Road to Sucre

ihana.com - big trip - diary - bolivia - april 2003

Tuesday 29 - Wednesday 30 April

As the sun began to come down we were still a good hour or so from Sucre and, passing a historic looking suspension bridge we made a slight detour to take a quick look. The light was getting poor so it was decided to camp the night there and get some good pics the next morning. T walked over to the nearby collection of houses to let them know we weren't international terrorists and not to pour petrol on our tent in the night, as we had heard rumoured to happen. There was a man outside his house with his daughters and usual well-built wife, he was busy squashing a snake's head with a big stick. They were all nice enough and were quite shocked when T picked up the still writhing snake to take a closer look. It was a poisonous one too and finished up having its head and tail machete'd off. T returned to the landy with an entourage of kids following and asking questions in Quechua and Spanish. As we cooked the younger kids left and were replaced with older ones so we had relentless spectators. They gave us some mandarins and we gave them some of our dinner and a cup of tea in return. At 9pm they all went to bed, peace at last.

In the morning two of the older lads were already hanging about the landy. We took pics of the bridge and made coffee. T found a fair size beetle crawling along the ground near the landy and the locals said it was a Chagas beetle, and would be full of blood. A quick squashing proved his point, plenty of blood. Chagas disease is not very pleasant and as we didn't have any fresh bites we hoped we were fine.

Further along the road we noticed a big country mansion beside an army base and realised this must be Castillo de la Glorieta, a big house once owned by the rich Argandoña family. We parked the landy outside and strolled in. A big party of schoolkids was just leaving so we had the place more or less to ourselves. You can explore just about every part of the big empty house, climb the tower and check out the labarynth of rooms and sculptured gardens.

The villa is only a few kms from Sucre and well worth a visit. With a bit of work on the buildings and extensive grounds it would make the perfect setting for a big rave party.

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