One of the pleasures of living in a town like Sucre is to be able to stroll around, camera in hand, and snap random daily happenings, interesting architecture, street art and odd street life.
The city is starting to spring back to life after the university holidays, and currently the streets are filled with students who have been sitting their entrance exams for university places. Unfortunately, there are nearly three times as many prospective students than there are places.
This coming together of young people also coincides with the run-up to carneval. Thanks to the water bomb throwing antics that accompany carneval the streets are a dangerous place for a gringo – any foreigner is seen as a prime target for a soaking, whether from water balloons or from high-powered water guns, sales of which have gone through the roof. Drive-by water bombings are a regular occurrence, the car speeding off before the victim(s) can react or gather their wits. As I walked around yesterday I was lucky to escape without a drenching.
Notes from Camelid Country 
Love your snapshots of the city, do you have a flickr account?
It is so interesting to see political street art from other places, but so frustrating to not understand it.
I love street art, it tells a lot about a country. The first of the two reads “work is not slavery, it is dignity and hope, for life”, and the image is of a poor campesino woman who lives and works in the countryside where life is extremely hard and the poverty very real. The second one is a representation of a painting of the Cerro Rico, the mountain famous for the amount of silver the Spanish mined out of it in the most barbaric of conditions – over eight million people died in the mines under a form of slavery imposed by the Spanish on the indigenous peoples of the Andes.
What a beautiful and colorful post! Sucre is definitely part of our ‘travel bucket list’! One day… for sure! we’re simply loving our time in Bolivia… so much to see and experience! If you’d be kind to give me your comments on this [English version] on our trip to mystic Copacabana, it’d be greatly appreciated! Thank you! 😮
http://3rdculturechildren.com/2013/01/28/photo-journal-trip-to-copacabana-bolivia/
Sucre is a place you could visit for a couple of days and end up spending several weeks in, well worth a visit. It is a very charming colonial city, but I hope some of my photos give a clue that there is another side to the city. I really like Copacabana – how to make the most of Bolivia’s only beach – and will have a look at your post now. Best wishes, Paul
Thanks, Paul! 😮
The bad thing about living in Santa Cruz is not being able to stroll around with your camera in hand, unless you want someone else to have it. 🙂 And another bad thing – here they go crazy with not only throwing water, but paint bombs too. Not fun.
Very funny, but probably more than just a grain of truth! Sucre is very ‘polite’ compared to many cities. So far its just water here – its not much fun being hit by a water bomb from a speeding car, but still a lot better than paint.