Sucre

October 26, 2011

It was a somewhat uncomfortable 13 hour night bus ride from La Paz to Sucre. We paid an extra 20 bolivianos ($3) to upgrade to a bus where the seats would recline to almost 180 degrees, which was great, but there were vendors and beggars coming aboard at the different stops and we were told to be very vigilant because it’s not uncommon for people to steal things when they get on the bus. Then, once the foot traffic stopped and the lights were out and we were on our way for the night, I needed to use the restroom. But, I was sitting in the window seat and I didn’t know how I could get out without waking up the person next to me, and I felt bad about waking someone up in the middle of the night. After a couple of hours when I finally decided I couldn’t wait any longer, however, I woke him up and made my way to the restroom only to discover it was locked. Dismayed and a little annoyed (The bathroom didn’t have a light, but still, isn’t it kind of silly to lock it?), I went back to my seat and continued trying to distract myself. After a couple more hours, to my great relief, I heard someone leaving the bathroom. It was unlocked! When I got there though, I still couldn’t open the door. Until I pushed instead of pulled on it. Wow. Did I feel a little silly! As could be imagined though, the final couple hours of the ride were much more comfortable than the first eight. Anyway…

Although the national government functions out of La Paz, Sucre is the capital of Bolivia. It’s a beautiful hilly city with a much more European feel to it than La Paz. It reminds me a little of Buenos Aires. At 2200 meters above sea level, it’s also significantly lower in altitude than La Paz. (I went for a run the first day we arrived and I felt like I could run forever—amazing what your body adjusts to!)

View from the top of our hotel in Sucre.
Amazing sunsets in this region!

Me at sunset

 After being on the go all the time in Peru, Bolivia has felt much slower. Part of it may be our new guide who is very nice but is a little more relaxed about his job than our last one was. We arrived in Sucre on Friday and had four days and three nights scheduled there. There are some tours and things to do around the city, but a lot of the tourist attractions are more active activities like biking or horseback riding or hiking.

The group decided to go on a mountain biking, hiking, and then paddling excursion. Despite my experience on the Death Road, I decided to give the mountain biking another try. (My opinion on it remains.) This excursion added a new element to the experience though: faulty bikes. We had two bikes with no hydraulics, three bikes with flat tires at some point, and countless lost chains during the course of the day. Even with the biking, the tour actually was quite nice. The scenery was beautiful, the hike lovely, and the water relaxing.

More mountain biking, less gear

Starting off on the ride.

Andy with the first flat

Dylan with another

Fixing the chain

Hike along the creek

I actually did a lot of relaxing and wandering in Sucre. Caroline, the roommate from the first part of this trip, was passing through the city with her current tour and it was a lot of fun to catch up with her. One afternoon the two of us took a tour of the Sucre cemetery. The only tour guide we could find didn’t speak English, however (“I don’t speak English, but I’ll speak Spanish slowly and clearly so you’ll understand it” he said (in Spanish) when offering his services), so I translated his Spanish into English for Caroline. I have to admit I was quite proud of myself. There definitely were some moments when I was making some things up for her, which I freely admitted, but I largely understood what he was saying! If I could just find people to speak slowly and clearly for me all the time in Spanish…

The cemetery was quite interesting. There is only the one cemetery in all of Sucre, so poor and rich alike are buried there. Instead of having family plots, there is a section for children and a section for the elderly, and then adults are primarily buried with other people in their profession—teachers are buried in one mausoleum, engineers in another, dentists in a third. And as the cemetery has limited space, people are also only buried for seven years, at which point they are dug up, cremated, and kept in an urn in their family’s house. Children of poorer families aren’t exhumed, however; they just have another body buried on top of them after one to three years, which is sad. Sucre does have more support for poor children than the rest of Bolivia, however, on account of one of the first Spanish ruling couples in colonial times. They couldn’t have children of their own, so they ended up adopting over 70 children throughout the city and made sure the poor children were cared for.

Another evening in Sucre some of us from the group visited an orphanage. Despite a little apprehension about what to expect, it was actually a lovely experience. As far as orphanages go, it was well-run and the children appeared well taken care of and happy. We played with kids between the ages of two and five. Each of us ended up playing with a few kids, and for whatever reason, the ones I was playing with were fascinated by the things in my purse. Juan became my little buddy and he regulated who got to play with what. He asked me to take out the papers I had in there (old city maps and hotel brochures), and he distributed them to a few other children. They looked at them and folded and unfolded them and then traded with another child. Juan then wanted to know what was in the other compartment of my purse and he carefully inspected my sunscreen stick, my chapstick, my wet wipes, my tissue package, and my camera. He was very careful with everything and did a remarkably nice job sharing. We then played in the playhouse drawing and pretending it was bedtime and school time. All the kids call the visitors “Mami” which endears you to them that much more. It was hard to say goodbye.

We bought a cake in the market to take to the orphanage.
They don't give you boxes for the cake,
so Dylan was entrusted with carrying it.
My new roommate, Lucille, wasn't too sure this was a good idea.

Jared, our tour guide, at the orphanage. The kids love him!

Zoe playing with her amiga.

My buddy Juan.