Sucre

After my coin had decided my destination of Sucre. I got to the bus station and bought my ticket. I got a more expensive ticket for a bus Cama. These have bigger seats that recline back. And why the hell not I had been scrimping and saving for weeks now, I decided to treat myself.

The bus arrived about 7am. After a disjointed sleep I had to prize my eyes open as the daylight streamed in through the window. I gathered my belongings and checked for the bus times to go to Uyuni, my next destination, before grabbing a taxi to the hostel.

When I arrived, I found the hostel to be allot nicer than I had anticipated and a bit more money than I wanted to spend. So I decided to search for something a little more “down market”, they are usually more interesting anyway.

The woman at reception had suggested a place one street away, so I made my way there. When I got there , there was a young woman standing on the steps of the entrance, Staring down the street and  looking perplexed. I stopped in front of her. I recognised her from the bus.

” No rooms?” I asked

“no.” she answered

At this moment a man approached us holding a clip board.

” Are you looking for a room?” he asked

Well pretty obvious seeing as though we were both looking lost with huge back packs. He told us of a couple of hostels near by that were only about $7.  So we followed him. The first Hostel was full. The second only had one room for two people. It was an ancient old mansion with a court-yard in the middle. I am sure it was the home of a very rich family back in its hay day but it had been sorely neglected.

The double doors to the room would not close properly as the lock was a little squew wiff. But here were two beds and another set of double doors at the opposite side of the room that lead out to a kind of conservatory type balcony. It had a kind of ancient charm.

But It was a little dirty and I had the idea that if we shared a room at the 1st hotel it would only cost a little more.

We trekked back there. My plan had failed, It was double the price, we tried a few other hostels but everything was full. Apparently there were some kind of international games going on. This made sense as in all the hotels I was seeing young teenagers walking around in tracksuits embellished with flags from different countries.

We decided to head back to the ancient old mansion, scurrying back hoping the room was still available. It was. But the proprietor was a little strange or severely hard of hearing. Maybe a little of both.

” hola, Buenos Dias, ” I said cheerily.

She looked at us blankly

” we were just here, we would like to take the room” I said.

” Which room?”. She barked

“the  room upstairs with two beds”

“Its 30 Per person.”

“Yes, we know.” She  was acting like she had never seen us before in her life.

” Passports” she said holding out an expectant hand.

We settled ourselves, showered and went to the market for breakfast. My new found friend was called Jane. A tall lean Irish lass with blond curly locks. We had been on similar routes and were on a similar journey. She had also had a difficult time in Bolivia. Her original Idea was to stay in Sucre for a while and take spanish lessons but was feeling like she wanted to keep moving and find the land of hope and glory she called Argentina.

I like her. She was level-headed and softly spoken. A psychologist by trade.

I told Jane of my plans for the day, which were to visit some agencies and find out about tours to the salt flats in Uyuni and then visit the Textile Museum. She was Game on.We finished breakfast and walked down to the market to get some juice, well actually they are more like a smoothy, fruit blended with milk. Fresh. you pick out what fruit you want and they throw it in the blender there and then. It’s like a milk shake in a diner they give ALL of whats in the blender so you get second helpings. All for 50 cents. We got down to the juice stands at the bottom of the market and low and behold they were sporting the most amazing looking fruit Salads! A mountain of fruit, every kind imaginable with whipped cream and yogurt. Heaven. Feeling quite jilted with our bread and cheese breakfast we decided to come back for lunch. Across the market facing the fruit sands were lines of blue Sacks full of potatoes. Many many different Varieties. The women wore blue aprons and were uniformly colour coordinated with their wares. We wandered around town looking for tours to Uyuni and comparing prices.

We sat in the square for a while and fought of the street sellers. One woman in particular, selling woven goods. I made the mistake of asking to see a red and black striped woven bag. It was a basic square bag bur she wanted $30 for it. It was too big for my needs. I was on the look out for a new small bag like the one that had been stolen. This was not it.  However I had open the flood gates with this old Aymara Woman and in her angst to sell her product she prodded and poked and pleased with her face 1″ away from mine, shouting her toothless mouth ” por favor amiga, !” with a mix of Spanish but mostly Amarayan. She told me I could cut the bag and make it smaller. All the while showing me other goods, Placing woven wristbands on my lap, aggressively coaxing me.

I had ruined out tranquil sit in the park. There was nothing more to do but get up and walk away.

It was time for a fruit salad. It was just as delicious as anticipated. Papaya,melon, apple, orange, banana, strawberries, strawberry yogurt, brazil nuts, fresh cream and a token chocolate wafer sticking out of the top. I could have eaten 3.

Sucre has a warm and sun filled climate. Down town is busy but no where near as manic as La Paz. I liked it. It was clean and bright like Arequipa. There were good food and bars with a cosmopolitan feel. But I knew I only needed one day here and was craving some wilderness and natural beauty.

In the afternoon we went to the indigenous textile museum.It was really the main reason for me going to sucre, thats why I flipped the coin. It was great and again really informative but almost too much information. The art of Bolivian textiles is so incredibly complex and regional that there is so much information to take on. There is so much to learn in order to do this art form justice that I left feeling completely overwhelmed and almost beaten by the idea of working with Andean Textiles. I think I have just completely over done it and milked my self dry.  I am overloaded on textiles and think I have made it a kind of mission of mine whilst in Bolivia and have made this investigation into a little mini job for myself. I need a little “Time out to reassess the options. Maybe I will end up having an epiphany of a completely different kind. Being Dog Tiered also didn’t .A sleepless night on a bus can leave one feeling deflated , regardless.

Jane and I decided to relax a little before heading off to dinner. We hit  up a vegetarian place with a german influence. Although my dish of Tofu curry was more indian than German. It was certainly nice to have something different to eat than bread and cheese or chicken and rice. After the meal we went for a couple of glasses of wine and battled over whether we should have apple pie and ice cream. I talked us out of it knowing that it would tip us over the edge of belly comfort after such a big meal. I was quite surprised at my restraint.

That night after we had fallen asleep, a howling wind rushed through the room and both sets of double doors flung open crashing and flapping against the walls. We both Shot up in bed and  gasping with fright It couldn’t have had a better effect if it had been in a movie set! I got up and shut the doors thinking to my self that this old house was definitely haunted. We fell back to sleep immediately.

In the middle of the night I awoke to

” OH MY GOD , OH MY GOD ! CAN YOU SEE THEM ?THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!”

I opened my eyes as wide s an owl and froze in my bed. It was pitch black. I could see nothing.

” What?”I asked pensively. Afraid of the answer.

“THEY ARE CRAWLING ALL OVER THE WALLS AND THE CEILING THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! OH MY GOD!”

“What?” I asked again.

I was visualizing an infestation of cockroaches crawling all around us.  Jane was shouting rapidly in a complete panic and I was wondering what an earth to do, but not knowing what these things were it was a tough call!

“THEY ARE CRAWLING EVERYWHERE THEY ARE ABOUT 10 FT LONG!!” She cried.

“10 feet?” I questioned feeling this was a tad unbelievable. Even in the haunted house of what was fast becoming the horrors.

“Oh Don’t worry”, Jane said calmly and paused. ” I think I was dreaming.”