Known as the "white city"...simply because the buildings in the centre of town are all pristine white and it's always very clean. It is also a city that is recognised as having great weather all year round! Whooo, I'm in luck

So alongside eating lots and exercising lots (including a few Zumba sessions with a very sexy Bolivian man [unfortunately I think he is gay]) my days in Sucre have mainly been taken up by studying Spanish each morning firstly in "Sucre Spanish School" and a couple of weeks later in my Bolivian house with my professor. It seems like everyone comes to this city to learn Spanish as it's the cheapest place to learn costing just under £4 for an hour of private lessons. It is also said to be the easiest place to understand the language as the people here are said to speak very slowly and clearly compared to the rest of South America. Sometimes I think that's a good thing and other times I think not because I start freaking out when I realise if I don't understand the people here, then I really have no chance of understanding people anywhere else. But hey, why not chill out here for a bit and learn a new skill! I haven't stayed in one place for a long time, so I think my time was due.

I am definitely enjoying learning the language but at times it can get very frustrating because although I can get my point across in Spanish (even if it is terrible grammer), I am still not great at actually understanding them when they respond. And to top that off, many tourists who I have met here speak great Spanish and understand it well too- mainly due to the fact that they have travelled from North to South so they have had much longer time to pick it up. I hope one day I can really have a good conversation in Spanish...it's my dream! We all talk Spanish in the house which is great, but we have a German girl who speaks well, Michelle has been travelling South so she also speaks good Spanish and now we have just acquired a new house mate, who is French and has been working in a school for 6 months teaching languages. And then there is me...no need to say more really :)...a true beginner.

Condor Trek - 3 days

One thing I have done since I arrived here in Sucre which has been slightly more energetic was a 3 day trek in the mountains with Condor Treks. Since this trek I have tried to encourage everyone to go because the variety of landscapes you see over these 3 days is incredible. I loved every minute of this trek; the views were so unreal I thought I had stepped into a postcard picture. It felt like you could touch the mountains in front of you, it was such a peculiar feeling. We had an amazing picnic by a waterfall and I had a nice shower there too to cool off. As we were settling down for lunch on our first another tour group caught us up. It was actually a Kiwi couple who we had bumped into several times in Sucre and told them to join us on our trek...so it went from 4 people to 6 people with 2 guides, and their guide could speak fairly good English too. We stayed together for the next two days until they had to leave to head back, but it was a great group and a good laugh.

I don't have one bad thing to say about the trip- the guide was great (despite only being able to speak Spanish we were still able to communicate together, and the other 2 girls we were with could speak it well so we didn't have a problem), the food was plentiful and extremely tasty despite the fact that it was vegetarian, we stayed in really cute stone-built cabins where all the furniture was made out of wood.

Our second night was rather interesting as when we arrived at the only hostel there was in the village, we were told that they were fully booked. We all thought they were kidding as we thought who would be in this tiny village in the middle of nowhere, but no sooner had we thought that, a big group of old French people came strolling past and made their way into the cabins. Ok, so they weren't exactly lying after all. Some of the old French men looked concerned for us, and ended talking to us out of politeness. I hope they felt bad stealing our beds! After our guide made a few unsuccessful phone calls to find other accommodation for us, the hostel ended up finding mattresses and plenty of blankets for us to sleep in their office. They were very kind and relaxed about the situation, and it wasn't a bad night's sleep after all. The village we stayed in on the final night was incredible...we had walked into a film set with different mountains surrounding us, fields of green & fields of mud, cattle scattered everywhere, children playing in the streets with ragged clothes and no shoes, wooden huts as houses, broken fences made of wood, fallen walls made of bricks...I could go on and on because I think it has been the most picturesque village I have visited since my travels. What is bad is that I can't even show you how incredible this place was because my camera ran out of battery. Completely gutting I can't show you that a place like this exists, but I can remember it so very clearly. And if I was an artist, I would definitely attempt to paint this picture. We had to leave early the next morning to catch the public bus back to Sucre, but I was tempted to just stay there for another day and take in the magnificent views. The journey back took all morning and we had to stop for the road workers for an hour and a half. It seemed like a standard thing that happened every morning, as everyone got off the bus very casually and ladies were outside selling chicken rice dishes or pasta dishes, so the locals just bought dinner and chilled out eating and chatting for a few hours. We eventually arrived back in Sucre and were even fed a 3 course meal in Condor Treks restaurant before we parted ways. It was delicious and a lovely end to the 3 days.

The only thing I can complain about (my fault entirely) was that I forgot to put sun cream on my legs on the final day...and oh what a mistake that was, especially given the fact that I was wearing ¾ length leggings. I had the worse tan lines I can ever recall, and my legs stung when I entered the shower for the next two days! It has taken 3 weeks for the bad tan to disappear...clearly I had to learn the hard way this time, but I will never forgot to sun cream my legs again