Potosi and Beyond

After a brief stay in Potosi (which confirms my suspicion that I'm definitely claustrophobic in small spaces!!) we were off to Sucre, the "justice capital" of Bolivia. 

Bolivia is a...hard place to be traveling. The altitude is punishingly high, making walking up a simple flight of stairs a workout. It's notoriously hilly, and rather undiscovered by tourists so the accommodations are basic (and hot water is scarce at times). Simple things like crossing the road become a nerve wracking challenge, as cars totally disregard pedestrians (even going so far as to hit you if they think the crowd is not moving fast enough, as I found out) 

Pulling into Sucre felt like a breath of fresh air. The architecture changed from squat, brick depressing looking buildings studded with unfinished rebar, into beautiful plazas and squares straight out of Europe. I knew I was going to like it there when we spotted this on the first night. 

(It's not the greatest photo, but that would be a pair of zebras helping to direct traffic. Apparently they used to have issues between pedestrians and cars so instead of leaving the pedestrians to become speed bumps, they installed traffic guards dressed like dancing zebras to keep the peace. It was awesome!!)

Sucre was all kinds of lovely. As the altitude dropped, the weather warmed. So much so that much of our winter gear got packed away, optimistically looking forward to continued warming the closer we got to Brazil. The hotel in Sucre checked most of the boxes for essentials...a large hot shower, a half decent breakfast, and laundry! (It lost points for having crappy wifi and sludgy instant coffee for breakfast. 

But it was the only city to throw is a parade on our first day! 

We splurged and decided to go horseback riding for a day, so I got to spend 4 a day with my new buddy Arturo 

All too soon, our time in Sucre was up and it was off for a night to Santa Cruz, Bolivia's fastest growing city, close to the Brazilian border. There we met our final guide for the trip, Filipe. The next day we boarded a 17 hour train ride bound for the Bolivian/Brazilian border. (The border was a drag by the way...something that should have taken 2 hours maximum ended up taking 7 hours, exhausting and frustrating everyone.) When we finally arrived at our next destination, the Pantanal, we were very ready for hammocks and some sleep!