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  • Sucre

    June 8, 2018 in Bolivia ⋅ ⛅ 7 °C

    La Paz is often named as the capital of Bolivia however in reality the capital is Sucre. This is the main thing that I learned during a walking tour of Sucre. Bolivia has four main government departments but three of them are in La Paz including the President's house however Sucre remains as the Capital. It is also a World Heritage Site as it is known as the "White City of South America" since all of the buildings are painted white within city. We walked through the market learning about different fruit and meat that are sold in the large market area. We saw the weaving art that indigenous Bolivian people created and learned about the history of the independence war when the Spanish were finally driven out of Bolivia. The final stop on the tour was to watch the sunsetting over the beautiful city. The tour was actually one of the best walking tours that we have done on our travels not only because of the interesting history of the city or due to the stunning white buildings but also because our tour guide Louis was very enthusiastic about the city he grew up in so made the tour more fun.

    Sucre is also famous for it's chocolate so of course we had to try some. Chocolate Para Ti is the most famous company and I can reveal that their chocolate tasted delicious. We even tried Quinoa chocolate and that tasted great too. Hopefully we can find this chocolate again in other cities along our trip.

    Soccer is the main sport in South America and we hoped to attend a match somewhere along our trip so when we found out from our hostel that their would be a match on during our stay in Sucre we were delighted. We couldn't find any information about this match on the internet so we didn't think that it would be big however when we arrived at the stadium their was thousands of people queuing for tickets. Luckily we managed to buy four tickets (€3 each) and after more queuing we got into the stadium just in time to watch the teams walk out on the pitch. We didn't even know who was playing or who was favourites but we decided to support the reds since we were sitting in their area of the stadium. We learned later that the reds were Wilstermann from Cochabamba while the yellows were The Strongest from La Paz. The supporters of both teams never stopped jumping around and chanting for the full ninety minutes of the game it was funny listening to them trying to be louder than the other supporters. We may have also took part in the chanting even though we didn't know exactly what they were saying as it was all in Spanish but we picked up some words that we knew. It is worth noting that selling alcohol at soccer games in South America is illegal so all of these supporters were sober but they still chanted during the whole game. The match itself wasn't too bad as it ended up 2:2 and three of the goals were scored in the goal we were closest to which was a bonus. After ninety minutes we thought the game was over and were ready to go home however none of the supporters were leaving and we soon realised that the game wasn't over. However instead of extra time it went to penilities which took place in our goal end. I got renewed energy as I have never been to a match with penilities so it was exciting. Unfortunately the penilities were shocking and it took nine penilities from each time to finally decide a winner. Our team the reds (Wilstermann) eventually won so we jumped around as though we were die-hard fans but as Eadaoin put it "Laois don't win much so I'm not used winning anything". We then realised that it was the final of the La Liga de Futbol Profesional Boliviano so Wilstermann lifted the trophy and we laughed about how we managed to go to a soccer game without realising it was a final until the end and our team won. It was the best excitement I think I've ever had at any soccer game. We may start following Bolivian soccer games from now on.
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