Sucre 29th April - 4th May

After getting off the bus a bit jaded following the overnight bus journey from Cochabamba, Sucre was a breath of fresh air to say the least. It was easily the best place we´d been in Bolivia so far (other than the Isla Del Sol) and reminded us a lot of Arequipa in Peru. Very Mediterranean looking, white buildings, safe, clean and even other travellers knocking around, my God. This was the first place in Bolivia we weren´t constantly on edge and the locals were a lot friendlier than they had been in Cochabamba and La Paz.

Watching a bit of the royal wedding in a local bar the morning we got there (that dress, errr wow) brought home to us how much were missing London, despite it being full of royalist raving lunatics.

We stayed the first few nights in the amazing ´Casa Verde´ hostel run by a lovely dutch couple and we got a bit too used to a comfy bed and 3 course breakfast over the next few days. We changed hostels halfway through our stay in Sucre to save a bit of cash and lucked out again with the very pleasant ´La Dolce Vita´ (apart from the rude, miserable French b****** who runs it, although his wife was very polite).

We checked out the Casa de la Libertad and it´s exhibits in the great central square where the Bolivian constitution was signed overseen by the legendary Simon Bolivar - one of the few men to have a country named after him following his liberation of the country. The place was a bit dull, but we felt we´d at least got a bit of a historical flavour of the place.

We headed to a bit of a disappointing Sunday market in Tarabuco which was very average and not what we´d expected after a sodding 2 hour bus journey there with a load of other tourist chompers. Bought a few things, but was a bit difficult to kill 3 and a half hours there if we´re honest.

My highlight was checking out Sucre´s dinosaur park on the outskirts of the town where we saw loads of dinosaur tracks imprinted on one of the cliffs there as uncovered by miners a few years ago. You can´t go right up to them anymore, but we got a good view of them and spent an hour or so on a guided tour of the decent museum and exhibits. It´s a bit odd as the footprints are now vertical following tectonic plate shifts. We got the tourist ´Dino Bus´ (a mini bus with a massive dinosaur head sticking out of the front) there and back which got a few odd looks from the locals - comedy.

Decent restaurants in Sucre also meant us spending far too much money on food, but reckon we deserved it after our first week of hell in Bolivia.