Sucre, BoliviaI spent around a total of 2 weeks here, which is a long time if you're not actually living there (like on the farms). Two weeks is enough time to sort of figure out where the best place is for breakfast, where to party on a Friday night, where the good shops are, good museums, etc.
For me though, I cut out all of the bullshit and spent almost every day at the local market! (With the exception of Spanish class)
Sucre, as many already know, is an amazingly cheap place to get one-on-one Spanish classes. It costs around 4-7U$ per hour, which is crazy in my opinion! Then, you can hit up the amazing local market to hang out with the locals and chat it up! Couldn't get any better, right?
Quick from the paper journal- a description!
"Tonight, all of my travel buddies went out to see some movie and I was relieved to find myself with an evening... to myself! Sooo I've spent it here in Sucre, updating photos (HAHA, what a joke!) and trying to get in touch with loved ones. Sucre is beautiful, I could actually see myself staying here for an extended period of time for sure. All of the buildings are white with Terra Cotta roofing, looks like it's straight out of a dream! If it were on the ocean, and it looks like it should be, it would be absolutely perrrrrrfect!"
Writing about all of this makes me realize how much I actually DID do, and it makes me miss it so, so much. I'm having a really hard time, still, adjusting to this "normal" way of life. I want to just keep moving from one place to another, and if I remember correctly, that's what I didn't want to be doing anymore! That's why I decided to pack my bag and head on home. Now the way of life that I was supposedly hating at the time seems more suiting to me now. It is truly an addiction.
Onward, though. I guess we can't dwell on these things and just accept them as learning experiences. The market.... These photos don't even give this market any justice. I think this may have been the best market I've ever been to in South America. I'll paint a little picture.
You're walking down the main street in Sucre toward the plaza and as Bolivia often is, it is chaotic! People are yelling, you are getting bumped into, something wet just landed on your right foot, you almost got hit by a bus, but quickly missed it!, there is a motherless child standing there, looking lost and it sounds like some sort of protest is on its way down this busy, busy street. Your heart is racing and you are hungry, all you want to do is go to the market and it has become such an ordeal just to get there! But alas, you arrive to the huge black, metal gate which encloses one of the finest places in all of South America.
Still, people are screaming at you. Selling anything you could ever want... A lady (who I visited frequently) was consistently outside of the gate selling pistachios and figs. A man selling all colors of shoelaces and watches. ....When you enter the mercado, you find yourself mesmerized. There are enormous baskets full of oranges and grapes and every fruit you could ever imagine, but more! There are also dozens of fruits that you've never even heard of. (and about 15 types of bananas, which threw me off every time!) The women at these stands want you to try everything! You take a bite of mango here (the most delicious mango I've ever had), a bit of pineapple there, some papaya, kiwi, and the list goes on!
But you are still traveling through this hectic mess of the most delicious, fragrant produce you have ever had! more vegetables start to appear and you have so many choices which direction to take next. If you go straight, you come to a room full of women with fruit and blenders, making fresh smoothies and yogurt parfaits. If you take a left, you stumble upon more and more vegetables and spice tables. There was one man (his table pictured below) who had the best spices ever. I would buy tons of garlic and curries and whip up some awesome dishes! If you keep walking through the vegetable area, you can find chiles of all kinds, eggplants, enormous avocados, tomatoes and more! Following the vegetable section was the meat section, which I often skipped over because it made my stomach churn so many times that some days I felt like I could just barf all over the cracked cement floor.
Aromas filled this gigantic place... some good, and some absolutely horrendous. When you walked by the cheese area, it smelled of your old gym shoes, but when you walked by the empanada stands, yuuum!
And (like in most mercados), if you go upstairs, you can find full meals for under a buck! These women jump at you all screaming the same thing at your little overwhelmed self. They say that they can give you this for this much, or this...or that their soup is better, and would you like to try it? I always did, just so I could get in a little more chit chat and try new things.
My favorite thing about the market is that every day, you discover something new! Like the day that my friend Margaux and I were eating peanut soup at the "restaurant" upstairs, and saw this little gate that lead to yet another room! This room was filled with fresh pies and pastries and breads. So we treated ourselves to a little dessert, following our yummy soup.
Though the market was probably one of the dirtiest places to be, I loved every, single second I spent there. Everything in this market just tasted better. I can't really tell you why, but I think its because its just fresh! The carrots tasted sweeter, the tomatoes were juicier, the garlic was that garlicky taste that you could never resist. Most days I would just buy tons of fix in's for guacamole, because I was missing home so much. Some days, I would just drink a thousand kinds of smoothies and hang out there all day until I had to go to class. The ladies started to remember me, remembered my name, knew exactly what I wanted each day and it started to feel like home.
