Hecktic Travels

Our last few days have been a mix of complete laziness and sightseeing! Saturday morning was spent at a local park, people watching and reading. An interesting parade caught our attention on a side street – included a small marching band and several cars completely decorated with stuffed animals and kitchen items (decorated so much that the driver had to stick his head out the window to see where he was driving). Still haven’t figured out what it was for!

We are still adjusting to the way things work around here. At about 1pm we decided to leave the park and find a place for lunch – very few things were open! Most retail vendors and restaurants shut down between noon and 2-3pm. We finally managed to find something open that was recommended, and had a delicious lunch (included 3 beers, two entrees plus soup for under $10). While I have so far been sticking to the “gringo” side of the menu, Pete has been adventurously trying some local dishes – the traditional vegetable soup he ordered at this restaurant came with french fries in it! So far neither of us have been disappointed (or sick) from any of our meals.

Finally got in touch with Mom after three tries at different phones (hi Mom!) Was pretty expensive considering how cheap everything else is, but once we get the Skype thing all figured out (and find a reliable place to do it from), it should be much easier! There are internet café’s everywhere, but we have yet to find one with a really fast connection. Could be why they only charge about $0.30 for 1 hour of use.

We decided that we are going to live at our current guesthouse (called Dolce Vita) for the duration of our stay in Sucre, although we did ask to be moved to another room as our first one was right close to the street and front door, allowing for a lot of noise. We were able to move all our things on Saturday to a new room at the back, but now we have discovered a whole new annoyance to keep us up at night...damn roosters! Who keeps roosters in the middle of a city, anyways?? Sunday morning I checked my watch at the first crowing and sure enough – it was 4:20am. We’ve decided that this is livable though, if we keep our bathroom window and door shut it isn’t too loud. We’ll see how long it lasts!

So, thanks to our crowing alarm clock, we slept off and on Sunday morning and didn’t get out of bed until almost 10am. We decided to skip breakfast and go for a quick hike to one edge of the city that has a lookout over the city as well as a great restaurant at the top of the hill. It wasn’t a long hike, but it was a steep one, and I was pretty winded by the time we got to the top. But boy, was it worth it! A panoramic view of the entire city, complete with a museum and restored convent that we will have to come back to tour another day as it was closed. The restaurant had lounge chairs on the patio where we just sat and read our books for 2 hours after lunch, enjoying the views of the city and the beautiful weather (The weather forecast for the next 3 months: sunny and 25 degrees. Everyday. I’m not kidding. This is supposed to be one of the most temperate climates in the world.) Of course, we also enjoyed the usual eclectic mix of music: from classical piano to the Beatles to Chumbawumba!

Sunday night we chanced a little pizza joint and had the best pizza we´ve had in a long time! So much for my instant weight loss plan due to my believing the food wouldn´t be very good!

We had our first Spanish lesson this morning - coming away with about 5 pages of notes and a lot of studying to do. I accidently hit on our teacher (Edwin) - asking him to ¨go away¨with me...oops! Innocent mistake, I promise.

Whenever we get through one part of the lesson, Edwin makes us say ¨pan comido¨- which means ¨piece of cake¨. Now I want cake.

We also made our first friend! Until today, we´ve barely come across anyone who speaks English, and have not seen one other backpack marked with the maple leaf! Tonight we are going to see a locally made movie with our new friend Dave from South Africa (we also met a couple of girls from Germany but didn´t get their names).

So, as you can see, we’re still pretty excited about being here and settling in well. I often have to remind myself that yes, we are in the middle of Bolivia, South America! Indefinitely! Still kind of unbelievable. We’re enjoying incredible weather, living like kings on less than $50 a day, and just find this city to be so relaxing and comfortable.

Except for that damn rooster!

I need cake.

P.S. I FINALLY was able to get some pictures up (it was painful)! Paste this link into your browser to see them! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=145321&id=669761083&l=235dac27e9