Sucre Is Super !!!

The former capital of Sucre is a relaxed and beautiful city with white washed buildings, lovely gardened and fountained main square and a great food market. The city probably has the best market I have seen so far in Central and South America. The Spanish influence definitely shows as the market is organized with the fresh vegetables and fruits, meats (including cow snout) and cheese on the ground floor in their own areas. The cheap local food is upstairs where you can have lunch
for under $2 or a Bolivian hamburger stuffed with french fries for 0.80 cents. Best of all, there are fresh fruit stands where you can sit and sip some papaya, tumbo, or passion fruit juices or munch on a big cup of fruit salad.

Sucre reminds me of Seville, Spain with the beautiful architecture, thirty-one churches and numerous colleges and universities.  The city was founded as an administrative and governmental city to the silver mining town of Potosi. At one time, Potosi probably produced the most silver in the world and was exploited by the Spanish Empire as essentially all the wealth was sent to Spain. Blessed with a warmer climate, Sucre became the home of many weathy families and occasional royality. Once the silver started drying up in Potosi, the capital city was moved to La Paz as it was closer to Lima, Peru and the coastal port as the government personnel did not want to undertake the long journey to this city. Sucre was also apparently the first place in South America that started the revolution to break away from the Spanish Empire  in 1809 as Napoleon began his invasion of Spain the previous year. Ironically, Sucre was also one of the last places to gain independence.

While in Sucre, I signed up for a 4-day trek with the highly recommended non-profit Condor Tours to a nearby mountain side, canyon, Maragua Crater and waterfalls. Although the trail was relatively easy and we did not need to carry a tent or sleeping bag as we slept in the Jaiq'a villages along the way, I was still breathing heavy due to the altitude, being out of shape and eating too much fried chicken.

On the first day, we walked past rock formations jutting out from the ground like rocket ships and saw 2000-year old pictographs made by pre-Inca cave settlements. Walking through some of the stratified canyon walls and hillside, it looked very similar to Arizona or New Mexico. We also followed some million-year old dinosaur tracks up a hill.

On the last day of the trek, we ended up in a small dusty town. Following the sound of music and possibly a fiesta, another traveller and I happened to come across four drunk guys with bad teeth under a blue tarp with three large speakers. They insisted we drink some chicha (an alcoholic corn drink) from a wooden bowl dipped in a plastic bucket of the grey, green liquid. They assured us it was safe and "natural" as I drank the bitter drink. Unfortunately, diarrhea is also "natural" and for the past 20 hours, my Bolivian experience has been my bed and the toilet. I have since found out that chicha is traditionally made by chewing and spitting out the corn in a bucket which is then fermented for several months in the ground. Lovely.

I also learned from the trek that it takes 7 kg of cocoa leaves to produce a gram of cocaine. To the utter shock of an Italian couple on our trip,  Bolivians like to "toast" their pasta  (pan fry the pasta in oil) before boiling it. And to my utter amazement, young Bolivians like K-Pop (Korean Pop) and will lipsync and mimic the dance moves of their favorite Kotean singer. Some of them will even dress and act Asian. Ah, the power of the internet and pirated DVDs and CDs.

Feeling better today and time to grab some lunch.