January 23-26, 2018
Why Sucre?
While on the Uyuni trip I had been able to think through how I’d spend my next week-ish before flying to Ecuador late night of the 28th / early 29th. I had been deciding between Sucre, Potosi (famous for its silver mines, where people today still mine by hand in quite awful conditions), Cochabamba, and La Paz. I decided on Sucre for the majority of the week, as it was a historic city, and the current capital of the judiciary, famed for its cafes, Spanish language learning, comfortable climate and tasty markets. I’d stay here for a few days and then overnight bus to La Paz, as I was pretty tired of moving around every couple of days and felt like I needed to make some “roots” in a place.
The hostel I’d found, Siete Patas, was absolutely wonderful. It was an old colonial house with beautifully-colored walls and molding, all set around an interior courtyard and garden. You could enjoy your meals under the stunning blue sky, or hide out from the rains under the porticos. In the first afternoon, I took a stroll around the main part of the city, although it was a bit rainy. I had to pick up food, so I got to enjoy the big central market in all its glory. A fun little part of Spanish language is that they call avocados by different names in different parts of the continent. In all of my travels and education, I had always heard of avocado translated as aguacate, but in Chile and some parts of Bolivia they call it palta. A funny interaction was on the way back to Uyuni on the final day of our tour, we stopped at a little town for a snack break and another backpacker girl was trying to buy some at a market and nobody knew what she was talking about when she asked “tienes aguacates?”. I chuckled a bit and translated it to palta and explained to her the oddity. Even the market vendors enjoyed a good laugh.
First Impressions
The main market in Sucre was incredible, and quite big with everything from party decorations and bicycles, to fresh produce and clothes. I took my time perusing the veggie and fruit aisles in order to figure out the prices and general situation. Then, on my second go-around, I settled on one fruit lady who offered me a free taste of chirimoya, a large fruit in the same family as guanabana, which I’d tried in Colombia and elsewhere. I loved it, so I ended up buying two that were nearly a kilo altogether! They have lots of seeds, but the fruit itself is quite massive as well. It has the taste of a sweeter pear, in a way, but also completely unique. I also was very excited to see fresh mangoes, and the lady picked me out a few that would be ripe in successive days. The veggies were similar, and I ended up getting a couple days’ worth of produce, some rice and pasta, and plenty of eggs and bread.
I dropped my winnings at the hostel and then took a hike up into the steep side streets of the old colonial capital, enjoying the views over the white buildings covered in terracotta tiles. Even in the rain, it showed me a beautiful side of the city. A funny thing I saw were some micro-buses, maybe 20-passengers, that were the same as ones I’d seen in China and HK many years ago. I laughed because somehow they’d made it to South America with all the branding (one randomly had a big NIKE swoosh on it) and Chinese and Korean lettering on the side. These were the public buses which are quite cheap and a bit easier to maneuver in a city of small streets like Sucre.
There were several volunteers working at the hostel, so I had some good chats with them, as well as a couple Canadians who were coming through. I always enjoy hearing from people who are on shorter trips what has brought them to a place, whereas I have the luxury of time to go with the flow more easily. I ended up befriending an Italian guy who was in my dorm room, and we agreed to take a walk around town together the next day.
The next day was a rainy one, so I decided it was a perfect opportunity for a “computer day”. It’s sometimes frustrating that I feel a need to do it, but lots of what I call “life admin” piles up – things I want to research, articles to read, people to catch up with, credit card / bank stuff to deal with, but I know that it’s really not a big waste of time, and I don’t do it too often. Bottom line is that I just try to release any judgment of myself I have around it. Today though, was a special day, as I would be doing my taxes. There’s not a whole lot to share about that, except that I ended up reading an article about people who travel and work remotely and in various countries that if you are out of the US for all but 35 days in a year, you don’t have to pay taxes. Note to my future self :).
Walking Tour
The following day the weather had improved, so I went with my new friend Stefano, a car-restoring fanatic from Rome, on one of the free guided walking tours of Sucre. I always love to do these because not only are they reasonably-priced (you often just give a tip at the end, and in this case was a pre-arranged donation to a non-profit), but having a guide is such a great way to learn about a city and ask all of the little questions I end up having as we walk around.
This one was organized by a non-profit cafe-cum-trekking guide, so for a little bit of donation, we also got to have a chocolate tasting at one of the nearby shops, which was totally worth it. Besides the chocolate shop, which was too expensive for me unfortunately, we got to go inside an artisan’s shop who made traditional tapestries and clothing from a nearby indigenous tribe. Bolivia is renowned for its large population of indigenous peoples (about 25%) and the general level of respect that they receive (compared to other countries, not that they are treated super-well in general). Their president, Evo Morales, who has been in power for 12+ years at this point (he received a positive judgment last year allowing him to run for a fourth term, despite the constitution saying otherwise), is famous for flaunting his indigenous heritage and even wears traditional clothing when presenting as the head of state, and has made major improvements to reduce poverty in the country. He also seemingly very much dislikes the US and its imperialistic policies aimed at Bolivia and the region. That said, I was technically a German here, so I had nothing to worry about!
After the artisan’s shop, we went through the main plaza that the city is centered on, and there was a parade going on that we stopped to watch. Nearby was the beautiful governor’s palace and the central park, which has a statue of Antonio José de Sucre, who was an independence leader and second president of Bolivia (also of Peru at one point).
We then walked up to the main university in town, where our guide had attended, which was empty because it was currently summer vacation. Then we got the opportunity to walk inside and sit in the national theater, which was quite beautiful, and apparently haunted. The last stop on the tour was to see an old and restored home / compound from the colonial era. The house was bright pink, and centered around an interior courtyard that was quite beautiful. There were even some secret passageways through the gardens, but they were a bit too small for me to enjoy.
Getting Out
My final day in Sucre, I mostly spent relaxing at Siete Patas, but took a long walk around town by way of walking to the bus station to pick up my ticket onwards to La Paz. I would leave that night, and I was lucky to find one of the bus companies that offered a 2nd-class option (semi-cama) with only “tres filas”, i.e. only three seats across instead of four. I happily took the front row of the one-seat side and was able to stretch myself out completely and not have to worry about other people leaning on my legs or bulky shoulders next to me. Getting on the bus was a bit hectic, as it was pouring when I got in a taxi with a French couple from the hostel towards the station. Extra traffic made me cutting it a bit close and the bus station was full-on mayhem. Also, I learned I needed to pay a terminal fee, and then there was some confusion of which bus to get on, since there were two leaving at the same time supposedly for the same location. The first ayudante I showed my ticket to took me to the back of the bus to store my luggage, but then the other ayudante started to call out “La Paz” and the time of my bus, so I went over to her, and found out that I needed to move my luggage to the other bus. Now though, my luggage receipt was fully soaked, so I was a bit worried about claiming it the following morning when we arrived.
I hopped into my seat and I was already prepared with my sleeping bag liner and an extra sweatshirt for the impending cold. I ended up reading for the first couple of hours, and checking my good friend, the blue dot on Google Maps, to make sure I was, in fact, on the right bus. It seemed that we were going in the opposite direction, or at the very least quite out of the way, but I just surrendered to it. I couldn’t be going SO far out of the way that I’d miss my flight a couple days later, after all, so I fell asleep. Surprisingly, I ended up sleeping most of the way there and arrived around 8am to the bright, clear, 3,640m skies of La Paz, the world’s highest capital city (I found it interesting that Washington, D.C. is technically 2m above sea level).
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