Sucre is the capital of Bolivia, but only in name, because La Paz is the acting capital. Sucre is very relaxing. People are quiet, a nice white town. So I arrived around noon and took the hotel of my choice, Chacras, near the market, a friendly hotel, but without any specialty. I felt actually that I needed something special around Christmas, so I decided to change next day to another hotel with some more atmosphere.
I had agreed with Pietro and Ivana (the Italian couple I met in La Paz) to meet them. So about 19:00 I went to their hotel. It was Nochebueno, Christmas eve. The reunion was very nice. We went for a diner in an Italian restaurant (including electricity failure) and after diner we went to the procession (at 23:00) and the midnight mass in the cathedral. The diner was very pleasant, the procession was special, the midnight mass a little bit boring, but I was also tired.
On Christmas I changed to the Grand Hotel, a comfortable hotel with a very good ambiance. Later I discovered that in this hotel ´el comandante Ernesto ´Che´ Guevara´ has stayed, just opposite my room (only more than 40 years ago.
Almost every tourist attraction was closed. Together with my woman next door, Ruth, I decided to spend the evening in a good restaurant. This restaurant was Joyride, a Dutch owned café. First we looked at the movie ´The mountain that eats men´ a very impressive document about the silver mines of Potosí. The title is self explaining, after millions of casualties. I will visit these mines later.
Wednesday I visited the ´Jurasic Parc´of Sucre. A very big wall of 2000 x 40 m, in a cement mill, on which many footprints of all kinds of dinosaurs. The wall has moved from horizontal to vertical position by tectonic movement. The biggest site of its kind (but one) in the world.
Thursday I went to the general cemetery (with graves of some presidents) of Sucre and visited the Casa de Libertad, a very important building where the Declaration of Independency was signed in 1825, a long time the hall of the parliament. A lot of information about all presidents and the history of this state.
In the afternoon Ruth went to Santa Cruz and I spent a nice time with Pietro and Ivana in their hotel where they prepared a good Italian Spaghetti and omelette for me. That was about my Xmas. I had expected to be alone for the first time, but it was the opposite.
On Christmas I was witness of distribution actions of Christmas presents towards Indigenous people. There are a lot of these people here, actually the Indians of this region. They are very poor and are sitting everywhere on the floor. They beg for money. If you look them into the eyes their first reaction is stretching their hand. During the distribution I sat beside Maximo, a man of 47, 7 children between 17 and 2 years old. He had walked all the way from Potosí to Sucre, one day. He will go to Cochabamba to find work (at least that is what he believes). Is there no work in Potosí, yes in the mines. The average life expectation there is 40 years, you definitely die of Silicosis. There are barely safety measures and children of 12 years old are working in these mines. So Maximo has decided to change his life. A very nice guy!!
I have a big difficulty with coping with so many poor beggars. Children of 4 years, begging for money or food. You see at the faces the poverty of these people. Women of seemingly 70 years old giving their baby breast feeding (you know that they cannot be that old). This is really madness!!!!!!! This is not good, what is happening here!!!
In these days I also have had a lot of political discussions about the difficult situation here. The country is in deep trouble with this big conflict between the president and the opposition, I am very curious how this will develop.
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