Sweet Sucre

Hello all ... here we are in the beautiful city of Sucre, city of amorous young couples, city of whilewashed colonial palacios, chocolate capital of the upper Andes, home of the best tapas in South America, and place where Simon Bolivar, libertador of libertadores, told to Spanish where to get off. It´s also the city in which we lost or cheap but long serving little card reader (we didn´t lose any photos, just the reader) so for now, I will have to supply a canned photo of this superlative Bolivian capital.

For indeed, though La Paz may have unjustly stolen the title of ¨capital¨ in some absurd civil war or other, any sureño will quickly tell you that Sucre is indeed the seat of all legitimate authority in Bolivia, as evidenced by the fact that the supreme court still sits here. Lately, Sucre has made headlines by being the city in which Bolivia´s new constitution is being negotiated. This political drama has in recent months intensified into somewhat of a war between president Evo Morales and his shrinking cadre of supporters, and the rest of the country who live outside of La Paz. So ours is not the only nation with an unpopular president. The main issues surround autonomy for Bolivia´s regions, such as the one containing this fairest of cities.

Today Matt and I were in the town of Tarabuco (about 60 km and somewhat higher than apline Sucre.) On Sunday, the little town explodes into activity with a market, at which you can buy very distinctive hand woven shawls, blankets and ponchos that are only found in this little region. Matt and I now own some. We also saw many fellows who looked kind of like this gentleman (in fact this gentleman may have tried to sell us artisania several times, he looks rather familiar.) The market wasn´t exactly tranquil, as tourists are generally attacked by vendors like sharks to bloody fishmeal, but it was an exciting day.

We are getting more and more toward the end of this awesome journey, but we still have some hilights left. In particular, we are looking forward to seeing the city fo Potosì (we will be the Wednesday and Thursday of this week) and then to heading to this place:

The great Salar de Uyuni, the world´s largest salt desert and home of many dead buses, aparently. Hopefully our mode of transport will not end up like this. The Salar is on the Bolivia/Chile border, at over 11,500 feet. It´s home to some of the strangest landscapes on earth, inlcuding lakes that are bright green and bright red and huge flocks of flamingos. Wish us luck. Much love.

MP