Well, it wasn't Lloyd Airlines that we flew with to Sucre this morning, it was the eminently more well-known AeruSur. AeroSur´s fleet seems to consist of one thirty-year-old Boeing 727-200. Were it not for the fact that one of our travelling companions, Herman, is a pilot, and boarded the flight ahead of me, I'm not entirely sure I would have reached Sucre on the same day as everyone else on the trip. However, Herman assured me that 727's are actually exceptionally safe aircraft - even when they are thirty years old - because of the rear engine configuration which makes it possible to land them quite easily even if you lose an engine.
So, the good news is that we made it to Sucre and the better news is that Sucre is an absolutely fantastic city. It's hard to believe we're in the same country as La Paz. Sucre is a stunning white-washed colonial city crammed with beautiful churches, cobble-stoned roads and the full splendour of Bolivian history.
It was here that the uprising against the Spanish occuption started in 1809 and here that the Bolivian parliament sat until 1904. As a result, Sucre has a great aura about it - a combination of a great civil pride and yet a fantastically relaxed atmosphere.
that same mood seemed to pervade our group today too. We all strolled around Sucre's streets for hours and were in fine form when it come to dinner this evening. Two hours and few beers later and the airline pilot, two doctors, two PR consultants, a process engineer and four students from Canada, the UK, Switzerland and Belgium were getting along very nicely thank you!
We're off to another great site tomorrow - the world´s largest dinosaur track site. Fantastic!
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