Sucre, Bolivia

After two full months in Argentina we finally left the country. Our original plan had been to spend a week two in Argentina but it turned out to be the center of our trip! Next stop: Language school in Sucre, Bolivia. Getting there proved more complicated than we intended, but was an adventure. With Rebecca still on the mend, we tried to catch a plane. But only 3 flights a week left from nearby Salta, going to anywhere in Bolivia. It was Friday, and we needed to be there by Sunday night, which left us with a bus. Two full days on a bus to be exact. But I guess that's what happens when everything you do is planned no more than a day or two in advance.

From Jujuy we took a bus up through the Quebrada de Humahuaca -- a gorgeous stretch of territory at the very far north or Argentina. The vast majority of the region's inhabitants are indigenous, and culturally have much more in common with Bolivia. Before Rebecca got sick we were going to spend a week here. Now we were flying through it to get to the border (la frontera). La Quiaca is on the Argentina side. From the bus station we hopped in a cab to the Argentina exit building, got our stamps, then walked the 10 yards or so over to the Bolivian entrance building, filled out our paperwork, and hopped in another cab to the Bolivian bus station in Villazón.

We were definitely experiencing a bit of culture shock. Everything was suddenly more hectic, and we didn't have any other plan than 'find a bus and catch it to Sucre' (though we had been reassured by folks in Jujuy that it wasn't that hard). My goal was to find the nicest bus we could, which turned out to be a few rungs below a regular Argentina bus, but not nearly as bad as we'd read about online. And it was cheap -- like 15 Bolivianos (US$2.10) apiece to get us to the town of Tupiza 2.5 hours inland. From there I'd figure out another bus to get us all the way to Sucre. The only direct bus from the border was an overnighter which sound really not fun in a cramped bus lacking air conditioning (or bathrooms, or even ventillation, as we've found in most "nice" buses here). But for US$2.10 our expectations generally were not high.

(Rebecca in the Tupiza bus station, 2.5 hours from the border. All the signs are beautifully hand-painted and various people are calling out the locations that their company goes to -- ie: "Potosí, Potosí, Potosííííííííííí, Sucre, Sucre, La Paz, La Paaaaaaaaaaaaz". It was actually a fairly tranquil and interesting place to sit and take in our new country.)

I'd exchanged some leftover Argentine peso into Bolivianos at the border figuring I could get a better rate somewhere else. That assumption was totally wrong. The woman in the exchange house in Tupiza explained to me that with the Argentine peso on a crash course toward inflation these days, no one wants any pesos that they have to hang on to for longer than a few hours. Some places wouldn't even take them. At the border they run right across each day and trade them immediately back for Bolivianos or dollars.

We checked into the nicest hotel in town, Hotel Mitri, which was quite nice -- hot showers, lovely buffet breakfast in the morning, comfy bed, and equivalent to about US$20. I went back to the bus station and got our tickets to Sucre, via Potosí for 10am the next morning. The following day we came a hair away from missing our bus, since it said "La Paz" on it and we figured it must not be ours, but the driver kindly stopped as he was pulling out and let us on.

When we got to Potosí (elevation 4070 meters -- or over 12,000 feet), there was major confusion. Something happened but we couldn't quite figure out what. Then the bus driver told us to follow him, fast, and we did. (Hard to do anything fast at 12,000 feet). Then he told us to wait here, and we did. (Much easier to do, though more disconcerting when you have no idea what is happening). Apparently our connection bus had left. He kindly went in and got us the last possible seats on another bus. Others on our bus with the same problem had had to fend for themselves and ended up with standing room only for the 2.5 hour ride on to Sucre. We weren't really sure why he helped us out -- perhaps he was being kind because he knew we had no idea what was happening, or possibly also because I'd given him a tip earlier when we'd gotten on the bus to thank him for stopping -- I think probably a combination of the two. But he disappeared before we could even thank him.

Our seats were at the front of the bus, with the driver. Rebecca had a real seat, and I was sitting on the steps. We were relieved to have seats, and having a view was kind of cool (though with no seatbeats we felt like our lives were in a somewhat precarious position). We quickly discovered that 'not knowing' in the back is better than 'knowing' up front with the driver, when it comes to Bolivian buses. We were amazed at how many near accidents, with dogs, people, cars, and the road shoulder, can happen in one two-hour bus ride. It was particularly exciting when the driver decided to pass a very large bus just before a blind curve. While the driver was smoking a cigarette, changing the cd in the cd player, and holding his cell phone to his ear with his shoulder while talking on it, we were gripping the vertical handle bar and making a totally useless accident game plan -- "okay, if he slams on the brakes, you have to grip the handle bar real tight, and I'll grip you real tight. don't try to protect me or we'll both go flying through the window." The two pieces of good news are: 1) we made it, and 2) he was playing good music.

Arriving in to Sucre was a relief. And the small city was just as beautiful as we'd read. All the architecture is in the colonial style, with strict regulations to maintain the feel of the city (white is the only paint color allowed). The entire city became a UNESCO World Heritage site some time back, helping to further keep it true to its original architecture and style.

