The journey to Sucre was not straight forward at all. The bus from La Paz was driving via a mining town called Potosi to finish in Sucre. Unfortunately for us at about 4am in the morning when everyone was asleep the bus stopped without any reason being given. Sue woke up and woke me up, out the window we could see people walking passed our bus. I didn't think much of it and so ignored it for a little while. About 30 minutes later a lot of the locals on our bus started chatting and then getting their belongings together. One French guy on the bus was speaking in English to a local so I went and spoke to him also and found out that our route in to Potosi had been road blocked by protestors. Without any guidance whatsoever Sue and I started rounding up all the backpackers on the bus we could find. Within about 30 minutes everyone was up and we had a group of about 10 of us consisting of a few French, a Canadian, and Aussie and Sue and I. With the small amount of Spanish we had we started to find out a little more information and ended up with two options. We had to decide to either walk over the road block towards Potosi or to walk the other direction back to a smaller village. I was much more in favour of walking to Potosi due to the fact it was in our guide books and if we were going to be stuck there at least we would have accommodation and food options available to us. The French contingent were a little wary at first of going to Potosi but we were starting to get some indication that the we would only have to walk a couple of kilometres over the road block and on the other side there were minibuses taking people the rest of the way to Potosi. By the time we had made the decision and grabbed our bags the sun was up so we would be walking in the daylight. The Roadblock consisted of mounds of earth covering the road along with rocks and some burning tyres. There was no sense of danger as so many people, men, women and children, were undertaking the same task as us. The only disadvantage we had was heavy bags to carry along with us. We eventually got to the other side of the road block and found a minibus big enough to squeeze us all in along with our luggage. After about half an hour we reached Potosi where we found out no buses were leaving from Sucre due to the protests, we again found a minibus driver who said he would be able to get us through the roadblocks all the way to Sucre. We got his price down to something that felt reasonable given the circumstances and again loaded ourselves in for the two hour journey through to Sucre.Thankfully there were no more problems and we arrived in Sucre in fairly good spirits although extremely drained. I was so impressed with the attitude of all the travellers we were with, we all stuck together really well with people taking responsibility for different thing. Some would look after bags while others found information, then others would sort out prices while others were hauling the bags into or on top of the minibuses. Everyone's attitude managed to make a rather large stumbling block really manageable and, dare I say, a little bit fun. Once we had said goodbye to the group, four of us, Sue and I along with Jen (Canadian) and Leah (Aussie,) headed off to the same hostel to drop our bags before going to get some lunch and a well earned drink. Over lunch we had a couple of drinks and a great chat and started to forget about the difficult start to the day. We all went back to the Hostel to catch some sleep but Sue and I were feeling surprisingly perky so stayed up chatting to a group of Irish and German backpackers staying in our hostel. Later in the evening Jen and Leah emerged and we headed out for some dinner around the main square of Sucre. After dinner we made our way back to the Hostel for a little campfire before heading off to bed.

The following morning we were up and out at a reasonable hour to catch the Dino truck to Cal Orck'o which houses a museum based on the discovery of dinosaur tracks in the quarry that was being excavated at the site. The tracks were on the side of the quarry as during the formation of the Andes the earth that that the tracks were on got forced upwards to form a small mountain. The accidental discover took place in the 1990's and since then the site has been granted UNESCO protection. Our free guide was extremely knowledgeable and described exactly which type of dinosaur tracks we were looking at and how the discovery of the tracks has been significant in the understanding of dinosaurs. We stayed at the sight for a couple of hours and it never became any less impressive to look at the numerous tracks, including the longest single track in the world. What is most incredible is that we had no idea such a significant site was in Bolivia, I would expect that it is somewhere that will become more and more popular to visit as it was one of the most interesting things I have ever seen. After leaving the site we headed back in to town where we had a short window to grab some lunch. After lunch we went back to our rooms to get ready to head up to a cafe on one of the surrounding hills to catch sunset over Sucre. Unfortunately we didn't get much of a sunset as there was so much dense cloud; we did instead get a fairly spectacular electrical storm. After our drink at the cafe we headed down to a restaurant/cafe called 'Amsterdam' thinking that Maarten and Linda would head there first had they managed to make it to Sucre without encountering the same problems as us. When we got there they weren't in the cafe so we assumed that they had had the same issues as us and were either back in La Paz or in Potosi. In discussing the whereabouts of Maarten and Linda an English couple offered us some clarity. It just so happened that Maeve and Anthony had been sitting behind them on the bus from La Paz. Whilst they had encountered the road blocks as well Maeve and Anthony had made it to Sucre but Maarten and Linda decided to stay in Potosi one night so they could visit the mines. We got chatting away to Maeve and Anthony for the rest of the evening and expected to bump in to them later on in our stay in Sucre.

