Get in the slow lane

I was a little bummed that I didn´t have more time in Potosi. I loved the landscape and, more honesty here, I found great food (hamburguesa de quinoa...are you kidding me?!) and evidence of a thriving thrash/metal scene. What more could I ask for?


Potosi triple threat: Black Angel, Old Funeral, AND Lord Satan

Well, as it turns out, the ride down from Potosi to Sucre (or Chuquisaca, as it is also known) is other-worldly beautiful. I missed the first bus out of town but found that you can walk a few more blocks past the mercado central and find a taxi. Or, more accurately, the taxis find you. ¨¡Amigo! ¡Una falta!¨ holler the drivers´ de-facto brokers/hustlers. It´s just like India only turned down to 2 from Volume 11.

Somewhere along the road

For 30 Bolivianos I was squeezed between two plump Bolivianas and treated to one of the most pleasant two hours in a car that I can possibly imagine.

At first, the scenery reminded me of the long, beautiful passages in Satanic Verses where Rushdie describes the city of Jahilia, the city made of sand where only the most outcast of untouchables carried water for fear of spilling a drop and toppling the metropolis. The dwellings along the hillsides outside Potosi are a dozen shades of russet, literally fading into the hills in certain light.

The city of Jahilia is built entirely of sand, its structures formed of the desert whence it rises. It is a sight to wonder at: walled, four-gated, the whole of it a miracle worked by its citizens, who have learned the trick of transforming the fine white dune-sand of those forsaken parts, - the very stuff of inconstancy, - the quintessence of unsettlement, shifting, treachery, lack-of-form, - and have turned it, by alchemy, into the fabric of their newly invented permanence.

After a few miles and thousands of feet drop in elevation the terrain transitions yet again, now taking on the same golden and brown hues you might find in the Galiban Range near Soledad in California. At the same time, I could imagine Maynard Dixon having painted here.

Still further, the rolling hills gave way to deep gorges and dry riverbeds, and the occasional pueblo. This could be the stomping grounds of the ancients, and for all I know, is.

The one constant was the prevalence of pro-Evo Morales graffiti (¡Evo-si! ¡Evo-lucion!). Bolivia´s first indigenous president enjoys unparalelled support among the rural poor and indigena communities of this incredibly diverse country.

Anyhow, Sucre is the true city of buenos aires. That other one is pulling a fast one on the world.

Old woman on the steps of the large cathedral on the plaza (Sucre)


Colonial palms above UNESCO site


Dino tracks are one of Sucre´s claims to fame

Verduleria cerca del mercado central

Los aires electricos