(This is pretty much what the whole center of the city of Sucre looks like. It's beautiful, clean, and pretty calm. It has a population of somewhere in the two-hundred-thousands).

(The indigenous and Bolivian flags flying over a government building. 55% of Bolivians are indigenous, another 30% identify themselves as of mixed indigenous descent. The total population of the entire country is only about 7 million.)

(Our new home.)

We hopped in a cab and arrived at our new home for three weeks. We are staying with Nancy Conseco and her family in the colonial style home that was first bought by her grandparents. She lives there with her son, her mom, several sisters, their kids and some of their husbands. Needless to say it is big. Each branch of the family has it's own kitchen -- so everyone more or less has their own lives and their own living space. But from the outside it looks very modest.

(Two of Nancy's sisters are doctors -- one a psychiatrist and one a dermatologist -- and run their practices out of an office attached to the house that opens directly onto the street. This is extremely common here -- the houses seem to have been built for this, and it gives the city an old-timey feel.)

Nancy is an accountant at a travel agency and her 18 year old son Victor is in his 2nd year towards studying to be a doctor. Right now Victor is taking microbiology and I am glad I have finished with that one. There are four of us students staying with Nancy and all six of us eat breakfast and lunch together every day, so we've really had a chance to get to know everyone. Nancy is incredibly sweet. Angela is a 25 year old woman from Switzerland staying more or less the same amount of time as us. Joel is an 18 year old also from Switzerland who has been here for 3 or 4 months. He was taking classes at the school and now he doing a school arranged volunteer gig, tutoring kids at an afterschool program.

(Our patio. Very common to the architecture in Sucre, the rooms all surround the patio -- their house has 3 large patios that open up onto one another. Our bedroom is out of sight to the left, and the kitchen is out of sight to the right.)

(Angela, Rebecca, Joel, Victor, and Nancy around the kitchen table at lunchtime. People generally come home for lunch here, so it's considered a meal that you have with your family.)

(Mmmmmmm. Soup.)

(Traditionally, lunch always includes soup with meat in it and then a main dish of some sort after. The soup often includes "chuños", these amazingly good little dried potatoes packed with flavor.)

There are a million kinds of potatoes here. Nancy buys various random foods for us to try -- fruits, vegetables, dried goods, and potatoes (which are deserving of being their own food group here). The other day she cooked up some little potatoes that looked like fingers, tasted like a really uniquely flavored sweet potato, and had a consistency more like squash.

(Chuquizaca style homemade chorizo. Nancy's specialty. Chuquizaca is the province which Sucre is in and chorizo made this way is considered a local food. The best chorizo I have ever had, hands down -- very different tasting from also delicious Mexican chorizo.)

This week we are all making our "specialties" for each other. I am making my mom's banana bread recipe. Given that bananas are plentiful here -- all different kinds (regular bananas, apple bananas, platanos, and more) -- I didn't think banana bread would be so strange. But everyone has been remarking on how they have never heard of such a thing. Rebecca is making a curried Indian style chicken. Nancy has never eaten curry before and is excited to try it. And Angela is making Tiramisu. Finding mascarpone has not been easy. She'd been on the hunt for several days, when we finally asked the proprietor of a local dutch owned restaurant where they got their mascarpone from. A small little business in La Paz that they have to special order from -- the only place in the country that makes it, and not much of anything is imported here. Angela managed to simply buy some from him. Problem solved.

(Victor making milanesa on their built-in pounding and grinding stone -- basically chicken-fried steak -- very popular both here and in Argentina. He made a special chicken one for Rebecca.)

The fact that Rebecca does not eat red meat or pork is a travesty to the Conseco family who have one or the other at every meal. But, they have completely accomodated her in the nicest of ways. Now they are cooking chicken instead of beef into our daily lunch soup. Nancy even made a special chicken chorizo for Rebecca so that she'd be able to try it too.

(My bike. After wishing I'd had a bike in Jujuy, I decided that the second I came to town I would just find an inexpensive used one. I found my way to the Mercado Campesino, which is an area of town you can find anything -- like one ginormous flea market, and here it is. It's a nice town to ride a bike in -- about the same level of hectic-ness as Oakland. But I haven't seen a single bike parked anywhere outside. Apparently your bike will be stripped for parts in minutes. So I park it inside the school and inside the house and otherwise take it with me when I go anywhere.)

(Our spanish school.)

We're both taking 6 hours of classes per day (plus homework!) And they've been great. Our school is super well run, the teachers are excellent, and we've been learning a ton. By the time we got here, we'd both acquired a good level of comfort with speaking and understanding, but our grammar was horrendous. While I'm sure my grammar is still horrendous, it is lightyears ahead of where it was only 2.5 weeks ago. We have both just finished (separately) studying the 4 subjunctive tenses and are actually using them when we talk!

