"If I were a dinosaur I would want to live here" (Sucre)

That has officially become a famous quote by Olivia referring to the beautiful city of Sucre. 

Sucre from above

Sucre: white buildings, red roofs, and steep hills

After an intense few days in Potosí our group got on a bus and traveled the 3.5 hours to Sucre, this time with no bus breakdown and no road blocks. Sucre looks very colonial and European, all the buildings are painted white with red roofs and the city overall is very clean. Sucre is the capitol of Bolivia even though the government is based in La Paz. I guess it was a pretty powerful city at one point. My host family told me that they were trying to move the government palace to Sucre but it just isn't a big enough city. 

A partially finished weaving

That night was Día de Copadres. It is basically a holiday that revolves around men going out and getting really drunk. Next Thursday is Día de Comadres (ladies night) which I think will be more fun for me--look out Cochabamba, we're taking this holiday very seriously. In Sucre they celebrated Copadres by having marching bands in the streets and groups of guys drinking in the plaza. Both holidays are part of Carnaval which is next weekend. Apparently in the past the tradition was that they women threw the men a party and then the men threw the women a party and it was a competition of who could throw the bigger/better party. 

Friday morning we visited ASUR which is an NGO that supports indigenous communities reclaiming the art of weaving traditional tapestries. They used to weave simply for necessity but this projects sells the highest quality weavings to tourists or exports them for higher prices. It has helped the communities start weaving again which is amazing, they have re-gained a huge part of their culture. But at the same time it has changed what weavings mean. It is interesting to see how these sorts of development projects do so much good but almost all of them have some issues. Gives you something to think about, amiright?

Lunch! 

Anyway, after that I went to lunch with Maddy, Erin, Karen, Stacy, and Laura. We were in a little bit of a hurry so we just found a random restaurant near our hotel that sold "vegetarian snacks" and we went inside. We sat down and waited for them to bring us menus but instead they brought us soup and bread, then rice and vegetables and a storage drink. I highly support the system of only one option since decisions, especially with food, are so challenging for me. It was delicious and only cost us 18 Bolivianos (a little more than $2.50) and was more food than I would've wanted, even though I finished everything, obviously. 

Those are dinosaur foot prints behind me. They used to lie flat but because of plates shifting now they're at a 73 degree angle, we were far away but it was still pretty cool

Post-lunch Olivia, Maddy, Erin, Stacy and I headed to the dinosaur park. The travel agency that Erin found was closed so we found a random double decker bus that took us there along with a few other tourists. We saw dinosaur footprints with our own two eyes! It was really fun, the park was full of life size dinosaur replicas and dinosaur noises played constantly in the background (kind of sounded like constant farting but it was entertaining) we got some high quality photos from that trip. The drive there and back alone was worth it with beautiful views of the mountains and the city. I am definitely glad I went especially since I have a pretty cool looking dinosaur t-shirt now. 

Our double decker bus

Demonstrating how large dinosaurs are

An amazing view of the mountains

That evening we went to MASIS, a folkloric music program for marginalized youth in Sucre. The head of the organization gave us an introduction to the program which was interesting. He also unfortunately made some kind of homophobic comments which led to a group discussion about the line between cultural differences and differences of opinion that night. It is something I struggle with a lot, when to respect somebody's cultural background and the beliefs that come with that and when to stand up for what you believe in and acknowledge that just because a belief is part of a culture doesn't mean it is right. I think it is important to take into account the context and the culture that somebody grew up in, but sometimes I think that is taken too far and almost used as an excuse. Yet another thought provoking thing that came out of this excursion.

Anyway, after the talk we got to sit on the balcony overlooking a courtyard where the students in the program performed traditional music. They were all decked out in costumes, and played the drums, pan flute, guitar, and sang. I love the traditional music and was super excited when we got a chance to go downstairs and dance with everybody. When we were walking back to the hotel we passed a salsa bar and decided we hadn't had enough dancing so a few of us got to spend our last night of the excursion dancing to a live salsa band. I'm sure I looked ridiculous (despite two salsa classes in my life) but it was really fun. Overall it was a great trip!