François Finally!

Written on 30-07-14 in Uyuni

After a second lie in Capucine and I left Potosi to join Francois in Sucre. Three hours later we were greeted by a state of the art taxi!  

Not that we can complain since the price was under a pound. 

Through the taxi window we felt that Potosi and Sucre were quite similar. We arrived at the BeeHive hostel which is lovely and cosy. As we went back out for dinner we wandered around a bit discovering our surroundings and concluded that we had been misled. Sucre is in fact much more developed and "chic" than Potosi. The restaurants were much more upmarket and middle class stores and services bordered the street, such as nail bars. 

The next morning we were served huge bowls of steaming porridge. Although it's not quite to our taste the health factor encouraged us to eat most of it. Then Francois finally arrived after his 30 hour journey. However, sadly American Airlines lost his bags along the way! 

We spent our day climbing up the many bell towers in Sucre admiring the views of the white city. 

We visited what the Lonely Planet described as the prettiest church in Sucre and possibly Bolivia but we were quite disappointed.

Unfortunately, Capucine wasn't feeling well so went to rest at the hotel while Francois and I continued to explore the town and started to rebuild a wardrobe so Francois can survive until his bag finally catches up with us. 

We visited the Casa de la Libertad which is where the Declaration of Independence was signed. Our tour guide taught us that to be president in Bolivia you have to be at least 35! We were joined in the tour by a large group of uniformed children who could not have been older than three or four. Their chants about their hero Bolivar melted our hearts. Their matching uniforms and identical hair colour and cut made them look like a sea of model citizens out of something like Brave New World or 1984. 

Next we made our way to a market indicated to us by the Tourist Information. We took another "modern" taxi and quickly found ourselves immersed in another world. We felt like the Sucre we were in before was made only for tourists. Now we were in a place owned by the locals and truly saw their way of life. We picked our way through throngs of stalls for all sorts of products, from cleaning to vegetables and coca leaves.

 The local charm captivated us although we couldn't help but wonder about the hygiene of the open air butchers and the wild dogs eating and licking away at whatever was on the floor. We finally arrived in the clothes section, fake Hollister tshirts and Levis jeans were rife. At first we were tentative with our negotiations trying to find the most discreet models. We quickly understood that as tourists we had to hold a firm position but the cheapness of the goods didn't help our motivation. By the sixth or seventh stall though, we were pros: halving prices, pretending to walk away and telling the vendors we didn't have any more money in our wallets. Overloaded with shopping bags and tired from our hard work we headed back to the hostel. 

We decided to have an early night since today we've set off for Salar de Uyuni to see the salt plains. We took a bigger bus and felt significantly safer than with our last driver! 

Once arrived in Uyuni we had to find a hotel since I had inadvertently booked for the 30th of August - Go me! We settled down in the Palace hotel which, in a flourish of originality, was devoid of both hot water and heating. 

Francois still had to buy a jumper or two before we set off and Capucine and I ended up joining in and all three of us bought matching Bolivian jumpers, gloves and hats! Thus outfitted we are 100% ready for our roadtrip through Salar de Uyuni tomorrow! 

We ended the evening in a very cute "French" restaurant huddled next to the fire. 

Cécile