge and they take off. Just two minutes later, my guide Olga shows up. She was quite worried since the bus never showed up and had called her bus earlier to try to figure out what to do. Her boss had advised her to wait a bit longer at the station. THANK GOD.
Her driver left half an hour before, so she waves down a taxi and we take off for the hotel. I guess the stress of the whole thing finally got to me and I burst into tears. I told her I was really angry at this bus driver for not coming into the station and leaving me in a very precarious position, on the streets in a city I did not know, etc…... Olga was very nice and kept telling me that everything was OK now.
As soon as I have access to the Internet, I’m sending a message to the company that booked all my tours so that an official complaint can be laid against this guy. All the other buses drove into the station. I could see at least 10 of them while I waited. I’M STILL PISSED OFF and it’s 3 hours later now.
Hope I can get to sleep at some point. TTFN.
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