Monday, April 23, 2012

Sucre, Bolivia

What a surprise. Sucre is everything Santa Cruz de la Sierra isn't. It's elegant, spotless, affluent, and full of interesting colonial architecture. It's a joy to explore after seedy Santa Cruz. Our hotel is spacious, has vaulted ceilings and attentive staff, and definitely doesn't smell of mothballs. And the food in Sucre is excellent as well.

Getting here isn't so easy. Sucre is in the Andes and at 2700 meters. That's an arduous and dangerous 20-hour bus trip, or 40 minutes by air. We got a little 18-seat turboprop that looked rather scuffed and bedraggled. For ten minutes before landing there was some sort of alarm in the cockpit. No matter...