Steve, Grace, Lisa and I all went up to the Recoletta to watch the sunset and have dinner. I had been in Sucre for a long time and this was always one of the things on my list that never seemed to get done. I decided that two days before I leave was do or die. We took a taxi up and walked around a bit before finding a place sit on the edge of the building… it was a nice view of the city. It got even better as the sun began to set. We ordered some pastas, as well as some bruchetta and a meat and cheese tray thing for appetizers. Steve and Lisa drank two pitchers of sangria and we all had a great time. I just wish I wouldn’t have waited till the end of my time there to go up there. On the other hand this made it even more special.
I am going to miss Sucre and all my friends there. Especially my roommates, we had such a great time, and I will miss just haning out at the house, watching movies or playing catan. Living here with you guys was one of the highlights of my trip!!!
The over night bus from La Paz was terrible, Chris and I both had a horrible time trying to fit into seats not built for people taller than 5’5”. It makes it really hard when your trying to sleep on a 12 hour bus. We got to Sucre early this morning, had some breakfast and found him a place to stay. Afterwards I looked through my photos from last week and took a nap!!!
It feels good to be back here. I have been calling it home the last 7 seven weeks and I really missed my roommates and my bed while I was gone last week. I know that I only have about a week left here and plan on spending most of the time relaxing. I am looking forward to going to a few of the museums I haven’t been to yet, just walking around taking pictures and doing those little things I have been saying I will do for the last few weeks.
In hindsight after telling my roommates about the trip it really was better than I might have portrayed it in my blogs. That’s the difference of how bad things can seem while your there and how they were after you have gone.
Today we got up early to watch the sunrise, but the sunrise was cancelled due to lack of interest. Breakfast was at 730 and was pretty good. Afterwards we were all headed out to go anaconda hunting. We were all pretty excited to do the first activity out here. The first problem came when they told us to put on the wellies (rubber boots), there were 12 of us and only 9 pairs of boots, the largest of which were only size 9. Most of us couldn’t get them to fit and then there wasn’t enough anyway, I just went barefoot. It really wasn’t that bad, I actually preferred it when we crossed the river and the people with boots had to stop and empty out their boots…lol
The hike for snakes was interesting we just walked across this swampy plain, looking for snakes. We did find a few, a baby rattlesnake, a viper and some small anacondas, as well as one large one in a tree. The highlight of the trip was actually the mosquitos. You know in cartoons when people get attacked by a swarm of bugs that just looks like a black cloud buzzing around… it was exactly like that. We all were running around like idiots trying to swat the bugs but there were just to many. It was futile, we finally told the guide we wanted to go back we didn’t care about anything else. He understood, and some of us ran back, it kept the majority of the mozzies off us. It was honestly the worst bug attack I have ever been in. You just couldn’t do anything, and I wasn’t even getting it bad, some of the people were much worse. I took some picture of the bites. I am fortunate the bugs don’t like me that much.
After we got back the mosquitoes were still really bad, even at camp. Not as bad but still there, we all reapplied copious amounts of deet and hoped to not get bite. We asked the guide if it was possible to go back today as the mosquitoes were so bad, and wouldn’t be any better tomorrow. He said he would make the call. After lunch he said we could go when we were ready. About half of us left and the others braved the wild.
Just to make things more fun on the way back our boat engine broke. The water pump got plugged and stopped cooling the engine. We beached the boat and the guide tried to fix it for about 30 minutes. Another boat came by and gave him a ride to another place where the spare engine was kept. This all took like an hour and half but just sitting in the sun the whole time it felt like forever. The rest of the boat ride was really nice. We got back to the boat dock, and dthe jeep had been but had already left… the guide said he would walk back to town to find him. So we waited there for about another 40 minutes or so before the jeep came back. We all loaded up and hit the road. Incase I didn’t clarify last time, the road is really bad, it is full of potholes and washboard,. It is uneven and not well maintained. But we were all so glad to be going back that we didn’t mind.
Once we got back, we all checked into a hotel, and went to find dinner. We made a bad choice, they were out of a bunch of stuff and the stuff we did get was not good. One of the guys wouldn’t eat his thinking it was rotten. I ate mine but it was not good. We just had a bad couple days there. I am sure thing will be better now that we are back. The only thing we missed was the pihranah fishing and none of us thought tit was worth the risk of further blood loss to stay.
