Motor Rallies & Mirador

sunset from the mirador
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No sooner had Gail uttered the words 'I have been fairly hardy to stomach upsets' to her fellow travelers who had been suffering, that she came down herself with a bug that left her bed ridden for the first day in Sucre. I went for something to eat and to watch the football with another guy called Simon, at sunset we climbed the steep hill up to Mirador overlooking the city.

The next day Gail was feeling much better, so we went for a walk around the city, which was also hosting the finals of some motor rally from the main square, Plaza 25 de Mayo.

seller in sucre
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Sucre at 2750m is much warmer than Potosi, Its lower altitude gives the city a warm temperate climate year-round. There's a certain grandeur feel to the city's colonial architecture, great houses and numerous convents and churches all white washed.

Whilst we were there we visited the Casa del la Libertad, a beautiful house come museum where the declaration of independence of Bolivia was signed on August 6th, 1825. That evening we tried to leave Sucre and head for La Paz so not to get caught up in the road blockades again, however as soon a we reached the bus station it was clear that all the buses to La Paz were canceled due to the miners blocking routes and instead they were heading to Cochabamba. As there were no seats left on the buses we decided to stay another night in Sucre and head to La Paz via Cochabamba the following evening.

sucre rally
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As we had another day to explore Sucre we decided to take the Dino Truck to the Cal Orcko dinosaur tracksite, which is situated 5 km west of Sucre. The site is in a active cement quarry of the Fabrica Nacional de Cementos (FANCESA). It consists of a limestone wall with a shear size of 25'000 square meters literally covered by dinosaur tracks. Up to now it is the largest dinosaur tracksite known on the planet. The track level dates from the Late Cretaceous and its estimated age is about 68 million years, the wall used to be a freshwater lake. More than 250 track ways have been registered and six different types of dinosaurs have been present. The most spectacular track ways are those of quadrupedal titanosaurs, herbivore animals with a size between 15 and 25m.