The following day we took things fairly easy, the day consisted primarily of walking around tour agencies in town and trying to find a decent tour supplier for a couple of different tours. Firstly, whilst still in Sucre, we fancied doing either a bike ride or a hike in the surrounding areas. Secondly, we wanted to book our Salt Plains tour for southern Bolivia. We found both to be fairly difficult to book as the hiking/cycling tours were either very expensive or very hard work as you had to cycle uphill for a long way before you got out in to the surrounding countryside. The Salt Plains tours seemed much more reasonable but we were waiting on Maarten and Linda to see if we could all go on the tour together. Later in the evening Sue and I along with Leah met Maarten and Linda in a bar and Maeve and Anthony happened to be in there too. With Leah leaving the next morning it left six of us who wanted to do a tour of the Salt Plains together. Maarten and Linda also wanted to look at doing a tour around Sucre so we decided we would try and sort something out together in the next couple of days.

The next morning we got up and spoke to the Hostel owner about extending our stay, unfortunately that morning a couple had come by and asked to book a double room. Thinking that we were leaving she took a deposit from them for our room. Unbeknownst to them, Maarten and Linda had accidentally evicted us. When the error was realised we agreed that the four of us would find another place together and happened upon a really nice hostel just a little further from the centre of town but with a really nice garden to relax in. In the afternoon we walked around town trying to find some cheap Halloween costumes for the party which was taking place the next day. We then went to the supermarket and grabbed some food which we ate on the benches in the main square of the city. For the rest of the afternoon we headed back to our hostel to hang out for a while as that evening we were planning to go to a night at the museums. For one day a year they open the museums all through the night and entry is free. We took advantage of this by heading out around 7pm and going to 7 or 8 museums before finally heading back to bed at around midnight. The next morning was Tottenham V Arsenal and I had made plans to meet up with fellow Spurs fan Anthony to watch it in a bar. Unfortunately for us the early start wasn't worth it as we got beat fairly comprehensively. In the afternoon Maarten, Linda, Sue and I got a taxi to drive us was out in to the desert so we could undertake the Inca trail hike. The walk was thankfully mostly downhill and took us the best part of three hours to complete. At the end of the hike our cab was waiting for us and drove us back to Sucre. We had made plans to meet Anthony and Maeve in the Joyride pub and we were running a bit late. Sue and I got down there just before to grab some food before running back to the hostel to get changed i.e. put on a hat and some devil horns. We then raced back down to the Joyride. Coinciding with Halloween was the anniversary celebration of Sucre so the streets were lined with residents of the city all waiting for the university students to parade through town. We had seen lots of rehearsals taking places over the last few nights and the sense of anticipation on the night was very exciting as it seemed everyone from the city was out to have a large fiesta. When we were crossing the main square we happened to bump in to Erwin again and he followed us to the pub to meet up again with Maarten and Linda. The party was a lot of fun but there was a definite country divide between the Brits and the Dutch. The Dutch were dancing the night away while the Brits sat around the table drinking, each to their own! On the way back from the party we caught the final part of the street parade and had people calling out to us as they danced up and down the streets. This was to be our final excitement in Sucre as the following morning the six of us were up fairly early to catch an all day bus to Uyuni where we were going to book and start our Salt Plains tour. I'll let you know how that went soon.

John