I had to take an overnight bus from La Paz, to get to Sucre, Bolivia’s "white city". I had pretty low expectations, having used night buses to travel down the East coast of Australia 12 years ago, but it turns that South America is way more advanced! There were only three seats across, and they reclined to almost lie-flat position (take note, Greyhound!) so I actually slept off and on for about 8 of the 12 hours. Obviously I still had a nice long nap when I got to the hostel at 8am though (another thumbs up for private rooms!).
Sucre is a charming city, full of white-washed colonial buildings with terracotta roofs, beautiful churches and flowery plazas. It’s the perfect place to relax. This is my way of saying that I did very little here. I had (vaguely) good intentions of going to visit some dinosaur tracks, but when it was time to get the bus I found myself choosing to sit in a lovely little café and drink hot chocolate and read my book instead! (One of the best hot chocolates I've ever had, and for the equivalent of £0.60!). I then booked a day trip to go hiking in the countryside the following day, but it ended up getting cancelled as only two of us had signed up and the other girl got sick. So there was nothing else for it but to while away another day exploring the local cafés! I also enjoyed the Central Market, where there was one row of stalls piled high with all sorts of different fruits, and you could mix and match as many as you wanted to make a delicious juice. I had mango, passion-fruit and “chirimoya” (another exotic fruit I hadn't come across before). It was delicious! On a less pleasant note, in another section of the market they were selling cows' noses. At least I think they were cows'. They may have been horses'. Not a very appetising sight in any case!
After three relaxing days, it was time to get back on the road. I’d actually been feeling a bit frustrated with myself, for not having made an effort to get “off the tourist track” and see any of Bolivia outside of the big tourist hot-spots. Fortunately a great opportunity to do just that arose as I was planning my route to the next city, Potosí. Most people opt to take the bus, which takes around 2-3 hours, but there is also a train which takes 6-8 hours as it trundles through some of the small rural villages. It sounded perfect!
When I mentioned this to the manager at my hostel (the wonderful "Casa Verde"), he even sent one of his friends to go and queue up for my ticket at 6:30am, and I was lucky enough to get the very front seat, next to the driver! The "train" is actually a bus on rails, so it’s only one “carriage” and it was completely crammed full of people. I was the only tourist on there, which I loved - I didn’t even mind being stared at by the people from the rural villages, who presumably don’t get to see many blond-haired, white people! The journey was extremely slow - I don't think we exceeded 30mph at any point - but I loved the experience. The landscapes were beautiful and very diverse. Out in the countryside, people would be waiting by the side of the track and we'd stop to let them jump on. At various intervals we had to stop to wait for cows, sheep, pigs, donkeys and chickens to get off the tracks ahead of us, and sometimes there’d be stones or branches over the tracks and the driver’s assistant would jump down and move them off before running to catch up with the train again. As we drew into Potosí, we found people had set up market stalls right across the train line, so again we had to stop and wait as they were hastily dragged off of the rails!
Sucre is a charming city, full of white-washed colonial buildings with terracotta roofs, beautiful churches and flowery plazas. It’s the perfect place to relax. This is my way of saying that I did very little here. I had (vaguely) good intentions of going to visit some dinosaur tracks, but when it was time to get the bus I found myself choosing to sit in a lovely little café and drink hot chocolate and read my book instead! (One of the best hot chocolates I've ever had, and for the equivalent of £0.60!). I then booked a day trip to go hiking in the countryside the following day, but it ended up getting cancelled as only two of us had signed up and the other girl got sick. So there was nothing else for it but to while away another day exploring the local cafés! I also enjoyed the Central Market, where there was one row of stalls piled high with all sorts of different fruits, and you could mix and match as many as you wanted to make a delicious juice. I had mango, passion-fruit and “chirimoya” (another exotic fruit I hadn't come across before). It was delicious! On a less pleasant note, in another section of the market they were selling cows' noses. At least I think they were cows'. They may have been horses'. Not a very appetising sight in any case!
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| Plaza de Armas, Sucre |
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| Fruit juice stall. Chirimoya is the spiky green one! |
When I mentioned this to the manager at my hostel (the wonderful "Casa Verde"), he even sent one of his friends to go and queue up for my ticket at 6:30am, and I was lucky enough to get the very front seat, next to the driver! The "train" is actually a bus on rails, so it’s only one “carriage” and it was completely crammed full of people. I was the only tourist on there, which I loved - I didn’t even mind being stared at by the people from the rural villages, who presumably don’t get to see many blond-haired, white people! The journey was extremely slow - I don't think we exceeded 30mph at any point - but I loved the experience. The landscapes were beautiful and very diverse. Out in the countryside, people would be waiting by the side of the track and we'd stop to let them jump on. At various intervals we had to stop to wait for cows, sheep, pigs, donkeys and chickens to get off the tracks ahead of us, and sometimes there’d be stones or branches over the tracks and the driver’s assistant would jump down and move them off before running to catch up with the train again. As we drew into Potosí, we found people had set up market stalls right across the train line, so again we had to stop and wait as they were hastily dragged off of the rails!
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| Passing through a small village... |
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| Red rock! |
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| Colourful landscape |
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| "Today's service will be delayed due to sheep on the line" |
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| Village house |
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