Normality in Sucre

It had been about 2 months since we left our last volunteering position at the trekking hostel ‘Llullu Llama’ in the mountains of Ecuador, when we arrived in the small Bolivian city of Sucre. All along we had earmarked Sucre as a place where we would stop for a little while, rent an apartment, get to know the locals and do some more volunteering.  Two months on the road can go by fast, and even if you don’t realise it at the time, the continual travel can be draining. It’s good to stop and ‘recharge the mental batteries’ before the travel fatigue kicks in.

Home for a while!

Our apartment courtyard

Sucre is a wonderful city. We consider it (at least the central part of the city) a kind of ‘bubble’ in South America. Clean and safe; all the modern conveniences (like supermarkets, movies and good coffee), but still plenty of culture and heritage.  One minute I might be sipping a double espresso and using high speed wifi in a café; the next, buying a kilo of fresh strawberries from a woman sitting on the sidewalk in traditional costume with a rosy cheeked baby slung to her back.

Sucre streetscape

Our favourite café

Zebras educating the locals on pedestrian crossing safety!

There is a wonderful central market where you can buy everything from fresh fruit and vegies, cheese and eggs, fresh flowers, decorated cakes and fresh bread, to a bewildering array of cuts of meat. Oh, and the fresh juices – every combination you can think of – mango, strawberry, peach, passionfruit, papaya, kiwi, apple, pear, pineapple, all whizzed up freshly to order for less than 50c. A strange local combo is fruit juice mixed with milk and dark beer – even Mark won’t go near this one!

Fresh juice alley

Special occasion cakes

Eggs and cheese

The local butcher

It’s been wonderful to have our own kitchen, which even has an oven (a rarity in these parts). So far I’ve cooked up a roast beef with all the trimmings, and we have had a taco night. The simple things that remind us of home! Also found a great steak restaurant right around the corner, that serves up T-bones for $4 and sirloins that you could cut with a spoon for $6. Mmm food, glorious food!

Dinner party in our apartment with our wonderful friends Danica and Andrew

We have found an awesome organisation to volunteer with www.condortrekkers.org  which is a ‘not for profit’ tour company (and now also café) started up by an Aussie guy, Randall. He, with a variety of volunteers have trained the local staff in all aspects of leading tours and managing a café.  Any profits go right back to the communities that the treks visit, as well as some important projects here in Sucre.

I have been spending most of my days teaching English to the guides as well as some of the café staff. It’s my first time teaching, and I am really enjoying it, especially since they are all so keen.  Mark is mainly volunteering as an assistant guide on the treks – because the guides speak limited English, they try to send an English speaking volunteer out with each group. I have done a few as well, but I prefer the teaching.

The treks, mostly 2-3 days long, explore the arid countryside surrounding Sucre, which is remarkable in its own right.  The geology of the area is very interesting – a spectacular array of colours and crazy folding of the rock.  As well as the natural beauty, it is interesting to see how the local Indigenous people live, farming the land subsistence style -  many of whom don’t even speak Spanish. The highlight of the trekking route for both of us is a rock slab with some amazingly clear dinosaur footprints. 

Trekking on an ancient Incan trail

Dinosaur prints

Surreal landscapes

Trek accommodation in local villages

The plan is to spend a month or two here, and then hit the road south again, towards Argentina and Chile, which, I think will be very culturally different than Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, where we have spent the last eight months.