We are terrible slackers, and dropped our Spanish learning time to 2 hours per afternoon for our second week in Sucre. We spent another chilled-out week not doing a huge amount, but freaking out slightly as we found out that half of Peru is flooded. Although this is going to severely disrupt our initial plan to travel all over Peru and then on to Ecuador by road, our inconvenience is nothing compared to the hundreds of thousands of Peruvians left homeless and totally fucked, and we’ll be able to work something out once we get to Cusco (which thankfully hasn’t been affected by the floods). To combat my Peru-anxiety, I indulged my “wtf am I going to do after travelling”-anxiety and overhauled my CV. Lame, I know. We also ate more stuff, unsurprisingly.
One morning this week, we visited the nearby Cretaceous Park, a small theme park/museum built around a cliff where many sets of dinosaur footprints were discovered in the last couple of decades. We hopped on the “Dino Bus” in front of the central plaza, and were deposited behind a cement factory. It was workers in the factory who found the footprints as they were mining a cliff in order to obtain materials for making cement. After scientists had a good look at the footprints, a park was built across from the cliff to give the public a chance to see the footprints for themselves.
Dino crouched over a cement factory. Weird juxtaposition.
This guy looks very displeased that we are visiting
So many prints
During the Cretaceous period, much of the Andean region of Bolivia and northern Argentina was covered by a huge inland sea. The cliff on which the footprints are located used to be part of the soft lake shore, where many dinosaurs gathered to do whatever it is that dinosaurs do (in my mind, they are being purple and telling small human children that they’re a happy family). Tectonic activity led to the once-flat area folding up into mountains, which is how the footprints ended up vertically up a cliff (not because dinosaurs move in a similar way to Spider-Man). This is also how the salt flats formed - as the inland sea drained while the land rose upwards, a huge but shallow pocket of briny water was trapped, and evaporation of the water meant that a huge quantity of salt was left behind. Science, bitch!
Holy crap I love this guy so much! The eyebrow-horns! The tiny tiny Trump hands! So so great!
Theropod dino prints
The guy that left these prints would have been huuuuuuge!
This huge, in fact
Even things with huge threatening teeth look comical when brooms are leaning against them
More prints
Not a bad spot to be looking out over, dino-pal
The cutest but saddest thing to happen this week was the fact that I still don’t have a dog. One night while we were out at dinner, a shaggy little dog ran into the pub we were in. Although it was quickly kicked out, it hung around outside, and when we left, it decided to come with us. After smooching us on the legs, it followed us for 6 blocks until we got to our apartment. This was no mean feat for a single little dog (who I decided was called Pedro. It looked like a Pedro), as the 2 blocks or so around our apartment are frequented by a huge pack of about 20 or so street dogs that have no problem with humans, but have nightly vicious barking battles with dogs from other neighbourhoods. We were touched that Pedro had crossed enemy territory in order to be with us, but there was nothing we could do - our super nice Airbnb wouldn’t be very impressed with us letting a scraggly street dog into their nice clean apartment, so we had to awkwardly edge our way in through the gate without letting Pedro in. The poor little guy sat outside for a good 2 hours, occasionally scratching at the gate and crying, while I frantically looked up how hard it was to adopt a random canine travel buddy (very hard, apparently). He was gone the next morning, much to our relief. HOWEVER, on the morning that we left Sucre, we noticed a random pile of fluff dive into the minivan we were taking to the airport and straight under the seat in front of Jeremy. It was Pedro. He somehow knew we were leaving, and wanted to come with us. Alas, it was not meant to be, and the driver quickly kicked him off. We never saw Pedro again. I am now and forever filled with sadness.
Part of the usual dog pack that hung out on our street
Scruffy lil Pedro :'(
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