The day started with a lovely breakfast in our hotel with amazing views of the city. We then spent the rest of the day basically just walking around the old town. Lots of lovely white walled building and one way streets. The local market was as fascinating as all these markets are, full of all sorts of fresh produce, raw meats and a huge array of miscellaneous products.
We decided the University of Sucre, founded in the 1600’s would be worth a visit so spent an hour walking to the campus only to be incredibly disappointed at what we found. It looked more like an industrial zone than a place of learning. At least we got to explore another part of the city.
We had read good things about the nightlife in Sucre given the backpackers and student population so we headed out at 6 to find place to drink. Two lessons here. Firstly do not walk around old Sucre at 6pm as its effectively rush hour and the streets are clogged with lung busting fume throwers. Secondly, if you are planning on partying with backpackers and students, their night does not start until 9.30pm. A Sucre Sour at Joy Ride Club followed by several Sucre Mojito’s at the very long named Kultur Berlin Hostel Restaurant Bar Nightclub (and some chicken wings and Brushettas) and we were ready to leave as the place was starting to wind up. I wonder if anyone even noticed the two wise nomads playing cribbage in the middle of the pub?
The next day we headed into town to grab the local dinosaur bus to Parque Cretacico. Sitting on the top deck of the bus was interesting, not because of the sights but because of observing how close the bus came to taking out power lines running across the road and the odd shop sign.
The park, in a word, was incredible. The park was (is) part of a concrete factory that was built in the 1940s to help rebuild Sucre after an earthquake. They factory basically cut vertically away a mountain of limestone until it reached a layer that was high in magnesium and hence unsuitable for concrete. So they moved to another area and left the cliff to get eroded by rain and gravity. 26 years later, In 1994, the first dinosaur footprints were exposed. Turns out the cliff was once the shore of a freshwater lake that was pushed vertical by tectonic plates over 50 million years ago. The footprints of sauropods, tetrapods and others were preserved in the lakeside mud. The footprints were roughly 60 million years old – at this stage 12,092 of them.
The tour started with a walk amongst life size replicas of dinosaurs whose footprints are on the cliff – the Titanosaurus (Argentinasauros) was incredible in both size and the noise that emanated from it. We then walked down to the cliff-face to get up close to the footprints. A local guide provided a lot of detail and made the guided tour a must. Bolivia is looking to have the site listed as a world heritage site in order to get the funding to preserve the footprints – failing that they will be lost by 2020 through erosion. Interestingly the concrete factory is increasing dramatically in size which appears at odds with the preservation argument.
The day finished with a climb to the Recoleta to watch the sun set over the city. Once again we were amazed at the number of kids playing in the square – waiting to be picked up by working parents was my guess. There are that many kids that the schools here in Bolivia operate on 2 shifts – morning and afternoon.
Our last day in this lovely city was spent walking around the place. First we visited the local Cathedral museum – I reckon there is a strong dose of masochism in the local Catholic community given the gruesome artworks in the Cathedral and it’s museum. No photos allowed unfortunately. We then walked to the lovely Parque Bolivar – the Eiffel Tower replica is not a replica!! The afternoon was spent reading and kipping in preparation for our busy 4 days in La Paz, where we head to tomorrow morning.
