Sucre Day 2

And here's just what it looked like!
With only one full day in the legal capital of Bolivia, we needed to move fast! The Hostal Amigo had served us well, with a balcony room overlooking one of the beautiful streets in the centre, just a stone’s throw from the Plaza 25 de Mayo. Street life is always wonderful to observe: here the women don’t wear the Bowlers, but a more whacky style of Sombrero. And the bottled gas van rings a bell on the top of the cab!
Our first stop on our rapid trip to Sucre was to the Cal Ork’o cement works. Yes: here there is to be found the Parque Cretácico where we were able to observe dinosaur footprints, preserved intact from the final era of the dinosaurs. If you’d like to see them, move quickly, for geologists estimate that the entire escarpment on which they are to be found will collapse within the next fifteen years. We also learned how following the separation of the Pangea single continent, South America had many more openings for saline waters. In fact, it seemed that on the diagram, a channel from the Atlantic Ocean reached where the salt flats are today before this path closed over to enclose a lake. Another fact for you is that the Andes are the youngest mountain range in the world and tectonic movements caused them to rise dramatically, also much later than the division of Pangea. After the overwhelming information on footprints and geomorphology of Latin America, it was on to the bus terminal, where Jon managed to clinch a deal to La Paz on a very comfortable bus for just 60 Bolivianos, where some other hapless travellers had to pay 100. Happy days!
Although Santa Teresa was closed, on the way up the incline heading from the main Plaza we stopped at the open door of the mighty church of Santo Domingo. The opening times of the churches in Sucre are a moveable feast, so it’s necessary to pounce when you can! The side altars here are fantastic; a riot of gold-leaf. The monasteries and convents in this city are not just reminders of the past age: they are still working, praying for the city, for the world, and for you and me. Two days ago in Potosi we stopped a Franciscan monk in a bright red baseball cap to bless a rosary bought in the gift shoip of the parish church of Tupiza. He blessed the rosary, then he blessed us, too!
The next stop was the working convent of Santa Clara, not just to meet the nuns of this closed order, but to observe the wonderful cloister and astonishing works of art. Simon was just itching to play the baroque organ at the west end of the monastery church, but time was against us! Next we climbed the hill to the viewpoint at La Recoleta, where we could see the entire city spreading out beneath us. The colonial centre is completely surrounded both by hills and by the earthy shanties which tumble down. Travelling by bus through this more authentically Bolivian area was a revelation: street markets selling all manner of goods, and textiles for the locals just exactly the same as the expensive versions in the tourist ghetto.
We’re off now to catch the 19.30 departure to La Paz; see you there!