Sucre

From Potosi we headed to Sucre having heard a lot of good things about this Bolivian city. We were not dissapointed, the city streets were decorately lined with beautiful white-washed colonial buildings. We had been told that Sucre was the prettiest city in Bolivia and that it would be a good place to study Spanish.

We originally checked into a hostel called ´Amigos´ and pardon my french but my god it was a shit hole! We booked a double room that was reminicent to a room from the exercist, it only had a dusty old bed with no other furniture and no windows. To top it off we had a wooden shutter for a door that had a large cardboard plastered over it to cover a gaping hole in the glass. Feeling not so secure we checked out the hostel and moved to another one called Wassi Massi where our pals from the salt flats where staying.

Wassi Massi was really nice with a little garden area, perfect for sitting out in the sun. As soon as we settled in we started looking for Spanish schools and settled for Me Gusta which was highly rated on trip advisor. That day we had to sit an exam to see what we knew, which was nothing. I think Michael only managed to write his name. So once they realised we had not exadurated and that infact our Spanish was next to none, they placed us in a group for a week with a gruelling 8.30-12.30 morning schedule.

After travelling for several weeks being able to sleep in as we wished meant an 8.30 start nearly killed us, not to mention the 4 hours of hard graft Spanish. By the end of our lessons our heads were spinning! As we were in Sucre for 3 weeks we wanted to volunteer as we studied so we volunterred at an Orphanage in the afternoon for about 3 hours. We helped look after the kids aged 2-5 who has been abandoned by their parents. Some of the children had underage parents so they was a chance that once they turn 5 their parents could start looking after them again. Alternatively, there was a chance they could be adopted,otherwise they would be moved to another older orphanage.

On our first day we entered the play area and there was 40 kids running around, jumping off swings and tall slides. They had no fear, they were tough little ones I tell you. They would bang their heads and would not even cry, if that was in England it would be, "No dont do that, it not safe". All the children had their own personalities but at first it was overwhelming as they would call every woman mama and every man papa. It was obvious that these little children needed parents. At times they would be very affectionate holding your hand and within a second they will say "No" and walk away from you. With volunteers coming and going I think the children found it hard to have an emotional balance. There was one little girl Natalia who was always crying, I asked the careers why she was so sad and it turned out she had been left on the streets by her mum, she was only 3.  This was only a couple of weeks ago so Natalia was still confused as to where her mum had gone. The other children had similar stories, I was told it was common for parents to abandon their children on the streets.

The children were well dressed and they had nice meal every day that varied. In the afternoons we would play with them, help them with activities such as colouring in and walks in the park. We also helped at meal times, making sure they ate their food, doing the airplane trick. Without the volunteers they only had 2 women to look at 40 children, its always really busy. On our last day we brought the children toys from the market and it was sad to say goodbye as you think what will come of them when they are older as they were all sweet kids. While we were there a lovely couple and there child were spending time with the children and I found out they were there as a phasing in time with Rodrigo who they were adòpting. I was so happy for Rodrigo, they seem such as nice family and he seemed so happy. I was glad to think that Rodrigo was finally going to have a chance in life.



Outside the Orphanage

Me with Mimi (cheeky devil) Santiago and Marianna

Natalia with Miguel




Me on the siw saw with Natalia

The view from the Orphanage play ground

My pal Sonya

Queing up after washing their hands

Helping out with Dinner

Pauline with Israel

 In Sucre they had an amazing Market called Mercado Central where we went and bought our lunch everyday after class. You could buy a plateful of cassarole stew for 1 pound each, bargain. They also had a fruit section where bolivian women (who we later coined mamas) would make you a fruit shake for 60pence each or a fruit salad for 80pence. Any fruit you wanted, it always tasted really good. You could get any spice, meat, fruit, bread, veg in this market. Everything and anything, even house hold items. It could give Morrisons a run for their money.

In our time at Sucre we rented a mini apartment which had its own balcony, kitchen, living room and toilet. Plus one double room (which me and michael had) and an attic room with 2 beds which we shared with friends. It was like having a home away which was really nice. After class and volunterring we would often just watch the lastest movies on dvd ( you can buy any film you wanted from streets vendors for 50pence each) from the comfort of our living room which is a distant memory now we are back on the road.

