Sucre - Spanish lesson and Dinosaur adventure

Bridge on travel to Sucre
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Wednesday 25th July – Potosi – Sucre

Having had a taxi booked for 10am we had a little sleep in which was nice but unfortunately the pipes had frozen over so there was no hot water. Ready at 10am we waited and waited but no sign of our taxi. The lovely owner of the hostel rang and abused the person who booked it for us then the taxi company a few times before an hour and a half later, fiesta! It arrived. This was a shared taxi to take us 2 ½ hours to Sucre. Never in our lives would we have thought traveling along a paved road was luxury, but that was the easiest 2 ½ hours traveling we have done in Bolivia to date. It was also super cheap to catch this taxi too! The rule of the road seems to be dodge the oncoming traffic, dogs and donkeys – the car sits merrily in the middle of the road acting upon the coming hazards. Although a little scary to start with you get use to it! The driver also pulled off for us to view a really cool swingbridge on the way. We eventually got to Sucre, first impressions were how European this town was. It was quite refreshing from Uyuni anyway! We checked into our Hostel and splashed out for a room with an en-suite. Our biggest expense for the day was laundry! We had 10 kilos of it and were able to get a 3 hour service from a lady that owned a couple of washing machines and driers. We then wandered round the town and vibrant markets and bought some chocolates which are famous in Sucre. We also booked a bus to La Paz and surfed the internet for a while for our next destination while some noisy kids played computer games against each other. After collecting our laundry we went out for dinner and after getting a table for the two of us, we bumped into our American friends which was awesome. So we joined them and all their friends and ordered chicken soups, banana smoothies and tacos – mmm! As the night went on the restaurant became a party venue and the disco ball was out. They played lots of salsa music and Carlos tried to teach me. Although he is quite a bit shorter than I am, I did pick up a few moves! It was great fun!

Salsa dancing with Carlos
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Thursday 26th July – Sucre

Yesterday we booked for our first Spanish lesson to take place at 10am today. Well we were a little late getting up at 9.55am, so we rushed down to reception to find out tutor searching through the guest list to locate out room. Not to worry, our tutors name was Jorge, a very unique Bolivian man who was though not by his appearance a university professor and spoke perfect English, a rarity in Bolivia. Our lesson was for 90mins, so he started us off with the basic I verbs, most familiar to Jo but all new for Leigh. The lesson flew by and we had a great time but due to missing breakfast we were starving by the end! We were given our home work of 20 I verbs and booked another lesson for tomorrow before heading off for brunch. On our way to the Cafe we booked our place on the Dino Bus for 2.30pm, a tour that takes you to Dinosaur footprints found on the outskirts of Sucre.

Dinosaur footprints
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We found a little Cafe called Joyride, which was very western and reminded us of Parade Cafe in Wellington, with the little courtyard out back. It also had Wi-Fi and was bustling with travelers, mostly "gap year" students (gap year students have almost over taken American Tourists for annoying). As the way of the trip, we sat next to a guy that recognized us from a Bank in Tupiza. We chatted with him and swapped stories about the salt flats, he had a very similar experience to us, was nice to see him and we are sure we will run into him again. We enjoyed brunch and killed time on the free Wi Fi before heading to do the Dino tour. We boarded the bus – which is like a little truck with a Dinosaur head on the front, so you can not miss it, unfortunately was packed with more "gap year" students. So after rolling our eyes we set off for the foot prints. Well, when you think of such a place of importance you would not except to find it at the back of a cement factory, but that is were it is. Actually it was the excavation of the land for manufacturing the cement that lead to the discovery. The next surprise is the face the footprints run up and down are on a vertical cliff. Apparently over time the land had shifted and pushed the once volcanic lake upwards and is now resting as a vertical cliff. We arranged to do on the tour and were taken around by a very passionate Jurassic enthusiast. He explained which species the footprints belonged to, it was all very interesting. The park also boasted life size models of at least 10 different dinosaur species. The T-Rex, and Diplodocaus we especially amazing, as you got a real feel for there size. We concluded the hour long tour, which is all you really need to look at foot prints, boarded the Dino bus and headed back to Sucre. We headed back to the hostel, cleaned up and headed out for dinner with the Americans. We had arranged to meet them at the same place we ate the night before. Well 7 became half 7, sensing that they weren't going to show we ordered. Service in Bolivia is rather slow so we finally received our meal about 45mins later and still no sign of the Yanks, we finished dinner, officially stood up and headed home. Not to worry as we new that our paths would cross again.

Main square in Sucre
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Friday 27th July – Sucre – La Paz

We started the day with a decent breakfast of fresh fruit and bread from the market across the street, which put us in good stead for our second Spanish lesson. Jorge marked our homework, while we had a few laughs at our efforts, but he was happy enough to progress onto the "You" verbs. The second lesson was much more beneficial for us, as it covered the more important verbs e.g. asking for room, a menu, or booking travel etc. He had a very unique way of teaching which we both really enjoyed. Although we had only met him twice, we were very sad when our final lesson ended. We did make some progress but would have been good to have had a couple more lessons. We decided to head over to the Joyride cafe again, for some late lunch-early dinner and more use of the WI-FI. We spent the afternoon there and then headed back to our Hostel to grab our bags and make our way to the bus station. The highlight of our taxi ride to the bus station was not the usual dodgy driving but noticing that the taxi had been swapped over from a Right hand drive to a Left. It was the worst DIY job you will ever see - the steering shaft seemed to be taped to the dash board! The taxi would be deemed illegal in any other country for sure. Funny enough it got us to the bus station no worries, making it round all the corners on the way while the baby boy sitting on the mums lap in the passengers seat stared at us with fascination the whole journey! The bus station was your typical dodgy hang out for riff-raff. After checking in we soon realised that we had been grossly over charged for our tickets - we paid 120Bls from the agent, but found out that the real price was 80Bls. Well more annoying than anything, it was only a few pounds extra but it is a bummer when the agent looks you in the face and says that the ticket she sells us is exactly the same price as at the station! We were expecting the worst of the bus, after being so spoilt in Argentina, but to our surprise it was rather good for Bolivian standards, with the seats almost fully reclining! The only disappointing thing with the Bolivian buses, unlike Argentina, is your bags may go missing, so it makes for a long night as you are always on guard. We were also warned how freezing it gets on these night buses, but strangely ours was the exact opposite, too hot that we were sitting in singlets (lucky as we don't have sleeping bags, like most travelers). We departed Sucre for La – Paz on time and after a couple of disgusting toilet stops i.e. So disgusting you would rather pee in the bushes, we headed into the night with a lovely clear sky full of stars to look out the window at and a very bad dubbed Spanish DVD.