On Thursday afternoon Susanne and Ryan left me to go to Uyuni. I would have loved to join them but time is running and didn´t want to risk being late for my flight to Rio. I accompanied them to the bus terminal, we said goodbye and agreed to meet up in Berlin and Seattle, accordingly. Its always great to travel with nice people for some time but then its also sad when its time to say goodbye...
I decided to stay one more day in La Paz but couldn´t decide whether to go to Santa Cruz directly or stop in Sucre for a day so I tossed a coin: heads-or-tail - and Sucre won and I bought a bus ticket for the 15-hour bus ride to the South.
On my last day in La Paz I went to the Coca museum (pretty boring), had a lot of coffee and good food at "Alexander Coffee", tried to get my nails done (not a good idea in La Paz!) and continued to read Paulo Coelho´s account of his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. I made it to the fifth or sixth chaper but was pretty disappointed by it: the persons and incidents he encounters on his voyage seem to perfect and too much of a coincidence, it doesn´t sound very realistic - more like he had planned out the pilgrimage at home at his writing desk or as if he interpretes the encounters according to the principles he wants to point out. I put the book aside and decided to swap the book at the next hostel or bookexchange...
When I ran into one Argentinian guy I had met in a hostel on a rainy afternoon in Cabanaconde just one hour before leaving to Sucre I had to make a little concession to Paulo Coelho: there are a lot of coincidences when you travel and yes, they might seem unrealistic! If I had known what Sucre had in store for me... ;-)
After a long but unspectacular bus ride I arrived in Sucre on saturday morning and went in search of a nice hostel. The first one looked ok but there was no free room before noon. The second was not very nice and also quite far from the center... and the third one smelled of old ladies. Not the nice grandmother smell of fresh cake or old fashioned perfume but the one you encounter on old ladies at the doctors or at church. My back started hurting from carrying my heavy backpack and I decided to forget my budget limits for a day and checked into 4 star "Premier Hotel". After refreshing a bit I took off to explore Sucre. On first sight it looked nice but calm, if not to say boring. It is said to be the most beautiful city of Bolivia but if you´ve seen Cuenca en Ecuador or Arequipa in Peru, Sucre is just one more colonial city. I checked out the Ethnografical museum - very similar to the one in Peru - the exhibition of masks is very well done but unfortunately they closed at noon. Around 2pm I had seen most of the streets and churches (all of them locked) and as the city still seemed very quiet I started to wonder if I should go to the bus terminal and look for a bus very early the next morning...
Just when I was thinking of this I saw someone sitting on a bench on the main plaza, the face and blong hair looked kind of familiar... when I got nearer the person got up, smiling - and I saw that it was "mi amigo navideño" Martin! Martin, with whom I had spend a great christmas eve in Piura, whom I had met in Cusco by chance and whose boat has sunk on the Amazon! For the third time on our trip we´ve met - without planning to do so, pure coincidence! I will never ever critizise Paulo Coelho - traveling has its own laws and unbelievable coincidence definately is one of those.
Very happy about this unforeseen "Wiedersehen" we sat down on a bench and tried to catch up on our travels. Unfortunately the little show shine boys, too, thought that it was very interesting. They sat down in a circle around us and wanted to know if I was Martin's girlfriend. When he told them that I was just an "amiga" they told him off everytime he put his arm around me or touched me on the legs. High morals, those little guys ;-) When obviously he wouldn´t stop touching me - Martin is a very warm and outgoing person - they requested a "kiss, kiss" and burst into laughter. One of the little guys knew all capitals of the world by heart - quite impressive, but still we refused to buy them food or give them money. There are so many of them and if you give something to one you have to give it to all or a fight will break out. When they wouldn´t leave us alone we retreated to one of the lovely cafes near by with balconies overlooking the plaza. Martin asked me what my plans were for the night and I said I haven´t any he decided to stay one more night in Sucre to celebrate our unforeseen encounter. We both agreed that somehow our positive energies kept drawing us together, no matter where and we should seize the opportunity and "rock the capital" ;-). (Even though La Paz de facto serves as capital, sleepy Sucre is the constitutional capital of Bolivia!)
We got our bus tickets for the next day, enjoyed a huge fruit salad, some fresh chese and bread in the market and then went back to our hostels to get ready for a big night out :-)
By the time we met again, most restaurants already looked deserted - Bolivians or South Americans tend to eat earlier than Europeans, it seems. We found a pizza place that looked nice and not too empty. Martin ordered red wine - but bad lack, all used up. So he opted for beer and me for a water, which they had. I asked for a veggie pizza without cheese - no problem in Germany or Italy, but not possible in Sucre - "the pizza would burn without cheese". Ok. So pasta with pesto, please. Half an hour later the waiter reappeared, without pizza but with the news that the veggetables for the pesto were used up, too. Even though Martin's pizza allegedly already was in the oven we paid the drinks and left. So far for service mentality in the Bolivian (contitutional, but still!) capital. The night before Martin had an equally unpleasant experience with the waiters in gringo-ridden "Joyride Cafe" but as it seemed to be the only place around the plaza that wasn't about to close we gave in and ordered the 4 person "tapas table" - just delicious! And we did our best to smile and say a lot of "gracias", "no se preocupe" and even managed to get some smiles back from the waiters.
Around midnight we decided to have a look upstairs, to the dancefloor... and stayed untill they closed ;-) We met the "Taxi Schisser" or cap wimps - a group of 3 Germans who arrived on the same bus as Martin and asked him if it was save to take a taxi. When we arrived they were sitting in a hook, true "Taxi Schisser"-style - but after they saw Martin rocking the place, they got up and joined us. Hopefully they will meet a lot of Martins our their trip would be very boring indeed!
From the "Joyride" we shared a taxi with Fernando, the one and only tall and hansome Bolivian, an Irish guy and an Englishmen with a broken arm to another disco. As the taxi didn´t have a radio we agreed to sing. Martin and me of course performed an unforgettable version of "Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins..." in combination with an instrumental "Hey Jude" from the guy with the broken arm. We stayed at the second place until it closed, too, and I walked back to my hotel with Fernando, and Martin, who wasn´t in for much walking, took a taxi. I got home by 6:00 and considering I only slept like 3-4 hours this hotel really became the most expensive one of my trip ;-)
Martin and me, "nordish by nature" in the colonial city center of Sucre...
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