Around Sucre

We are really enjoying Sucre.

Our camping spot is sweet, close to town and with use of a kitchen and dining room. We’ve spread out and made ourselves at home. Usually there are about 2 other vehicles camped out here (mostly French). The spot is basically the garden and casita of a business. A business you have to know about because there are no signs indicating this is neither a generator rebuilding business nor a campsite. GPS coordinates get you here, but you have guess which door to bang on.

The owners are sweet and talkative, but I can’t understand a word they say.  The man serenaded us the other night with a charango.  She took all of us campers to the mercado to buy supplies. When the wifi signal goes down, the son is brought in to repair it.

Our morning walk to Spanish school is beautiful but the car pollution (see the buses) makes us choke. There is usually a marching band in the plaza at some point during the day (all ages).  Most the stores close from 12:30 until 3pm, the others only open after 4pm or on weekends. The only store that seems always to be open is a man that repairs old soccer balls. From the looks of it, he has a lot of business. We can’t seem to get anything accomplished.

It’s a nice town, it’s set up for tourist which means the things you need are available somewhere (a seamstress, an English language book exchange, etc.)  It is the constitutional capital of Bolivia (though now seats of government are in the megalopolis of La Paz), but really a small college town. The altitude is only 9,000 feet, so we finally feel as if we are getting some oxygen in our heads.

Oh, and kid-wise it is perfect. It’s sunny every day. There’s an excellent park, with rides for about 30 cents. There is a modern 2 screen movie theater, where on opening day of Kung Fu Panda 2 (dubbed in Spanish) our tickets were $2.25 USD each and the medium popcorn and 2 small sodas added another $2 to the total. There is also the town square with climbable statues and pigeons.

Bode has the best Spanish teacher, too. She’s very good with him, though I’m afraid he’s calling the shots. The other day I heard them having a pillow fight (his idea). I really wonder how this kid will fair in a ‘real’ classroom.

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And, only today we learned that along with our buddy Big Blue, we received an “Honorable Mention” in last year’s GoWesty calendar contest. We figured we were just plain rejected. We’ll try harder next year.