The white city

After a ride in the fastest bus south of the Panama Channel (it leaned so much in every turn that many times I thought we were going to tip over), we arrived to Sucre which, unknown to many (including myself), is the official capital of Bolivia.

We arrived in Sucre, without planning it, for the 25th of May Independence festivities (a great time for a Spaniard to be there :) so we were hoping for a wonderful spectacle, dances, music, fire-works... Unfortunately, all we got was three days of school kids, army forces, policemen, politics and basically everybody in town parading non-stop on the streets to the bit of drums and trumpets. And, unfortunately as well, we chose a hotel located on the main parading street, so we had to fight the crowds everytime we wanted to get out (and wait for the owner to come everytime we wanted to get in, but that's a different story).

Most people will tell you there's not much to see or do in Sucre, and that's true, but the city is so nice and relaxing that those same people will end up staying there 3 or 4 days (at least, we did).

Sucre's center is very nice, with green plazas full of flowers, beautiful buildings and colonial churches and little streets filled with white houses that resemble those on the little Andalucian villages in Spain. In fact, all Sucre's center is white: houses, theaters, museums, churches, public buldings,... (yeap, you probably guessed that's why it's called "the white city"). And if you add to that how clean everything is and the fact that most people dress in Western clothes, it's easy to forget you're still in Bolivia (specially after having visited Uyuni).

When the parades finally let us, we visited the dinosaur footprints in Cal Orck'o (one of the most important sites of this type in the world), went to the mirador of La Recoleta to enjoy a beautiful view of Sucre (some friends told me they had stayed there for 2 days!! We stayed for around an hour) and enjoyed some excellent Bolivian traditional music on the open-sky theater, standing up at midnight (it was the night from the 24th to the 25th) to listen to and sing the Bolivian national anthem, to celebrate that a hundred and something years ago they finally got rid of those nasty Spaniards. I don't need to explain to you how ironic it was for me to take an active part in this celebration :)

We also decided to go to the classical football match Bolivar-Stronger (both teams from La Paz, but played in Sucre for the festivities). We chose to cheer for Stronger, since Bolivar was the favorite (and no Atlético de Madrid fan would ever cheer for a favorite :) and, after the anthem-singing the night before, I decided it would be pushing it too much to support a team that beared the name of an independence revolution leader :) Since we were the only "gringos" at the game (and were wearing quite obvious Stronger memorabilia) we were received with strong hishing by the Bolivar fans when we entered the stadium, but with a big applause by the Stronger supporters, who immediately offered us to seat next to them. Needless to say, Stronger beat Bolivar 1-2 (not a coincidence that we were there :) and we proudly walked home with our brown and yellow scarfs and flags.

Before the game we visited the "chorizo" (spicy sausage) fair, where we tried one of Sucre's specialities in a place with quite worrying hygenic conditions (so deficient we decided to enjoy our "chorizo" as a "bocadillo", sandwich, rather than using plates). Luckily, none of those of us that dared to try this delicacy (very tasty, by the way) suffered any unpleasant secondary effects on the following days.

We did some other unusual stuff, such as racing each other around Bolivar Park with some go-karts we rented, but who hasn't done that when visiting Bolivia! :)

However, my favorite anecdote in Sucre was visiting the market. Not only I had there the best peanut-butter cookies I've had in my life (and for a ridiculous price), but we also had a unexpected encounter with the kids working there. One little girl asked me to take a picture of her, and right after I showed it to her (one of the advantages of digital photography) we were surrounded by 10 or more kids asking me to take their picture. They posed in front of their fruit stands, behind them, with their friends, with other kids that walked by,... And they couldn't stop laughing when they saw their faces, or some of their friends' gestures. I think they had a great time (we certainly did), as it was like playtime break in the middle of their working day.

I found Bolivian kids extremely cute and sweet, specially considering their tough lives combining (or too often substituting for) work and going to school. It is amazing how little it takes to make them smile and have a good time, sometimes just talking to them with a funny accent or, as my case in the market, showing them their own picture. Quite different from the increasingly spoiled Western kids of our societies, who need to have the latest Play Station or the most expensive Nike shoes to be happy. Truly something to think about.

Our last day in Sucre we visited the cemetery, a surreal mix of Buenos Aires' mausoleums and piled colorful graves, some of them equiped with the latest gadgets, such as awnings and music boxes. Unlike the kids in the market, those working here (they offer stairs to the people that need to reach the highest graves) did not want to be photographed. Perhaps they feared that if someone saw that picture they could lose their jobs. But even so, they were also very nice and curious about us, so we sit down and chatted with them for a while.

And finally, after 4 wonderful days in Sucre, we decided to take a 15-hour night bus to La Paz. For some reason Bolivian buses don't have heaters or toilets, and I can tell you that a 15-hr long bus ride on a winter night along the Altiplano at 4,000 m on those conditions is not a truly enjoyable experience.