La ciudad blanca!

Sucre, the white city, the city of chocolate so maybe it should be the city of white chocolate?

Hello from Sucre, the capital city and the symbolic heart of Bolivia. I think I would agree with those who argue that Sucre is Bolivia's most beautiful city with a glorious ensemble of whitewashed buildings sheltering pretty patios. It was here that independence from the Spanish conquerors was claimed so it felt more traditional and truly Bolivian. 

We spent four days wondering around the city and its' landmarks but there are two things I wanted to tell you more about: its food and a little trip back in time :)

In terms of food, Sucre had an even more bustling food market than Santa Cruz (which I thought was impossible). Colours, smells, noise and busyness everywhere I looked. Downstairs there were people selling fresh juices of any fruit you can possibly imagine (we tried the sugar cane juice which was delicious) and upstairs the tasty and cheap meals were fried up and served morning to night. 

We didn't have my new favourite food (saltenas, like a small pasty) there but of course we couldn't miss trying them in Sucre. We gobbled up the delicious pastries of chicken and vegetables and then meat and vegetables in a traditional local restaurant, but to be honest, Santa Cruz's saltenas are still first on the leader board!

As Sucre has many chocolateries, we thought it would be a shame not to try some chocolates. We had white chocolate, almond chocolate, pistachio chocolate, orange chocolate, brazil nut chocolate and, of course, peanut chocolate. And what a better place to enjoy them than a viewpoint overlooking Sucre's beautiful bright orange sunset in an old church's tower bell!

But I also wanted to tell you about a bizarre food-experience we had in Sucre: we went to an Italian restaurant and the food was great but this is not what I wanted to share with you. The bizarre (in a funny way) thing was that the restaurant was inside somebody's house. No joke, although I thought it was one of Dan's regular dad-jokes for a bit. We were outside a building with no lights or signs to say this was an actual restaurant other than a very small plaque on the side of the door. I was very hungry, yet reluctant to ring the door bell in case an angry Bolivian man came out with his pyjamas on. Thankfully, it really was a restaurant and we had a great meal.

One of the last places we visited was a dinosaur park on a cliff at the outskirts of Sucre where dinosaur footprints had been found and exposed by the cement factory nearby. During dinosaur times, it had been the edge of a lake, and nowadays, it was a straight sheer drop covered with many footprints that had miraculously been preserved by the wet mud! At first, it looked like the dinosaurs had been very keen climbers. There were about 5000 footprints of at least four different species of dinosaur - the largest collection of dinosaur footprints in the world. Pretty spectacular!

We are off even higher up the altiplano tomorrow. I might not be posting for some days but I've been promised by Dan more time-travelling experiences.