October 25th-27th, 2015
After a 12 hour bus ride from La Paz, I arrived in beautiful Sucre. Since I was kept awake on the night bus by 4 giggling chicas (damn it), I spent the day half awake wandering through the colonial city. The constitutional capital of Bolivia is much different than La Paz, the administrative capital.
Sucre is another UNESCO World Heritage Site. Walking through the city on my first day there, drunk with tiredness, I could understand why. After eating lunch at Condor Cafe, I wandered around the city taking photos of the beautiful colonial buildings. The churches, squares, and main market are all wonderful. I had a smoothie from the women in the market every day, who always top you off when you finish.
White washed buildings of Sucre, Bolivia
The hostel I stayed at was called The Beehive, and it was like staying at a friend's. There was an impromptu movie night and the hostel owner made crazy amounts of popcorn to accompany Django Unchained.
The next day I went with my new friend Joan to rent some climbing gear to do some crag climbing in the hills surrounding the city. We were dropped off on the wrong side of the mountain, and hiked to the other side to find the routes. The first route was breezy; it felt good to be on a wall again. We did a couple more climbs, until I slipped and caught my three fingers in-between two quick-draws. I swore like a sailor, but the only bad thing that happened was nerve damage and brusing. Luckily there happened to be 6 nursing students filming a movie for school on the mountain at the same time, and they had some pain killer salve and rubbed it over my fingers. Joan cleaned the route solo, we had lunch, and then we walked back down the mountain all the way to the hostel. My fingers were totally fine, and we had an epic meal of spaghetti bolognese.
Harnessed up for my climb
Coming down
Post Climb- taken by the nursing students.
Sucre was really beautiful and the hostel was a retreat, but because it was between my time in La Paz and Potosi, it was actually a bit boring (minus the day of climbing). The quiet, white washed university city is a great place to go for studying Spanish and recovering from crazy travel times. Since I wasn't in this headspace when I was there, I don't think I enjoyed it as much as most. I was more in the headspace to ride death road and explore artisanal mines. Either way, the people were sweet and it was good to rest up for everything that followed.