Three Bolivian Jewels: The Cities of Potosi, Sucre and La Paz
We felt the need to contrast the overwhelming emptiness of the Uyuni Salt Lake by visiting three important historic centers of Bolivia.
Potosi, the silver city, surprised us with the perfectly shaped triangular Cerro Rico, the mountain that brought much richness to the colonialists and much misery to the indigenous people. Today, children are still forced to work because they can more easily enter the narrow mines. We did not feel like seeing them and moved quickly to Sucre after a short yet pleasant visit of the city center.
Sucre is the constitutional capital of Bolivia, and it surely expires this with it's beautiful white buildings and clean parks. We booked our rooms in the Grand Hotel, just to get a feeling of how the Latin American Hero Commandate Che Guevara spent his time in this city over 40 years ago. Lucky enough we could attend the film of his famous motorcycle trip in the alternative cinema at the Joyride Bar, after having successfully survived a wonderful and adventurous mountainbike tour around Sucre. After having torn the chain in the afternoon, watching the accidents of Che and his partner felt quite fun...
Reaching La Paz was not that easy as we thought, as we had to freeze the whole night in a bus that got stuck in the middle of the desert due to lack of gasoline. The driver probably had known about the problem and that's why we did not have any heating. After this experience, we did not have very much fun to visit La Paz the same day, though the steep hills of the heavily polluted and noisy Megacity did show some charm on our arrival in the early morning sun. Having consumed Coca leaves against various physical pains, we were eager to find out more in the little museum dedicated to this plant. According to their tests, Coca leaves have great health benefits due to a high concentration of antioxidants and so not only are effective in the case of altitude sickness, tooth and stomach ache, but also can heal cancer and other fatal illnesses besides beeing a great anaestetic. The highly addictive Cocaine drug can only be extracted from two of over 250 different kinds of Coca plants. Consumed as a Coca leaf, other substracts act as antidote and totally eliminate the addictive effect. Some experts say, these Coca leaves could be the direct remedy to help Cocaine addicts get out of hell. We did try some gentle kind of leaves both dried and in the form of tea. Our experience was that they really calmed our travel illnesses, gave us a feeling of having more energy and stimulating the mental capacity. In Bolivia and Peru, Coca leaves are an integrative part of the indigenous culture. They are being sold and consumed completely legally, like coffee and tobbacco in our Western countries.
Get some impressions of the three cities on our photo set: Three Bolivian Jewels
We felt the need to contrast the overwhelming emptiness of the Uyuni Salt Lake by visiting three important historic centers of Bolivia.
Potosi, the silver city, surprised us with the perfectly shaped triangular Cerro Rico, the mountain that brought much richness to the colonialists and much misery to the indigenous people. Today, children are still forced to work because they can more easily enter the narrow mines. We did not feel like seeing them and moved quickly to Sucre after a short yet pleasant visit of the city center.
Sucre is the constitutional capital of Bolivia, and it surely expires this with it's beautiful white buildings and clean parks. We booked our rooms in the Grand Hotel, just to get a feeling of how the Latin American Hero Commandate Che Guevara spent his time in this city over 40 years ago. Lucky enough we could attend the film of his famous motorcycle trip in the alternative cinema at the Joyride Bar, after having successfully survived a wonderful and adventurous mountainbike tour around Sucre. After having torn the chain in the afternoon, watching the accidents of Che and his partner felt quite fun...
Reaching La Paz was not that easy as we thought, as we had to freeze the whole night in a bus that got stuck in the middle of the desert due to lack of gasoline. The driver probably had known about the problem and that's why we did not have any heating. After this experience, we did not have very much fun to visit La Paz the same day, though the steep hills of the heavily polluted and noisy Megacity did show some charm on our arrival in the early morning sun. Having consumed Coca leaves against various physical pains, we were eager to find out more in the little museum dedicated to this plant. According to their tests, Coca leaves have great health benefits due to a high concentration of antioxidants and so not only are effective in the case of altitude sickness, tooth and stomach ache, but also can heal cancer and other fatal illnesses besides beeing a great anaestetic. The highly addictive Cocaine drug can only be extracted from two of over 250 different kinds of Coca plants. Consumed as a Coca leaf, other substracts act as antidote and totally eliminate the addictive effect. Some experts say, these Coca leaves could be the direct remedy to help Cocaine addicts get out of hell. We did try some gentle kind of leaves both dried and in the form of tea. Our experience was that they really calmed our travel illnesses, gave us a feeling of having more energy and stimulating the mental capacity. In Bolivia and Peru, Coca leaves are an integrative part of the indigenous culture. They are being sold and consumed completely legally, like coffee and tobbacco in our Western countries.
Get some impressions of the three cities on our photo set: Three Bolivian Jewels
posted by Patrick Jeannerat at 5/07/2007 10:48:00 PM
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