This post brings some stories about the city of Sucre, our visit of the Dinosaurs and their footprints as well as one of the craziest taxi rides in my life. All backed up with pictures.
Flying from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, to Sucre, Bolivia, with BoA again. Got to know Britt and Remy from Netherlands at the airport. Spent 35 minutes with them during flight number twelve on my trip.
We arrived in Sucre, the 40 minutes country road taxi ride, which Britt, Remy and I did together from the airport to the city, was 60 BOS, which islike 8 €. Ring, ring for 40 minutes! Crazy!
Later, we explored the city and had a good local lunch. Then, we went on top of the church Iglesia Nuestra Señora. Nice view up there. Afterwards, we explored the Central Market. Crazy how they take care about fighting bacteria and cooling. Quite notable, they don’t care at all. Flies everywhere. A freshly produced fruit juice outside of the disgusting area should give us some vitamins, …followed by a burger. Haha. Why a burger in Bolivia? Well, they offer 20% discount on Tuesdays, which makes this home made burger and fries 28 BOS, which is 3,80 €.
Wanna buy some meat at the local market? Hatschi. 😉
3,80 € in a restaurant with service in a tourist area – crazy!
Our hostel was pretty nice as well:
I had some innovative local fruit. Sweet but no idea what its called. Haha.
The next day, Britt, Remy and I had breakfast. Three pieces of very tasty pan for 1.5 BOS all up (20 €-Cents) and one piece of chocolate cake for 8 BOS (1,10 €). We jumped on the bus for a 30 min ride to Parque Cretácico for 1,5 BOS (ring ring 20 €-Cents for a 30 minutes bus ride). A snack on the street 1 BOS …I’m not gonna convert this for you ;-).
Picture of a different day buying this delicious pan:
Parque Cretácico – let’s call it wild dinosaurs place 🙂
They have footprints which were created millions of years ago. Today it appears like the big dinosaur walked uphill pretty smoothly:
Remy, are you really thinking you are funny? You big lovely little bastard! 😉
The same in Sucre: The city really stinks. The amount of dust and dirt the busses and cars emit is far out of any scale we measure air pollution in Europe. They are driving very old cars, which we would call old-timer. And our TÜV (technical inspection agency) would refuse to give them official approval to drive on the street. We would rather refurbish these cars nicely and put them in the garage than driving them in this crazy traffic. The discussion we have in Germany about eliminating diesel cars appears so ridiculous in this context.
One can see a lot of poor locals on the street asking for money. Other locals are selling some sweets and food on the street. How can they live from that? A guy from Norway, whom I met and who has been living here for three years, said that the people are very active in pick pocketing, however they will never hurt someone. Watch your belongings! There is one more thing that needs improvement from my point of view: The internet speed. This is not broad band rather some lower ISDN level. It is not possible to update any apps. What a security issue. The last backup of my phone is four weeks back now. And it doesn’t really help to buy some HSDPA high speed cellular data plan. The upload speed through that is probably around 50 kbps. In Germany this standard allows more than 5 Mbps which is a hundred times faster – on the same technical standard.
Interesting, how I mainly express all the bad things around. Well, I must say, these things are not bad, they are just different. They could be improved if the people wanted that. Do they?
Some more sightseeing – the beautiful things:
Walking up the hill to Christo:
Another chilling day started with breakfast for 75 €-Cents. Reading more Herman Hesse followed by a vegetarian three course dinner including a freshly produced apple juice for 25 BOS (3,40 €). Listening to some Boy & Bear songs…
Britt and Remy left earlier. Therefore, I took a cab oit of the city by myself. The ride in the cab was crazy. Read the story: The taxi driver had prayed before we started and prayed again after we reached the top of the city. We had like eleven engine misfires (I counted since every time I got shocked again from the noise). The first time I was frightened a little in Bolivia, I must confess. Interestingly not of being robbed. The car must have had like 45 horsepower. I can remember three overtaking moves, with limited sight through the curves, that I probably would not have started with my previous 180 horsepower Golf GDT. The engine went off five times during the ride …while the car was still in motion. The driver had to provide the engine with some inter-gas while going downhill. In order to drive straight ahead the steering wheel needs to be like 45 degree left. Funny: My passenger door on the right side was like a driver’s door of a right driven car. Just the two window open/close buttons did not work. Again: 50 minute ride for 60 BOS (8 €). When I saw the commander tower of the airport I thought like: Great, I can walk from here. …I’m pretty sure they don’t have a TÜV (obligatory regular technical inspection). Crazy, not innovative, but still wild. Haha.
Follow more crazy experiences from Bolivia – read next: Cochabamba and a new Guitar