Sucre, Bolivia

For the past three weeks Ryan and I have been staying in the constitutional capitol of Bolivia, the city of Sucre. We have both been taking individual lessons in Spanish for two hours a day and we´ve both gotten much better! We´ve been living in a nice apartment near the plaza and enjoying all the museums and cathedrals that Sucre has to offer. Our shared apartment has a lovely, geranium filled rooftop terrace and a kitchen, so we´ve been living well these couple of weeks.

I volunteered for two and a half weeks teaching an English class to Sucrean teenagers in the evenings, which turned out to be really fun. I had kind of forgotten what it was like to be fourteen. I think they ended up liking me, thought the thought I was strange for making them repeat words and English sounds out loud. I also volunteered for a while in an orphanage here in Sucre, which was hard work, but I enjoyed it. I learned how to change cloth diapers and how to feed five babies at one time.

Sucre has been good to us, and we have enjoyed slowing down for a few weeks. It looks like we´ll be moving faster from place to place in our journey from now on, so it was nice to have this calm time now. One of the bests parts of Sucre is its amazing central market. I took some pictures of it yesterday and I will post them when we get back from our hike in a few days.

We plan to head out into the campo (country side) tomorrow for a multi-day hike through the small villages surrounding Sucre, and we have learned a bit of Quechua in preparation. Our trip has been delayed by a few days due to transportation problems as well as injury and sickness, but things are looking up now. Hopefully we will be able to find the flat bed truck that supposedly leaves for the village we want to go to, Quilla-Quilla, tomorrow morning around 9am from a certain crossroads at the edge of the city. A full report will follow the adventure.

-Naomi