Sucre Day 2

This has been one of my favorite days of the trip so far I think. I've decided I really like Sucre as a city. It's not too busy, plenty to do, lots of history, and it's beautiful.

Our day started getting the dino bus to Parque Cretacico. When we arrived, you could immediately see what looks like a giant rock wall covered in dinosaur footprints. This 'wall' contains the largest collection of dinosaur footprints in the world. Only a couple hundred meters of wall are exposed, but it is estimated to be about 1.5 km long continuing under the ground.

On our guided tour, we were first brought through a path with dinosaur sculptures. They were incredibly detailed and built to size based on footprints found on location. It was really cool to see how they used the data to create the sculptures.

Only on a guided tour do you get to go down the hill and get close to the wall. We donned our hardhats and down we went. The footprints were even more impressive in person. Our guide explained how rain, dry seasons, and sediments helped to create and immortalize the prints. The reason for all the prints and multitude of dinosaur types is because the location of the park was formerly a fresh water lake where dinosaurs would gather to drink. He also explained how erosion continues to allow for the discovery of more footprints as the rock face erodes and more prints are revealed. When they first found footprints about 20 years ago, there were only 3,000. Now, it is estimated that there are more than 12,000 steps visible and still a considerable amount of rock that can erode to reveal more.

We walked up and down the rock face where our guide pointed out the 4 different types of dinosaur prints that you could see. Some of them are so defined it's crazy. Paleontologists have been able to measure the gait and speed that these dinosaurs walked because of the footsteps here. After we took all of our pictures, we went back up the hill and had a quick look through the small museums that have fossils, more explanations about the dinosaurs, and a piece of the rock face that fell where you can actually touch a footprint. It was really special to see all of those footprints. Who knew something so incredible was tucked away in Bolivia!

After we got the dino bus back, we sat in the plaza and ate our sandwiches before getting in a taxi down to Glorieta Castle. It's in a military base, so our taxi dropped us off and we walked a couple minutes inside to the castle. It was an orangey pink color and felt a bit out of place for the location. We took our pictures, and then began our walk back to the center via the cemetery.

Right as we were beginning the steep uphill trek, a kind man in a pickup truck stopped next to us and offered us a lift up to the cemetery. We jumped in the back and jostled up the hill. It was very kind of him, and saved us a lot of energy and time getting up the hill. When we arrived at the cemetery it had a big white archway at the front entrance with the (translated) words: "today me, tomorrow you". This cemetery was very different from the one in La Paz because there are less people in Sucre, so they have more room for big, grand mausoleums and family tombs. Some of them were huge and ornate. A similarity to La Paz was the the beauty and how well attended the graves were with small altars of the deceased's favorite things, and lots of fresh flowers everywhere. Sadly, as we were walking around, we saw an entire avenue dedicated to Covid.

After a brief walk through the cemetery, we picked up a snack from a woman outside the entrance on our way back to the hostel. She was selling puffed bread with cheese inside. It was tasty 😋. Once we were back, we grabbed some lunch from a couple of cheapy places nearby the hostel and then had quick showers before heading out to a show.

The Origenes Cultural Show was incredible. There were not a lot of people there and our table was right in front. The 12 dancers, 6 girls and 6 boys, were so enthusiastic and passionate. The music was energetic and there were so many different cultural dances and costumes. The men in particular had some elaborate dance numbers and costumes. We sat drinking wine and being totally captivated for the two hours. I tried to get a small snapshot of each dance number, but there were just so many! At the end, Allan even got chosen to participate in a little dance number too. It was a high energy, colorful, sparkling performance.

We went the long way on the way back to the hostel enjoying the weather and still feeling the joy that the performance brought us. It was nice to put some makeup on, and a pair of jeans, and go out to enjoy a performance.Lue lisää