Tuesday, 4 May 2010

Sucre

This post is a bit late, due to a lack of internet access again. I wrote this yesterday.

I spent the weekend in Sucre, which is Bolivia's former capital city. It's still the judicial capital, but La Paz is now the capital in every other respect. Sucre is known as La Ciudad Blanca (The White City), and you can see why from these photos of the Supreme Court, Liberty Square and the Cathedral.

I went for a step up in quality of hostel this time. For the first time I had a private room with en suite bathroom and TV, and it would have been quite relaxing if the room hadn't been so disgustingly filthy. I know I can't expect luxury for £8 a night, but it would have been nice if they'd cleaned the room.

Saturday was May 1st, which is Labour Day in Bolivia, which meant that almost everything was closed, so it probably wasn't the best day to be there. On the positive side, there were some celebrations, including a big parade through the city (see photos here and below).

On Sunday I went to a market in a village called Tarabuco, about 40 miles south-east of Sucre (photos here and below).

I didn't buy anything, but I did bump into Alessandra from the Salar de Uyuni tour while I was there.

I decided to skip Cochabamba, so I'm now in La Paz after what was probably the most unpleasant bus ride of my life. It was a 13-hour overnight journey, in near-freezing temperatures, in a bus without any heating. It was unbelievably cold. I arrived in La Paz at 5:30am, and then sat in the freezing bus station, teeth chattering, for an hour until it was a reasonable time to check into a hotel. I'm surprised I feel so good today after that ordeal - maybe it's because I'm so glad that it's over.

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