Instead, we booked a midday bus to a different town, and spent the morning walking around Potosí. One of the first things I noticed upon walking around was the Bolivian dress. While most of the youth wore outfits mirroring our own, the older generation, particularly the women, donned more traditional garb, including: wide-brimmed or bowler hats (which I later learned, can be positioned in different ways to signify marital status), braided hair, brightly colored shawls, long skirts, and often, belongings or babies on back.
This clothing could be seen everywhere throughout town, especially in the central market. There, we had a fun time walking around and looking at the brightly colored stands with impressive selections.
After waking around for a couple hours, it was finally time to head to the bus station. There, we encountered one of the most confusing, chaotic systems I have ever seen. The terminal had two levels, and from the outer balcony of the top level, dozens of women shouted unintelligible phrases. We figured out that this was probably their way of announcing arrivals and departures, but it did not help much. Eventually we found our bus, but not before nearly missing it. The seven of us--me, Dan, the Australian couple, the German couple, and the Italian--ended up running with our belongings to get to the bus just before it left the terminal.
A couple of hours later, we were in Sucre. It was a more built up city than Potosí, yet still had a charm because of the predominately whitewashed buildings and narrow streets.
Our small clan walked through town to our hostel, which had apartment style rooms, fully equipped with a kitchen and living room for the steep price of $13 per person per night. We decided to take advantage of the facilities by cooking dinner together in one of the apartments that evening. Stefano, our Italian friend, was staying at a different hostel but promised to rejoin us to help prepare something special. So an hour after checking in, we all met up in front of a supermarket to get the ingredients. The supermarket had an unimpressive selection, though, so we decided to try our luck at the central market instead.
There, we were overwhelmed by the amazing variety of food. Because it was getting late, we only explored the produce section, but were still awed by the quantity and quality of the fruits and vegetables. We got what we needed and made a plan to return the following day in order to better explore the market. Upon returning to the hostel, we began making dinner. The star of the meal was to be homemade gnocchi from our very own Italian. It was fun to watch him prepare the dish; he had clearly done it several times before and made it look easy.
One of our friends made guacamole and chips as a starter. Dan also contributed by making a vegetable dish, which Stefano, in true Italian fashion, insisted must be served after the pasta. By 9, we were all sitting down like a mini family, eating good food, drinking wine, and talking. It was nice to be with the same group we had spent the past few days with because the conversation went much deeper than the usual "where are you from?" and "where have you been traveling?"
The rest of our time in Sucre passed in a consistent, but pleasant manner. We cooked breakfast together, walked around town, spent a lot of time at the food and clothing markets, and then cooked or went out to dinner together.
More about the central market... Spanning three levels and several blocks, it was one of the most impressive displays of food I have ever seen. There were numerous sections, each with nearly identical offerings as the adjacent counters: meats, fruits, vegetables, pastas, cheese, desserts, spices, nuts, and even stands devoted solely to items like eggs or avocados. Interestingly, nearly all of the stands (including the meat counters) were run by women, who were either sitting or standing next to their fare.
On top of all this, a section of the market was allocated to serving lunch. Again, each stand mirrored the previous, with old women attempting to lure potential patrons to eat their food. They would then provide a heaping plate of the selected entree for the equivalent of two US dollars. We ate there twice, and I must say, the food was much better than I had expected.
Our last night in Sucre, we had one final dinner with our friends and made tentative plans to reconnect once we were all in La Paz (we would all be heading there at different times over the coming days). During our final day, Dan and I went to an excavation site. There, we were able to see dinosaur fossils and footprints that were over 60 million years old. It was amazing to see how well preserved the footprints were, and Dan had fun getting up close to them.
That afternoon, we said goodbye to Sucre and headed on to the next stop on our journey.
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