After a week of hard work we would go out on the weekends. Sucre being a small place only had 2 nightclubs. One called Mitos which was underground, dark and digdy and Mooy which was a posher club set on a roof top. We tried both out and it as a lot of fun with our friends. On our last weekend we all went to Mooy and had a good drink as the following week we would all go our seperate ways.

After 3 weeks we too graduated from our Spanish class. Our spanish isnt perfect but we can certainly have a good go with having a conversation and hearing Spanish doesnt seem so alien anymore. We had a lovely time in Sucre and it was nice to settle in one place for a little while. We visited the Waterfalls which is in our previous blog and the Puljay Festival which was amazing within our time at Sucre. It was a great time but by the end we were keen to go to La Paz and see new things.

Outisde the amazing Mercado Central

The fruit salads for 80pence 

Michael tuking into a fruit salad with the mamas in the back

Whitewashed buildings of Sucre

Michael in class with anna the teacher he fancied

Me and michael happy to be at school

From the view point in Sucre

View point Sucre

Night out at Mooys

The 7 Watefalls

Whilst pissed the night before me and Jo had managed to gather a good group of us to visit a series of 7 waterfalls in the country side surrounding Sucre. One of the recruits Ben, had been before so had promised to show us the way and guide us all safely to the top of the falls. We had heard from other travelers that we were mad to go to  the falls as rumour had it that the area had been taken over by gangs wielding Ak47s and machetes, and anyone that had gone to the falls had come back limbless.

As agreed, the gang (the gringo gang, no AK47 to hand, only Swiss army knives) meet at 9.30am to head to the falls, all suffering slightly from the boozing the night before! Had we taken an official tour with an agency it would have cost us around 18 quid, with our free guide Ben it would cost us only 30p for a return bus ticket.

We catch one of the local buses and head out of busy Sucre and begin to climb the surrounding hills, last stop is ours so there is no missing it. 

Slightly apprehensive with the upcoming lynch mob, we get off to see only farmers, a few chickens, dogs and kids selling bread. Ben tells us all it´s about an hours walk to the first waterfall, so we get cracking. We walk through farmers fields and after a while we reach the first fall.

Waterfall number 1 wasn’t too spectacular, although it did involve an intermediate climb to get passed it. Each fall in fact entailed some form of climb, each getting more difficult as they come by. Fall number three saw the first set of casualties, all girls of course, the climb too difficult and dangerous to risk life. One girl, in attempting to climb up fall 3, in sheer panic, looking for something to hold onto wrapped her palm around a cactus resulting in a high pitched shriek, similar to a Bolivian woman’s singing  voice (if you have ever heard a Bolivian woman singing you know exactly what I am talking about).

The third fall was pretty cool as you could jump off it, about 6-8m high, lads being lads the extremities had to be pushed and the jumps kept getting higher and more dangerous. All here to still tell the story. Of course our  nutritious drink of the day was beer.

The lads, plus one brave girl, made it to the last and seventh fall. We head back to fall 3 to tell the girls of our great adventure avoiding near death climbing the impossible 4 remaining falls. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!! After a great day climbing, jumping, drinking it was time to head back to catch the bus.

The walk back, all uphill nearly killed us all, so much so that a local chap, maybe 60 years old, laughed as we all walked by sweating and panting! We get back on the bus and head back home.

We head back to the hostel Wasi Masi with all the gang, arms, legs, fingers, cameras and money present. Not a machete or AK47 in sight. 

Random Pics

See the face in the clouds

There it is!!

See the face again? (Above her head in the right top glass pane)

Everywhere in Bolivia they sell this crap. The plane is Saudi Arabian airlines, why???

Dog´s poo freely in Bolivia and mostly on the pavement, this dog ddint! ha

Tarabuco - Pujllay festival

Every year in Tarabuco, a farming area and local market near to Sucre, a huge festival happens in March to celebrate the timing of the harvest. ´Puillay´ translates into English to play or dance and the festival itself attracts all the different tribes and farmers from all over the country. 

