Thursday, February 21, 2008

Bolivia: Sucre

Sucre is known as the White City of the Americas, and it lives up to its moniker with striking white architecture and all the colonial trappings of grandeur and elegance. It`s a really beautiful city, and the setting is superb. It feels like the perfect place to start a Once Upon A Time fairytale. We spent our days strolling its streets, admiring its churches, climbing its bell towers, and poking our heads into all of its museums. Including the Natural History Museum, where Eric was nearly attacked by a condor!

It was in Sucre where we embarked on our most cheesy tour....taking the Dino Truck to the Parque Cretacico, Bolivia`s Jurassic Park. Bumping along in the back of a pick-up truck outfitted with bench seats and dinosaur claws, we made our way to the cement factory where the world`s longest track of dinosaur footprints were found while excavating cement. To be fair, and despite our goofy photos, the place was impressive. They discovered the footprints a mere 25 years ago, and the once-flat earth has since been tectonically pushed into a steep wall, but you can easily see scores of various dinosaur prints. It`s pretty incredible. The museum is well done, and they have all these recreations of dinosaurs that are supposed to be anatomically accurate based on skin fossils and bones. Best yet, they have piped in sound!

On a completely unrelated note, we also discovered that Che Guevara stayed in the same hotel as us! We didn`t think he went in for colorful patios with garden fountains and cable TV. Who knew?

Speaking of political figures, we had a really interesting and shocking conversation with a taxi driver en route to the bus station. He was the first non-Evo Morales supporter that we`ve met. Instead, he advocated for a hard line leader with a military presence in Bolivia. He said that the reason Chile was so rich, was because of Pinochet and that Bolivia needed a Pinochet. When we questioned the death toll under Pinochet and suggested there were other ways to affect economic change, he said the deaths were necessary to get Chile where it is today. We decided to keep our traps shut. But undeniably Bolivia suffers from losing coastal access to Chile, and jealousies and comparisons run rampant.









5 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Wow, what an interesting place that is - and what an amazing adventure you guys are having. I'll look forward to receiving more updates.

I’m reading a great travel book at the moment called Chasing Sunsets by Lawrence Pane and his family. He, his wife and young son took off on a six year circumnavigation of the world by boat and the book is a documentation of their adventures.

What I liked most about it was that it really inspired me to go out there and accomplish those things I’d been putting off in life. There is no time like the present to live out your dreams and even though the aim of Chasing Sunsets wasn’t exactly to do so, it managed to lift me out of my humdrum existence and get me going after my own dreams to the fullest.

Your blog has only enhanced that desire. Thanks so much!

Krishnakumar T K said...

Hi,

The places you have mentioned in your blog are simply awesome. I feel like visiting them at the very moment. Hats off for your good work.

Regards,
Suhasini
http://indiancolumbus.blogspot.com