Day 9 Sucre

Jo, being the kind of guy he is, got up early in order to grab us some necessary items, including: kleenex, a hideous orange towel, toilet paper, saltenas, cactus fruit, chocolates, and bunuelos.  SOSOSO sweet of him, especially considering that I had had a rough night the night before.  The food tasted delicious.  Particularly the bunuelos.  Almost like a donut, but not quite as sweet.

The cactus fruit ended up being awesome.  It had a sweet flesh that reminded me of pear, but with seeds.  Really, really good.  And the chocolates were, well, they were chocolate.  What more needs to be said?  I'm addicted to the stuff and it goes without saying that they were delicious.

After breakfast, we played with a super friendly, and very pregnant, kitty while we waited for a rowdy bunch of Argentinians to finish up using the shower.  This cat craved attention like nothing I've ever seen and she insisted we let her into our room so she could get some lovin'.  So, we obliged.  While we were waiting to get a shower, we met a guy who was asking around to see if anyone at the hostel was interested in seeing some waterfalls that were an hour outside of the city.  Jo and I took him up on the offer, and agreed to meet him the next morning.

We were finally ready, and took off to do some laundry and shopping and to stretch our legs.  We were pretty much stuck in Sucre for an indefinite amount of time, so we figured we might as well make the best of it.

Our last visit to Sucre had been on Christmas day and the town had appeared dirty and deserted.  Today it was a totally different story, and was much more lively and pleasant.

Our first stop was the market, where Jo had a surprise waiting for me.  He wouldn't tell me what it was, and I couldn't wait to find out.

We walked through the aisles, checking out the goods.

Beans.



And eggs.



And candles!  This was my surprise.  Jo had found a stall that sold candles, which you then made wishes on and prayed to and left to burn.

I wished that the busses would start running again so we could continue on our way.

This was the produce section of the market.

Olives.

Jo taking a quick break.

And lots o' bananas.

Here, a lady was selling terra cotta.

These little piggy banks were so ugly, I had to buy one for Erin.

My favorite: the fruit!

After our market excusion, we headed back to our hostel to be lazy.  We had a good haul: fruit, a small pendant for me, and a customized sugar bowl that was the perfect little souvenir.  We couldn't be too lazy, though, because our tummies were hungry, and there was a restaurant we wanted to try.  So soon enough we set off again to grab some food.

The LP had raved about a place called Locot's, so we thought we'd give it a try.  Turns out the place was AWESOME, and we ended up having an amazing meal.

Observe:

insert cheers picture here.

This was my dish: papas a la huancaina.  Like heaven for my tastebuds.

Jo had some beef dish called pica mache that he really liked.

There was an ancient foozball table that was crying out to be photographed.

And, to top things off, this random shelf.   Just cuz.

We walked around a bit to let our full stomachs settle.

 

Pretty architecture.

Are these kids in a gang or something?

The festive Christmas spirit was still in the air.

Sucre is known as a city of museums, and we wanted to go to at least one.  The LP said good things about the Casa de la Libertidad, so we went there.

The Casa de la Libertidad is a preserved mansion that was supposed to have some really cool rooms.  When we were there, only four out of sixteen rooms were open, which was kinda a fail.  Oh well.  We walked around anyway; we did have to get our 15bs worth, afterall.

The best part of the Casa was the fountain in the middle, which was the perfect backdrop for, that's right folks, CHEESY YEARBOOK PHOTO TIME!!!

Oh. And they had this giant head.

We made a quick stop back at the hostel, but we decided to walk up to the bus station because we had heard rumors that the busses might possible be running.

On the way we found this giant golden ear on the wall.  Don't ask us what it was doing there.

    
We walked the thirty or forty minutes to the bus station to find a huge mass of people with their luggage, waiting for busses that were supposed to come that night.  We talked to a few German backpackers who said that thier bus was almost an hour late, and they weren't sure what was going on.  We decided to leave and come back the next day, when things settled down.  So we walked back, paid a few Bs to use a computer for an hour or so, and called it a night.