Tupiza and Sucre

In fairly boring news, I´ve just worked out how make it so that anyone can write comments on my posts without having to sign up for anything.  Just choose the "name/URL" option and type your name in.  It would be great to hear what everyone is up to, so feel free to leave me a comment!

Far more interesting is the fact that I have recently visited the towns of Tupiza and Sucre.

Myself, Will and Hatty hopped on a bus from Potisi to Tupiza.  As the road snaked its way through dramatic canyons and valleys I got good feeling about Tupiza, famed for its "Wild-West" countryside.  We arrived in good time and were about to step out of the bus station when it started raining.  We decided to give it a few minutes - wrong decision.  It began to hail (in the middle of summer) and became so strong that we thought the roof was going to cave in...then it rained harder than I´ve ever seen in my life.  The roads, with pavements at least 30cm high, became fast flowing rivers, and the bus station started to flood.  This all happened in the space of about 15 minutes.  I was still wearing a t-shirt and sunglasses.  The only amusing thing about the whole situation was a small Bolivia man who attempted to sweep away the oncoming torrent of water away with a small broom.  This was a little bit like trying to stop an avalanche with a garden spade.  Needless to say, he got very wet.

After a while the rain died down and we attempted to find a hostel.  We stepped outside the bus station and purposely marched down the street...only to find that we couldn´t get off the block as we were surrounded by fast-flowing rivers almost half a meter deep!  Luckily, an old woman saw our plight and got her son to come by with a jeep and pick us up.  The journey to the hostel was a comedy one, as it was only on the other side of the road.  The guy picked us up, did a U-turn and then we got out!

Anyway, Tupiza is just beautiful.  Everywhere you look, there are mud-red mountains, dusty plains, huge green cacti and lots of people riding horses.  It feels like you are in the middle of the Wild West!  And in fact, Tupiza was the setting for some of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (the part where they met their demise in a shootout!).

The main reason I´d wanted to come here is to explore the countryside by doing "The Triathlon".  Obviously this wasn´t a real triathlon, I´m on holiday!  It first involved a horse trek out into the countryside, exploring further afield by jeep and finally hearing down the side of a mountain on bicycle.

We rocked up to the ranch and jumped on some horses.  I had told my horse that I wanted to be at the front...

He dutifully obliged.  In fact, he took this so seriously that he wouldn´t let any of the other horses overtake him.  For the whole trip.  He would plod along rather sedately or stop for a bite to eat, until another horse got in front of him, he would then respond by galloping away to the front again!  I´d like to say I was a natural leader but I didn´t have a clue what I was doing.

We trekked around for a few hours marvelling at the mud-red rock formations spiking up into the sky after years and years of erosion.  We visited Devil´s Throat, a metre-thick wall of compacted mud, which you would have sworn was man made if there was a valid reason for creating such a thing.

We galloped (intermittently) along the dried up river bed and saw some small waterfalls.  Next it was lunchtime, the setting was a beautiful gorge with a wide riverbed cutting through dramatic sandy mountains.  Half of the river was dry so we sat and ate in a beautiful green vista right on the riverbed.

We jumped into the jeep to visit more beautiful miradors (lookouts) with some ridiculous views.  We also visited a tunnel that had been painstakingly carved through a mountain.  This allowed traders to pass in days gone by.  We were finally taken to the top of a large mountain to see some spectacular views.

It turned out that this was the start of our next activity, biking back to Tupiza.  The distance was 18km - 15kn down the side of the (very steep) mountain via some dirt tracks, 2km flat-ish to the town and 1km to the centre of town.  It had taken 45 minutes to get to the top in the jeep and around 35 minutes to get down by bike.  The views on the way down, as we spiralled around the mountain, were brilliant, although I almost fell off the bike trying to take pictures.  It was hugely exhilarating - not just because of the speed you could achieve, but because of the comical condition of both my bike and the road.  I almost stacked it on several occasions and I´m betting the plastic helmet I was wearing wouldn´t have done much to keep me safe...

However, I didn´t die and all was good.  We spent the rest of the evening walking up to the Jesus lookout point, watching the sun go down and eating llama burgers...

That evening we took a night "Speedy Bus" over to Sucre...

The horse did us good as our bus arrived an hour early, at 5am!  This was less than ideal as everything was closed.  I killed some time by sleeping half on a plastic chair and half on the top of my backpack, much to the amusement of Hatty and Will.  Once we´d found somewhere to stay we met up with James, Fiona, Joel and Anne-Marie, who had gone straight from Potosi to Sucre.  Most of the day was spent wandering around the city looking at the whitewashed buildings & grand churches, visiting a lookout and drinking fresh lemonade.

The next day we visited Creatosaurous Park - a park dedicated to all things dinosaur.  The reason the park exists is that, while digging a cement quarry, over 5,000 dinosaur footprints were discovered in the area (more than any other place in the world).  If you look carefully you will see the footprints running up and down the rock wall.

It was extremely cheesy, but great fun, and the tracks themselves were great to see.  All in all, not bad for 30p.  My personal highlight was the really surprised turtle (see pic below).

I can´t say that there is much else to do in Sucre.  It´s an awesome place with a really good vibe but I found that after three days I´d exhausted the sights.  I jumped on a bus to La Paz and yesterday.  I´m going straight to the Amazon Basin tomorrow for a bit of pampas and rainforest action.  Below are a few more pics from the last few days.

Turns out I´m a big name in Tupiza.

Trying to hide my embarrassment after my horse runs away, leaving me in the middle of the Tupizan countryside.

Dramatic earthy peaks in Tupiza.

This was in Sucre - allegedly it is a scale model of the Eiffel tower.  I couldn´t tell the difference.

El Thomaso la Tanka Engina, Thomas the tank engine´s Bolivian cousin.  The fact that he is pulled around by a Ford Fiesta surely adds to the magic experienced by the kids.

A christening at the open air church in Sucre.