Sucre: how many more days?

August 9, 2016

My room mates. Front: Ito from Israel (Hebrew name, hard to spell unless seen written down). Right: Toma, Israel. Left: Ester, France.

Perhaps I've mentioned that the hostel dorm room where I've slept this past ten days, opens out into a garden enclosed with overhanging tree-branches. Well, also, the room has big picture frame windows with net curtains, which gives a kind of ambience first thing in the morning of having woken up in a tent, ie, I waken with daylight, proceeded by the glow of the rising sun hitting a tiled roof beyond the garden wall.

What have I been doing?

Well, taking a break from cycling. Bolivia is relatively cheap, so it's good to take a break in a city without worrying that daily expenditure will break the budget. I won't be able to take such a long break when I get to Brazil, where it's expensive, so I make the most of cheap hostel accommodation and eating out while I can. Also, good to have social interaction with other travellers for a while.

What else have I been doing?

Eh, researching a possible route ahead, by rereading the Paraguay and Brazil section of Crazy Guy On A bike's Jeff Kruys' journal.

Thanks to Jeff for such a well documented, resourceful journal, I've come up with a route, which, won't be written in stone, but modified to suit while I'm on the road.

Another thing I've looked into is an eventual flight home to Europe, when I finish. An example I've come up with on the website "Cheapflights" is Sao Paulo to Madrid for an extremely optimistic £283 (This is the shortest direct route for my purpose) which, I see as a guide low-price. The actual price eventually paid will be at least more than twice this sum, when a greater check-in baggage allowance is taken into account.

Some bike maintenance.

I needed to fit a new chain, having ridden 3,500km or thereabouts, on the currant chain, fitted in Valparaiso, Chile. And, I've fitted a new front tyre, a Maxxis Crossmax, sensibly fat at 38c replacing the thin 28c Hutchinson Gotham. mind, it punctured when wire from the casing protruded into the inner-tube, not once but twice.

My off-the-bike wardrobe, or single set of cloths is looking tired. A pair of Levi jeans I bought new in February last year, before setting out, the knee's out of them. I've found a seamstress here in Sucre, where the jeans are at present having a kneecap patch sewn in.

The weather has been cloudless sky and pleasant sunshine since I got here. Today dawned dull, though. I lay on and slept and when I woke up again, could hear the rain. The first rain since late June, back in Salta, the day I finished a loop out into the province of Salta. The rain eased off about 10am, but the day continues damp and grey with cloud closed in, low down the hills, which surround the city. I imagine there'll be more rainy days as I cycle east.

The question now is how many more days off here.

I'm looking at Friday as the day to pack up and leave.

Hostel garden: my room to the left: my bed behind the window.

Most mornings there's a long shrill call of two pairs of large colourful birds roostered high up. Papaguayas, as identified by a German girl.

Thursday, 11th Aug.

"Do you ever jump off your bike?" asks Julia from Germany sat opposite me at the breakfast table, meaning to avoid being run over by a car, in context of us talking about how crazy traffic is in Bolivian cities.

Of course this was preceded by "how far do you ride a day". I explain it depends on terrain, wind, or even where I want to be by day's end.

"Where do you sleep at night?" "In a tent." I explain how a wild campsite may look like in Bolivia. A narrow uninhabited valley usually, too narrow for cultivation with steep sides and a dry streambed enclosed by bushes below the road, occupying most of the valley floor. I push the bike off the road down a track through the bushes and set up the tent on the dry streambed.

"Have you seen much wildlife?" Guanacos. Numerous birds. Armadillos. Julia puts on a puzzled look at the latter and asks "What are they?" "They're like a hedgehog without the spiky shell." I add "I think I'll see more animals when I get to Brazil. More snakes." which causes her to cringe, like she's seen a ghost. "...but I'm also looking forward to seeing Capybara, a mammal which looks like a sealion with a furry brown coat. I saw them when I's last in Brazil." Thanks to Jeff Kruys' message in the then journal guestbook identifying them.

Generally, I don't mind these questions, depending on how they are asked. If they aren't the first thing a stranger asks. They can be answered many different ways with a bit of creativity. The question I don't care for is "where did you get the money to travel?"

It's intrusive. It's none of the questioners business.

If I answer it I've to go into a long narrative. The long version, or the short version. How much time have you got?

In this church the declaration of independence from Spain was signed on the 25th of May 1809. The archway to the right, I assume signified, going from Colonial era, to a Republic.

The main government building in Plaza Mayor, from the 1890s, when Sucre was the country's overall capital, due to it's close proximity to Potosi with it's Cerro Rico Silver mine. However, about this time, tin mining became more economically important. The tin mine owners lived in La Paz, so that city become the country's seat of government and political capital ever since, whilst Sucre remains constitutional capital.

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