We had booked a trip to stay in Tarabuco for the night, the Saturday would consist of drinking and a concert and the Sunday more celebrations and dancing from all the tribes. 

We hop on the bus, most people from our Spanish school are on this trip so a merry time already as we crack on with drinking the rum and tequila we brought along. As we leave Sucre we head further and further into the countryside. We arrive in Tarabuco, which I can imagine on a normal weekday is a quiet little farming village with a market, festival weekend was a different story altogether with hundreds of buses and cars cramming their way through the narrow dirt roads. 

Wise to the situation our bus driver made us walk to our accommodation. We had been told when booking the 5* package that we would be sleeping on floors as there were no beds left. Arriving at our new home for the night, we walk through an arch and into a little courtyard, our names are called out and we are ushered into our room for the night. We walk past a pigs head hanging from a metal hook, through the door and into our barn, we are sharing with about 15 other people, 12 of whom have beds, and 3 who on the floor, Jo, Paulina and myself. 

Our 5* accomodation

Paulina and Jo making our floor beds

Godfather part 4

Green with a little envy I already plot a Godfather style bed scare with the pig head….

We get invited to a party from our hosts, we walk round the back and in a shed we can hear loud foot stamping, hooraing and accordians playing. We go in and immediately we are all given a warm hello, a glass which is filled with an alcoholic drink. Not wanting to be rude I take a sip and say gracias, the woman looked at me with disgust and told me to down the drink, which of course I did, with the hope that she would leave me alone so I wouldn’t have to ever drink this stuff again, it was pretty disgusting. As soon as my glass was empty it was filled again, after six or seven the taste wasn’t so bad so I got into the swing of things. All the people were absolutely smashed (it was only around 6pm), all elders, and you could tell that this weekend was a time when everybody let loose, some too much, with one bloke shouting at the top of his voice in an aggressive manner at all westerners, at which point we vacated the shed.

My new bud, she is happy honest

The girls tucking in on none homebrew booze

 

Later, I was told that aggressive Victor was actually welcoming us all to Bolivia and that he loves the whole world as one.

I also got told at this point that the local homebrew I was drinking was fermented using human spit! Nice!!!

We head out as a group to the streets to look for the concert which we had heard about. The streets are filled with local vendors selling all types of street food, beer, booze, clothes etc, the atmosphere is pretty good and most of the locals at this point already are well on their way…

We find the concert hall and find two huge queues, we jump in the shorter one of the two and wait in line. As we get nearer to the front of the entrance a copper swipes out of my hands the can of beer and rum I had and starts to drain them away in the gutter. Bastards, everyone around us is drinking and we get picked on, but I keep my mouth shut as these police aren’t the same as the politically correct please can you not drink here sir British police officers. The funny thing was the bottle of rum had a pouring stopper on it so it took him about ten minutes to empty it! 

Anyway we finally get into the venue with no booze to watch the Bolivian bands, one of which was the most famous in Bolivia. The venue is pretty packed and all the locals are going crazy for these bands who play on their pan pipes, string instruments and drums… Us westerners are looking at amazement and wondering how this music is so popular, but hey we all joined in with the fun.

We leave and end up in someone’s living room/front yard for where locals and westerners party the night away. A couple of beers more and we leave as at this point the locals are too pissed and we could feel the tension rising.

After a perfect night’s sleep! Not! We head out into the town. This is better we say to ourselves as we see people in the streets, in their areas outfits, singing and dancing to pan pipes and drums. What a great atmosphere and great to see how they dress and celebrate.

We head to the center where the locals have erected a huge wooden tower called a ´Pukara´ where locals offer produce, food and meat as an offering to mother earth to ensure the land is fertile for the next harvest. Around the pukara all the different tribes dance in their outfits and various styles, endlessly chanting to the tune. We had a great day, an improvement from the day before. There was also a local market which was great to see. We stop off for lunch somewhere and we ended up talking to a couple of Bolivian guys, all in Spanish, which was really cool.

All in all a real cultural experience.