Sucre

So arriving in the small airport at Sucre we met up with a French traveller and caught a local bus into the centre. After checking a couple of places we stayed at the central Potosi Hostel and strolled about that night checking out the lovely main plaza (so far in Bolivia everywhere has had really clean, beautifully well kept plazas).

That night I had a bit of a late one in the very popular gringo hang out of the Joy Ride Cafe, although Sarah headed home early with a dicky tummy, I stayed out with the French guy and the Dutch guy we'd met in Samaipata who had just finished guiding a tour.

Next day we did the short tour of the worlds longest dinosaur footprints. They were found recently enough in a limestone quarry, and the quarry owners have now built a tourist centre to explain how the footprints formed and what dinosaur species are present. The footprints themselves are pretty impressive actually, as are the life-size models of various dinosaurs. Our guide was very good too, although he had a very strange American accent.

Heading back to the town we popped into the museum for indigenous textile workers, which was very impressive too (displays of ritual dried llama foetuses aside I suppose), and then headed towards home for another early night. Along the way we noticed a lot of people hanging around the main plaza and then saw a few brass bands playing in different parts of the city. When we got back to the hostel one of the bands actually marched down the street right outside our window - turns out tomorrow is National Independence Day, and so they have a few days with lots of marching bands and the like.

So today we got up early and hiked up one of the city hills to a lookout point over the city, and a relaxing drink at the Le Mirador cafe after a short tour of the neighbouring convent (with a mad looking ancient 1400 year-old cedar tree and a very impressive carved choir area).

And so now, for the very first time in over 14 months, this blog is actually up-to-date! Tomorrow the plan is to get a local bus for the 3 hour journey to Potasi, where we'll probably spend a couple of days on our way down to the worlds largest salt flats.