The theater darkened. The performance was about to start. I ate the cookies we had bought. The performance, apparently, was just different bits an pieces of different symphonies by Handel. I only lasted a few clips before nodding off. I woke up to the loudest ‘Alleluia’ ever. When we got home, I went straight back to bed.
Playing games with my new friend Carla.
More fun I had was when I played with the daughter of the owners of our guest house, Carla. We would play Plants vs. Zombies, and with our Uno cards and toys. One day, we both had school holiday, and we played with several toys. With the Uno cards, not only did we play classic Uno, but I also made up some games, like Wild Match, Uno War, and Uno War 2.
Something we did almost every day that I enjoyed was feeding the birds in the main plaza. It was very relaxing – less exhausting then chasing them. It gave me lots of pleasure. Sometimes, we would eat ice cream while watching people breakdance in the middle of the square. The zebra crossing guards were cool, too, and one day, on our way to the main plaza, we encountered a parade.
The pre-colonial road was made of rocks put together, and was very steep. Towards the beginning of the hike, I saw something strange in the rocks, which looked like Thomas Jefferson’s head put on the sphinx’s body, with the Hawa Mahal from Jaipur, India, in the background. Not long afterward, I got hungry and took out one of the sandwiches that we had packed. I devoured it in a few hungry bites. Then we continued on. We passed a place that used to be a rest stop for travelers and their animals. I thought we would eat there, but we didn’t.
My toes really started to hurt. Soon we reached the modern, dirt road. That was much better for my feet. A short time later, we reached a small ledge behind a rock wall. I thought we would eat there, but we didn’t.
Next, we went down steep, sandy terrain. Beforehand, mom tied my shoes tighter, so they wouldn’t hurt my feet as much. I still got my feet hurt, and a while later, our guide, Jorge, put some muscle cream on my toe, under a tree. I thought we would eat there, but we didn’t.
Sheep crossing during the hike.
After another long while, I ended up switching bags with mom, and immediately my pace quickened. Soon, mom pulled out a sandwich, saying that she had had it, and that she was starving. She gobbled her sandwich in a few quick gulps. Jorge said that our lunch place was just around the corner. It saw a tall evergreen, assuming he meant that. We just passed by the place. Soon he pointed at an evergreen grove that appeared far, but was in fact pretty close. We got there, and finally ate. Upon learning we would be there for an hour, I asked if I could read, but the permission wasn’t granted, because I had been complaining too much. After a while, we got up to go. A flock of sheep crossed the river. I approached a black lamb, but a white sheep chased me off. We soon crossed the bridge, too, and things got real.
A very scary crossing!
We hiked along the trail, not the road. We went uphill, and it was steep. Most plants we passed were spiky, due to low amounts of rain. We got very low on water. A little time of hiking passed, and we reached a precipice that was too thin to normally walk on. We had to be strategic to cross. Tiny shards of rock came off and stuck to my hand like burrs and hurt like splinters. Afterwards, mom and I got some chocolate. That was a mistake! It made us very thirsty. By the time we got to town, we had no water, and were thirstier than you can imagine. When we passed a hostel, our guide told us that that was the place we were staying. The man running the hostel gave us three big water bottles. At the end of the day, we had drunk around 2 gallons of water. That’s a lot of water!
Player “Joker” with some travelers from Israel and one from Germany.
The next day wasn’t as long or hard. In the middle of the afternoon, we arrived at the town where we were supposed to catch the bus, and met up with some backpackers from a few different countries we’d met earlier in the trip. We eventually got on the back of a truck, which had clumps of dirt and pebbles in the corners. This was a very bumpy and dusty ride. We passed the bus that we should have been on, which rejected us because it was too full, and it was apparently pulled over because the driver felt like having a lunch break. We ended up getting kicked off at a construction site. We were about to get on a truck that was more sheltered, but they had to unload some cement. Finally we were off toward Sucre again.
Statue in the plaza in Tarabuco
The next day, we went to a festival at a Tarabuco. It crowded and boring. Although, at the center of town, there was a beautiful plaza, and on the side of it, the president was giving a speech. On the outskirts of the park in the middle, there was an animated statue of the indigenous man who had led the rebellion in the area, standing over a Spanish soldier who literally had a whole where he should have had a heart. The indigenous man had a horn in one hand… and the soldier’s heart in the other. Last, we watched an assortment of dances while eating lunch in a beautiful courtyard with lots of grass.
Lastly, we spent the weekend running around and chilling out to wrap up our time in Sucre.
Cool stiations in the rock.
A long wobbly bridge
Crossing the river
Taking a break.
Tired and thirsty!
Finally arrived in Maragua, a town in the middle of a huge crater.
Beautiful countryside!
Tarabuco dancers.
Riding on the crowded bus to hike.
Got to ride in the cab of the truck on the way to Sucre.
One great day was when we walked around a dinosaur park with over 5,000 dinosaur footprints, the largest of which were twice the size of my torso. Wow! The models were really cool, too. The eggs of sauropods were a little smaller than basketballs. That’s massive! Even more amazing, most sauropods had a major case of gigantism, which meant they didn’t stop growing. Ever! Most mothers could have easily squashed their babies and hardly notice it. How sad! What was even sadder was that we had to leave. Aww!
I love Natural History Museums!
We also saw some museums. We saw the bread museum, which I though would be cool, but was slightly disappointing. I thought they would give out free bread, but they didn’t. We also saw the costume museum, which I thought would be boring, but was actually quite interesting. It starred the clothes of royal and wealthy 19th century families (of course, what did you expect?). The women wore corsets, which were so tight that they caused trouble breathing, and possibly even deaths. I especially liked the anthropology museum. It talked about cultures from the area, some of which tied cloth tightly around their heads shortly after birth, to create an oblong head. That was amazing but freaky at the same time! We saw the art museum, too, which was in the same complex. Even though everything else we did was cool, my favorite was the natural history museum. They had lots of taxidermied animals, even snakes, dogs, and lynxes. I was very sad it was so small. Before we knew it, we were right back out the door again.
Formed skulls – Anthropology Museum
Mummies – Anthropology Museum
Condor – Natural History Museum
The women were tiny! – Costume Museum
Dino Eggs – Dino Park
A drawing of dinosaurs that my have made the tracks – Dino Park
My teammate was trapped on every side possible from the front. He passed it back to me and I ran to the goalpost. I took a shot and scored! Goooooooooooooooooooooooooal! I was playing soccer with some kids at a kids fair. The daughter of the owners of our guesthouse was going to the kids fair, too. They invited us, so we came.We had a pretty exciting match.
We also saw a pretty exciting match. It was Universitario, Sucre’s team, playing at home, against Bolivar, La Paz’s team. Bolivar scored in the middle of the first half. In the middle of the second half, one Universitario player stomped on the foot of a Bolivar player and was thrown out of the game. Once, Universitario had a corner kick. I had the feeling that this would be a goal. We’d had so many near-misses so far. The ball was kicked and bounced on someone’s head into the net. Goooooooooooooooooal! The crowd went nuts! Everyone yelled and cheered on Universitario.
Something we did almost every day that I enjoyed was feeding the birds in the main plaza. It was very relaxing – less exhausting then chasing them. It gave me lots of pleasure. Sometimes, we would eat ice cream while watching people breakdance in the middle of the square. The zebra crossing guards were cool, too, and one day, on our way to the main plaza, we encountered a parade.
Round the World Kid 