We have a good group of 14 who are going to spend the next week in Southern Bolivia. There were 8 of us who flew down to Sucre from La Paz to join 6 others who were coming here after travelling from Brazil. So we have 5 Irish, 5 New Zealanders, 1 English, 1 Scottish, 1 Aussie and 1 Canadian. So yes funny to end up with a bunch of Irish but good group altogether. We have a really nice Peruvian leader who is really good at making our lives easy.
The journey from La Paz to Sucre was probably one of the most stunning flights I´ve even been on. La Paz is in a giant bowl and above it on one side is a huge plain called the Altiplano which extends from La Paz into Peru and Lake Titicaca (which I will be visiting later). So we took off from the airport on top of the plain and you could see the whole of La Paz below in the bowl. The other side is surrounds by high snow-covered Andean peaks. At one point we were the exact same altitude as the peaks so we were flying along beside them. We then crossed lower lying Andeas for our dramatic entrance to Sucre. We were just skimming the tops of the surround mountains and then had to do a huge bank to get around to the airport which seemed to be on top of a mountain but again there was a flat plain. Very exciting/scary.
Sucre is the official capital of Bolivia although La Paz is really the main administrative capital. There´s lots of rivalry between the two cities. Sucre is a far more pretty city than La Paz with all the buildings white-washed like a Spanish city. It was actually the centre of the Spanish Court in colonial times and most of the buildings have been well preserved. It a really nice city to wander around and the local people like to hang out in the squares.
I had wanted to go to see dinosaur footprints this afternoon but heard from other people not worth the effort. I really just wanted to go for a ride in the Dinobus!
After Potosi tomorrow we are off to the Salt Plains which I´m really looking forward to - except for the fact that it is supposed to be absolutely freezing at night! Will hopefully update you all about that when I get back to La Paz in about 6 days.
(Sorry not pics today - slow connection)
