March 26, 2000
Day 156 Rest Day in Sucre: Market in Tarabuco
We get up at 6:30 to catch the 7:30 bus to Tarabuco this morning. Just about everybody staying in the hotel is doing the same this morning. Sunday market in Tarabuco is recommended in all guide books so there are bound to be many muzungu’s there. We walk around the block in search of breakfast, but nobody opens until 7:30. A few crackers will have to do this morning.
The bus ride takes about 2 hours and is very beautiful. The road is mostly paved and follows a ridge with awesome views in both directions over deep, steep valleys patched with crop fields, and distant mountains. The only drawback of the ride is our company. Except for more travelers, the rest of the group is made up out of a whole platoon of Israeli’s. We have heard they tend to travel as a group for awhile after their draft service in the army. We have met several groups so far, mostly in the hotels we were staying and they are, without exception, loud and obnoxious. At one point a couple seated ahead of us, stand up and shout over our heads to a couple behind us. The previous night at around 3am, the group had come into the hotel shouting as if they were the only ones in the hotel. They have such an opportunity to be ambassadors but instead have generated a poor reputation.
Anyway, we get to Tarabuco and first find a little restaurant at the plaza for some breakfast. Then exploring. The native Indians from the surrounding villages are out in force to visit the market and wear beautiful colored traditional outfits and hats in all sizes and shapes. Hats worn by men and married woman are shaped like helmets the Spanish conquistadors used to wear. Single women wear more pot shaped hats, richly decorated with embroidery and silver.
The market itself is mostly for the locals, but stores sell tourist stuff as well. Most popular are the woven blankets women use to carry stuff on their backs. Most are factory made and rather cheap, about 60 Bolivianos ($10), very colorful and would be nice as a cover for the couch, but we figure we can better buy those in La Paz when we get ready to mail some stuff home. So we only look and try to make lots of sneaky photos of the locals. They don’t really object to being photographed, but certainly want to be rewarded for it. The best photo’s Patrick make are at a courtyard where vegetables are sold. We stand under a breezeway for a long time just observing and snapping shots with the telephoto.
At one o’clock our bus is headed back for Sucre . Just before we get on we see the Belgium girls from the Antarctica cruise, sitting on a bench. It was them that waved at Patrick from the bus, halfway between Potosi and Sucre! They have taken their time travelling up Argentina and Chile and are roughly headed the same direction as us, north!
The bus ride back is a little bit more peaceful, but we are nevertheless glad to get back in the city and off the Hebrew mobile. We have a pizza for lunch and go shopping for a birthday gift for Eva. We bring her a bottle of advocate (Bols) and a piece of Swiss chocolate.
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