The Real Capital Of Bolivia

view of Sucre
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As mentioned previously, I decided to spend an extra 2 nights in Coroico simply to relax and enjoy the surroundings, which was great until I had to make my way back to La Paz via public transport.  It seemed simple enough...I made my way down to the bus station, purchased a ticket, and patiently waited for it to show up...everything was going pretty good up until the bus showed up.  First off, it had no indication of which direction it was headed, I attempted to ask some of the locals in my horribly broken spanish....I got the answer I needed, it was in fact headed to La Paz....now to lclimb on board in a orderly fashion...hmmm everytime I went to step in somebody quickly brushed my aside and got on before me...ok, not a problem, no offense taken...finally it looks like everyone is settled, so I once again try to get on, though it now appears there aren't any seats left as some local women decided to pull up a seat on the wheel well...being the only girngo, everyone was staring at me, and I stared back with a look of confusion.  I tried to ask the driver where I was going to sit (by the way, this way a 15 passenger van and not a bus) he kept pointing at the big women sitting on the wheel well.  I had seen like 20 people pack into one of these things on numerous occasions and I was starting to think that I was just going to have to suck it up and sit on the floor...suddenly everyone began pointing at me and yelling all kinds of different things in Spanish...of which I understood nothing...at one point, some local comedian points at me, points at a seat, points at the roof and the whole van begins to laugh...I wasn't impressed.  The locals in the van then began argueing amongst themselves, and I could tell they were trying to figure out seating arrangements...in the end it turned out it was one of the locals who was in the wrong...and not the gringo...and so I got my seat, which had been in use by somebodies 20 gallons of apple cider.

the "dino" tracks
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All in all, the ride took about 4 hours, and it was the by far the most nerve racking 4 hours of my life.  Those drivers are completely nuts and don't back down from even the biggest of vehicles...you see, the uphill traffic apparently has the right of way since the downhill traffic can see the road better (or so the logic goes) so they feel they can just continue on there way and its up to every other vehicle to get out the way.  Needless to say we had about 7 mexican standoffs with many vehicles which were much larger then ours...on a few occasions our driver had to reluctantly give in and throw it in reverse..that was pretty scary...just knowing at some points you're inches away from the cliff side, and the roads really didn't seem all that structurally sound...but in the end we made it!

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Anyway, I met up with the group in La Paz to begin my next adventure on the following day.  We were advised that our tour leader was coming with another group from Brazil and was having some complications due to the fact that all the bus services across Bolivia were on strike, protesting the new taxes imposed on them by the newly established Morales government.  Lucky for us we were to take a flight the next morning to Sucre were we met with our tour leader the following day.  Sucre is apparently the nicest town in Bolivia and compared to the rest of the cities I've seen, I would have to agree.  It is heavily populated with beautiful colonial architecture which I quickly began to admire.  The town itself was very clean and quiet though there was not much to do.  The 2 people and I who met in La Paz decided to hire some mountain bikes and take them out to the Dinosaur tracks.  According to the dude who rented us the bikes, this would take no longer then 2 hours...there and back.  Well, the bastard lied because it took us nearly 3 hours just to get there!  Once we arrived, things were not all that impressive.  These tracks were apparently discovered by excavators of the neighbouring concrete plant.  Apparently they are the real deal.  They are footprints of a couple of Brontosauras (spelling?) who were traversing this area which used to be a lake bed...it has since been inverted by the shifting of the tectonic plates...anyway, the most exciting part was getting there and away...we must have got lost at least a half dozen times, but eventually made it back in time to meet up with our tour leader.