It really does taste different

So Saturday morning, we arrived in Sucre at 5:30 AM. The journey took 10 hours instead of 12 hours which is what we had been told. We decided to go to the hostal we had a reservation at and just sit on the couches until things opened a couple hours later. When we got there, the cab dropped us off and we rang the bell. The owner told us we could not come in! I told him it was too dangerous for us to be out at 5:30 on the streets alone. He told us to go to another hostal and began to shut the door. I begged and said it was too dangerous for us to be walking around Sucre in search of a hostal at 5:30 AM. Grumbling, he let us in and let us sit on the couches. Around 8, we left and visited La Glorieta. Well, this palace was supposed to open for visitors at 8:30, but no one was there, so we waited outside for someone to arrive. This was the moment where my portable speakers came in handy. Listening to Wavin’ Flag, Waka Waka, and California Girls was perfect for getting all the military guys’ attention. They started dancing with us, and it was great. Finally we got in to the palace grounds. This palace was owned as a vacation home for rich ambassadors in Sucre in the late 1800s. This couple couldn’t have kids on their own, so they opened several orphanages. The palace was a mixture of every popular European architectural style: Rococo, Baroque, Greek, etc, and was completely ridiculous; however, in the 1950s, the Bolivian army invaded the palace and destroyed parts of it and took all the furniture.

After La Glorieta, we went to a supermarket, and bought some food to cook in the hostal kitchen, where we ate lunch. For me it was then nap time. After waking up, Mansi and I headed into the plaza with our new friend Lauren from England where we ate some truffles at Para Ti and shopped around at a market and finally sat at an ethnic restaurant where we all ate much needed ethnic food. At night, I was so tired that I had to sleep early, and couldn’t go to a discoteca.

Saturday morning, we woke up early and went to the famous market in Tarabuco. Unfortunately, it was not quite as amazing as I thought it would be. There were hordes of tourists, and the prices were way higher than anywhere in Cochabamba. Luckily anywhere I wanted to buy anything, I just explained to the vendors that I was a poor student volunteering in Cochabamba and didn’t have much money. It worked every time, and I got everything I wanted at a pretty good discount. I bought some sweaters, some tapestry weavings, and a holder for my iPod woven in a typical Tarabuco pattern.

Saturday night, Mansi and I went to a show called “Origenes” which featured about 15 different dances. Each dance was a typical dance from a department or region of Bolivia. Afterward, we met four other travelers: one from the U.S., one from Canada, one from Spain, and one from France. We hung out with them at night for a while after the show and even found a “hot” dance spot a few blocks from the central plaza. After dancing, we walked back to the hostal, and Mansi and I stayed up pretty late in the courtyard hanging out and chatting.

On Monday morning we woke up, and learned that the strike in Potosi had gotten worse. We had heard about the strike the night before and how there were blockades along the road, but that it was possible to walk and take a taxi between the road blocks. However, Monday, it got worse. There was no way to get to Potosi. There was also no way to get to Uyuni. Potosi was our next stop, and we were planning to go to Uyuni for the Salar Tour.  I took out a map, and figured out that we could fly from Sucre to Tarija. From Tarija, we could take a bus to Tupiza where other Salar tours begin. We had also heard that the Salar tours from Tupiza were actually much better and had better scenery than those from Uyuni. So we packed our stuff up and went to the airport to buy our tickets for the one flight they had that day. The plane left at 11:30, and we managed to get to the airport by 10:40. Unfortunately neither Mansi nor I had enough cash on us for the tickets, and the company did not take credit cards! We were told by our hostal that there was an ATM at the airport, but there wasn’t one. We ran out and got a cab and asked him to take us to the closest ATM and have us back by 11:00 which is when we had to buy the tickets. It was extremely nerve wracking because it was the only fight of the day to Tarija and we needed to get on it. It was 25 minutes of nervous fretting, but we ended up getting back to the airport at 11:05, and they sold us the tickets.  Finally we were on our way to Tarija.