Ok, so perhaps not actual walking with them, but seeing where they walked. Sucre happens by pure chance – I reckon – to be the location of the largest and most diverse range of dinosaur footprints discovered on Earth. About 20 years ago the local cement works was busy digging up a hillside, as they do, and woe and behold they managed to unearth a vast series of tracks leading up the hillside. Turns out the hillside used to be a lakeside 130 million years ago where such cretaceous luminaries like a Brontosaurus used to peruse the scenery – and eat it. The small park has scale replica’s of the reptiles based on footprint size placed strategically around the place, probably the most interesting is the scaled timeline of the Earths existence that winds its way around the park…..humans arrive in the last 2 metres – sobering – if we last as long as the dinosaurs it will be a top notch effort.

Sucre itself is a pretty place, a decent size plaza surrounded by white painted buildings and the obligatory giant Catholic cathedral – no danger of the Catholics being accused of subtlety. Sucre is the constitutional capital of Bolivia, it was the actual capital until a war between La Paz and Sucre resulted in the executive and legislative functions being set up in La Paz. Whilst there I checked out the liberty museum, site of the signing of the declaration of independence back in 1825. It turns out Bolivia is named Bolivia as a sop to Simon Bolivar (South Am liberator) as he wanted it to join his Gran Colombia plan so to get him onside the independence gang gave him the country name (and the currency too) as well as first presidency. Nothing like a play for the ego to get people working in your direction….some bright spark a year later said Romulus – Roma, Columbus – Columbia, so Bolivar – Bolivia and there you have it.

Sucre is also a very functional place, ie; on the street where the Supreme Court is located there are perhaps 30 lawyer’s offices. More disturbingly on the street where the main hospital is, there are about 20 funeral homes with hearses parked outside and garish coffins visible within. Not the sight one wants to see when arriving at a hospital I’d say. Aside from generally mooching around in the days I managed to get to some live music, the liberty museum had a free piano recital featuring “Cuatro Mano” – 4 handed piano……brilliant but I wonder if talented classical musicians can ever play without the exaggerated head movements and flourishing hand movements…probably something to do with “Passion” I suppose. More to my usual taste was the blues bar nearby where a mid 40´s aged Bolivian band kicked out some Eric Clapton and the like.

And that brings me to Santa Cruz, after a 15 hr bus ride. And what a change. I “woke” (in quotation marks cos no one ever really sleeps on these things) this morning to be surrounded by trees and a warm breeze blowing in the window. Both of which were a novelty as its been nearly 2 months at altitude, where they are in short supply. Santa Cruz has about 1.4 million people but feels like about 140,000 (though it is Sunday). There’s not much around but I’ve enjoyed the warm climate, the tropical fruits and the palm trees in an easy paced introduction. Which is required as it’s all tropical/coastal from here, tomorrow I’m on the “death train” (who names these things?) to the Brazilian Pantanal, then onwards into Southern Brazil, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires.

Sucre 9/10
Santa Cruz 8/10

Current Mood: Tropic´d
Music on My Mind: Down by the River – Neil Young