A Tale of 3 Cities

the charming Che.

To get to the Brazilian pantanal we visited 3 Cities on route to break up the achy shaky journey & get a feel for the more cosmopolitan side of Bolivia.

Potosi
The journey to Potosi was spectacular (a treat after so many grey mountains), glued to the coach window we watched salt flats, beautifully coloured rock formations and oasis's of green valleys pass by.

There was a bus strike on arrival (again in protest to the state of the roads) so we had to walk with all our stuff uphill for the best part of an hour (about time we had some training, for the serious hiking yet to come).

Potosi town

The hill in the background of this shot was mined by the Spaniards, and was apparently so rich a source of silver that it funded the Spanish invasion of Europe. The town was so wealthy at the time it coined a phrase for things of value "its worth a Potosi".
The place must have looked very fine back then, the crumbling colonial buildings all still stand (just).

We stayed in a hostel that used to be a 17th century monastery, here's the courtyard. Very peaceful with the welcome interlude of 2 cute red pesky spaniels running riot.


I was a tad crook so lay around in our monkish room for a couple of days aptly reading "The Gospel according to Jesus Christ"- an alternative look at the life of JC (thanks Joe great read). Dave meanwhile chomped away at coco leaves (I wouldn't really have thought this was a pursuit that went hand in hand with reading but impressed with the discovery the boy just kept on chewing).

Here's some pics.....

this is Jesus

Here's one of Dave's drawings that has miraculously become real.


Here's my steamy fellow at sunset.


Me (thanks for the tip off about this place for sunset Lisa!).


A rather splendid taxi.


An old fashioned mum with mobile technology.


A fine barber shop, full of posters of boy band cuts you can have.




I am not an animal (for Michelle)

Internet very cheap here so spent most of our time on it and drank stacks of orange juice from the street vendors. Movie below of one of them peeling the fruit prior to juicing.


Had a pricey snack in a trendy bar that let you draw on the walls (Dave improved the standard with some tripods). They had an average band and at the end cheekily charged us for listening to them, wont be going there again.

Nothing more of any consequence to report.

link to more Potosi photos


Sucre

We got a cab to Sucre (had to share) and were without a doubt the fastest thing on the road, no one overtook us in the 3 hour journey. He was an excellent driver but we occasionally grasped the seat in front with white knuckles and were relived when we could alight.

Sucre is the University town & Bolivian capital of chocolate (but the latter really isn't something they should shout about). Pretty pleasant town with distinctive white buildings (and amusingly) traffic cops & traffic lights on every corner- perhaps they want to make a stand & distance themselves from the crazy roads of La Paz.

Had our first Pisco sours overlooking the square at sunset, a fine boozy nectar.
Then found a sweet hotel and chilled out with the TV remote & a good film (well, when in the city you know).

The next day we went to visit the dinosaur footprints the town is famous for. Its the largest site in the world and was uncovered by the cement factory that still operates next door. We had to get the dino truck from the centre of town, the whole thing was very tacky & funny. You used to be able to walk right next to the wall. Sadly though since our guide book had written about it they had built a visitor centre that meant you were so far away that you could only really see them through telescopes.

the wall of footprints (click image for more detail on larger version).

We did have fun photographing all the life size models of the dinosaurs though, here's a few (lots more through the link at the bottom if you are not too scared by these).





harr, harr, stupid arms!



Drank great strawberry & Orange shakes at this Mirador cafe overlooking the city.



kids working for Giants


fruit seller

Visited a wonderful museum that was run by the indigenous people, it explained all about the history of weaving & animal characters of Bolivian textiles. As commercialism took hold the designs simplified & many of the more complex designs were lost. These have recently been re-taught & re-introduced to the new generation of weavers.
Men are also now learning the trade, and use similar styles but their depictions tend to be darker scenes & characters (devils rather than lamas etc..).

One metre piece can take 3 months to do, probably quite tiresome work, I wonder if the indigenous people are glad to be doing this amount of detail again for the western market?

fascinating to look at none the less, really beautiful,each one unique. Shame our budget doesn't stretch to trinkets- its tough, Dave doesn't understand my need to buy amazing things!).

(sorry no more pics as they didn't allow cameras, bought stacks of postcards and sent them home, will add images later).

Here's one of the demo weavers.


Later that day we came across a very noisy demonstration weaving its way through the small central streets. Sucre used to be the Capital of Bolivia and they were marching in relation to reclamation of that status.

More Sucre shots


Toucan play at that game!

Bit of a joke journey to get Santa Cruz. It should have been 12 hours but the bus wasn't actually working and we free wheeled down hills for the first 3 hours as night and heavy rain crept upon us. 18 hours later we arrived in the sweaty bustling city.



view from the free wheeling bus


The main 2 attractions here for us lived inside our hostel. Meet Daisy and Luke Duke the most cartoon like living birds on the planet.



They had had their wings clipped but for captive birds they had a nicely maintained jungle environment and we had lots of fun feeding them water melon at breakfast and watching them try and eat the flip or flop off my foot (excellent movie to follow). Amazing creatures, when we first walked in and saw them it was difficult to believe they were real.


Luke


Jackie and Daisy


and so very photogenic, more on flickr here

Hot and upbeat you could feel the influence of Brazil on this town. We got our first really decent pizza here and went back again and again, stocked up on supplies and failed at getting lots of Christmas presents or any guinness in the Irish pub.


Whilst sipping coffee above the main square we watched as the purple people gathered below. Some sort of religious violet event was afoot so we popped down to take a closer look.

At dusk when we arrived back at Toucan Inn some of the purple people had made it back there and were having a a holding hands sing prey right outside our room. They seemed to enjoy it, we didn´t as we couldn´t get out or make any noise for fear of disturbing their ecstatic trance.

heres some other sights from the town......



old friends






sad bundle




Dave in ecstatic trance



fishy phonecall & tree hips confuses policeman.



popular snax (Saltenas, sadly most have egg in and they disagree with Dave)

On our last night we were tipped off by a local about a traditional camba rerestaurant on the edge of town. It turned out to be a massive tourist restaurant with more white sombrero clad staff than customers & tough meat to boot.

Pretty glad to be leaving the city tomorrow and heading into the brazilian pantanal, will miss our plastic billed rootin´ tootin´ friends though.