We've met a ton of interesting folks through the school. At any given time the school has between 10 and 35 students. Our first week was packed, but now the school is back down to the lower range. While Sucre has a ton of foreigners (a lot of whom are here to take spanish classes), we have yet to encounter another American. A lot of Brittish, Dutch, Swiss, German, Brazillian, French, and Canadians so far. Definitely a good share of young partiers, but we've also met a lot of interesting folks our age and older like doctors and nurses who focus on public health at home and want to volunteer in clinics here, biologists working on studies in nearby national parks, people working at local NGOs, and others teaching their language at the University here. Sucre is generally a little off the beaten path tourism-wise, so while there are a ton of gringos here, it's generally an interesting bunch.

...

Anyone who has read our last blog entry, knows that Rebecca's health problems followed her into Bolivia, but we had the good fortune to meet the most genial doctor I have ever met -- and the biggest Americano-phile too. He LOVES America. Though I don't think he's ever actually been there. He's an incredibly interesting person and both of us thoroughly enjoyed chatting with him whenever we were in his office. We're going to go get coffee with him later this week.

Here's Rebecca's description of him: Dr. Delgadillo was born and raised in Sucre, but went to medical school in Belgium, and worked in Germany for many years. He is a character in all the best senses of the word. He knows more about U.S. history than either of us do (and both of us took college level U.S. history courses), and loves to talk about it and his travels. Our friend Angela (who is Swiss German) came with me to see him, since she had been having digestive troubles, and he effortlessly switched between English and German with total fluency. He listened to us very intently. He laughed with us, he comforted us, he made us feel competely confident that we would be fine. After carefully examining Rebecca and listening to her story of health woes, he said, "Well, it's clear like water -- You're having a toxic reaction to the antibiotics."

After finishing her treatments with him, Rebecca asked if she could do a portrait session with him in his office. Here are the results:

Here is my portrait of his office ceiling, because I thought it looked really cool. His office was charming, beautiful stained ceiling and all.

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Our time here has been rich and fun. Both of us love Sucre. There are tons of good museums here (the textile museum, the hat museum, the mask museum...), and the 2nd oldest university in the Americas. In the 1500s, Potosí, the city we passed through 2.5 hours away, was the largest city in the western hemisphere with 160,000 residents. The spanish had struck silver and worked the indiginous people 20 hours per day until they had a major uprising.

In case you were wondering how folks feel about the Spanish conquistadors, below is a statue in the central plaza of the nearby town of Tarbuco, depicting an indigenous man having ripped the Spaniard's heart out of his chest, blood dripping from his mouth as though he'd just taken a bite of it. Interestingly, the tradition style of dress for men in Tarabuco, including this man in the statue, is a hat originally styled after those worn by those in the conquering Spanish military.

Everything here has a long, and often sordid, history. A church near our school has grates on the lower level windows, supposedly because in the 1700s, priests in the seminary were sneaking out at night and going through the city's underground tunnels to meet up with the young nuns from a nearby rectory. The entire center of the city has so many underground tunnels, that cars must get special permits to drive in the center in order to avoid an overload of weight over the hollow tunnels.

...

And here are some more snapshots of our time here so far:

(Rebecca having alterations done do her brand new beautiful hand-woven jacket.)

Above, me eating salteñas and a banana milkshake (banana whipped into milk) at the best place in town, El Patio. Salteñas are similar to empanadas, but a little sweeter and even better! People who come here from Argentina usually seek out "empanadas" and soon discover that what the Bolivians call empanadas are very boring untasty things. But sadly, Bolivians think of salteñas as purely a mid-morning snack. So El Patio and all the other places selling good salteñas are only open from 9am to noon.

And, below, the crazy party that happens every year for the young medical students studying at the local university. Here you decide right out of high school to go to medical school. Then it is six years to become a generalist and more to specialize. The week is full of tons of activities (relayed to us by Victor) including this huge parade with well over a thousands students in fully campy attire -- somewhere between halloween and a bad drag show. Boys dressing us as girls is apparently a big part of this event.

Our first weekend in town we decided to go on a dirtbike tour around the network of dirt roads that surround the city of Sucre. Rebecca's been wanting to learn how to ride a motorcycle for years, so after a one hour class, off we went. I used to own a motorcycle, but have never gone dirtbiking. I'm afraid I'm hooked. The only unexpected dangers were the dogs that liked to chase you. There were hundreds of dogs in the countryside around the city. None of which seemed particularly menacing. But TONS of them. One small field had about a hundred little heads popping up.

We have also managed to make some friends while in town. Sunday night we went over to Stefan's house -- a german guy who's teaching in the local German-Bolivian school and at the University. Also there was his girlfriend Roberta, a woman from Brazil who is working in a local disability rights NGO and loves Bikini Kill, CocoRosie, and Le Tigre among other bands, their friend Dayana, a really cool woman from here who owns a local textile store and is going to the University to get a degree in marketing, and Orse, another guy we had first met at our spanish school.

Stefan made a kind of homemade pasta that's kind of similar to making gnocchi, only you use a contraption kind of like a cheese-grater to press the pasta through to the boiling water.

(Rebecca, Orse, Dayana, Stefan, and Roberta.)

Cheers!

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