Surprises in Sunny Sucre

Well … we have spent the last 2 weeks in the one place … WOOHOO … no packing and unpacking, our clothes all laid out in a wardrobe, toiletries can be left out in the bathroom, a stereo, DVD player (even with old ‘sex in the city’ episodes), been going to the gym and there’s even a kitchen where we’ve have the luxury of getting into the home-made meals! All the everyday little things that I’ve been missing after being on the road for a while. 

So we chose the sunny, colonial-style town of Sucre (in the south east) to take this time out and recharge our batteries. We were staying in the house of a Bolivian family as well as a few other travellers, who we were very sad to say goodbye to after 2 weeks. Anfrid (from Norway), Anabelle and Frances (Kiwis) were our buddies at the gym in aero-salsa (a gym class here) and in the karaoke bars at night, more on this later! 

We have also been learning spanish for 3 hours a day, both with a private teacher. Lizzy is enjoying the challenge of starting from scratch and is speaking heaps more now, thanks to the help of her teacher who we only know as ‘Shakira’! Although the other night when we were out Lizzy did manage to ask the waiter in a bar “mas bebes, por favor” or “more babies, please!”. She claims she was asking for drinks rather than babies but be warned that confusing the word ‘bebida’ with ‘bebe’ could be a little dangerous! 

Anil’s in Sucre
But first I must mention the biggest surprise I had upon arriving in Sucre was finding that my friend from Sydney, Anil, was also in Sucre as he was on a brief trip around Bolivia over the Easter break. Catching up with him for breakfast in the sunny plaza was a deserving way to end a 12 hour overnight bus ride from La Paz where I was so cold that I was actually involuntarily shivering and had a little icicle on my face where my nose used to be!! So it was quite a lovely surprise and sort of surreal hanging out with a friend in a random little town in Bolivia! 

Easter Celebrations – Walking up to the crucifix at 3 am
Well the Easter celebrations, starting on the Monday before Easter Sunday,
are absolutely huge here. In Sucre, the most important activity over this time is the walk up the massive hill behind the city to the crucifix on the morning of Good Friday. Thousands of local people start their walk around midnight and we headed up at around 3 am … after hanging out in a restaurant and then when that closed, at a Bolivian guy’s house that we think was a friend of someone we knew! It didn’t seem to matter, everyone is so friendly here! It was also here that one of the Bolivian guys was convinced that Lizzy and I were ‘gemelas’ or identical twins. Naturally I was quite happy to be looking 6 years younger, of course we were sitting down at the time so he couldn’t notice the 15 cm height differential!!   

So at this guy’s house we bought a few drinks to pass the time, one being ‘dulce de leche’, something like Baileys but about 10 times more sweet and some vino. At least this numbed the cold a little as we headed up the hill along with thousands of other people, including kids, grandmas, nuns … At the top, there were hundreds of small fires made from eucalyptus leaves, so the smell definitely reminded me of home and people were camping everywhere, there were so many make-shift shops selling all types of food and of course candles. We stayed at the crucifix until around 6 am when we made our journey back down the mountain and had 2 hours sleep before our Spanish class commenced at 9 am. It was truly an incredible experience and definitely worth the zombie feeling i had for the next few days while i recovered, I can’t bounce back like I used to! 

Party time – Pinatas with condoms!
In Sucre, as I mentioned we stayed with a (very large) family where there were also another 7 or so girls staying that we have hung out a lot with over the last few weeks. Marie (from Denmark) had her birthday while we were here and as her party was put on by Bolivians, we were able to experience a ‘Bolivian Style’ birthday party complete with Winnie the pooh everything (straws, plates, bowls, you name it!), a cream cake that she had to plant her face in after the happy birthday, and even a pinata which contained not the usual lollies but rather an odd assortment of whistles, toys, condoms and g-strings! I now have a new addition to my underwear collection following my luck in the pinata stakes! 

Karaoke Time
It was also in Sucre that I got to indulge in my favourite activity .. of course it was Karaoke. Karaoke bars are in abundance in Sucre and we had no hesitation in taking the stage. Between the 5 of us girls from our house, we pumped out a hard to beat version of YMCA complete with choreography … it was definitely one of our finest moments!! But on the other hand, we also had quite a low karaoke moment, when our song ‘New York, New York’ started up with only Spanish lyrics (why was this not written ‘Nueva York’ in the song book to indicate it was in Español? ) … Anyway, Anfrid and I decided we would not be prevented from hitting the stage so we persevered in Spanish, but I will admit that it was not pretty and the DJ actually ended our song half way through and we embarrassingly left the stage … never before have I been kicked out of karaoke!! 

Anyway, we will miss this sunny town, with Anfrid and Lizzy hanging out in the deck chairs in the sun at Cafe Mirador, and dancing salsa under the stars at cafe cubano. We’re now off to the silver capital of the world and then to the Salt Flats …  Until next time, Hasta Luego …