Espanol en Sucre

OK, I´m not going to keep writing in Spanish, as I ain´t that good yet! I have really enjoyed my first week here in Sucre. I have classes for 4 hrs/day, 5 days/week with up to 3 other students, and we are not allowed to speak English, so my brain is quite frazzled by the end. My vocabulary has more than tripled so far, and I´m even confident enough to start conversations with random shopkeepers! Most of the shops selling dry goods/lollies/drinks etc are just little "holes in the wall" - there are so many per square metre that I wonder how any make a living?! There are also millions of Internet places, so I have no excuse for not writing often, although I have been busy exploring the city and doing my homework, the model student that I am ;)

I usually try to find a nice place in the sun to study, because it is usually cold in the shade, and "muy frio" at nights. One day I climbed the hill up to Recoleta Monastery and sat at Cafe Mirador (those who know Sucre will know these places) which has a fantastic view over the whole city, a perfect place to sit in the sun sipping on freshly squeezed juices. I haven´t done much the last few days because I´ve been slightly ill, just the usual mild dose of travellers´ "runs" (sorry about Breezy-style details), nothing my extensive medical kit (thanks Keckers) cannot handle!

My host family are lovely. They are the Directors of the Spanish School, so quite wealthy and if I really need to say something in English I can! They live on the top floor of a 6 storey apartment so the view of the city is amazing. They have two sons - Jose is 11 and Juan is 7 - who are typical of boys of their age. They sometimes laugh at my poor Spanish, but today I whipped Juan at table tennis, so perhaps he will take me seriously now!?! Today I went to the outdoor markets with Sandra and one of the two maids (yes, it does feel like I´m in a hotel) to buy all the food for the week and then we had a BBQ on the terrace. Note that my stomach illness only stopped me eating for 24 hours and then I got hungry again! I have breakfast and lunch at home with the family, and buy my own dinner, usually at a restaurant with my classmates, but the 2 course lunches are so big I really don´t need dinner (note to self: perhaps overeating is cause of stomach aches?!).

The school also organises extra-curricular activities and this week it was a cooking class, which actually turned out to be 15 of us standing around drinking sangria while the teacher made a massive pot of pique de macho - a typical Bolivian dish of spicy meat and vegetables, served with papas fritas (French fries) of course. It only takes me 10 mins to walk home from the main Plaza and the school, so life is pretty easy for me here. The streets are quite narrow, all one-way, with narrow sidewalks, and there are no stop signs and few traffic lights, so all drivers toot their horns as they approach an intersection. At first I thought they were tooting at me, such is my anxiety about crossing roads since stepping out in front of a red double-decker bus in London a few weeks ago! Anyway, enough observations/dribble for now...

Going solo

I don´t think I´d really actually considered how different travelling alone through South America would be until I first opened my guidebook on the flight from London to Buenos Aires via Madrid. Nonchalantly reading the "Safety"section, I came across `Rape - this can happen anywhere´ with brief advice to contact a doctor in the first instance to test for STDs and get emergency contraception...no mention of sympathy, emotional support or refuge!?! Anyway, it hasn´t been too scary, despite my limited Spanish - most questions I answer with a smile, blank stare and Gracias thrown in for good measure. And despite the over-cautious warnings from the guidebook - "don´t go to La Boca alone" and "best to travel by day because bus drivers work long hours and there is less chance of them falling asleep" - Mum will be pleased to know that I´ve felt quite safe.

Highlights/stories from my chilly 3 days in Buenos Aires:

• Boca Juniors football stadium (Maradona´s sentimental home) with yellow and blue painted everywhere - the team´s originial colours were B&W but they lost a play off against another B&W team so the Italian port workers who founded the club chose their colours from the next ship that arrived in the port, it had a Swedish flag
• Huge and ornate mausoleums in the alleys of Recoleta cemetery, where only the rich (including Evita Peron) can afford to be buried
• Eating dulce de leche (caramel) in everything - cakes, bread, biscuits and pastries - I certainly haven´t lost any of my Heathrow injection weight yet!
• Steaks for A$1 and then proudly ordering a "parrillada" (mixed grill) in Spanish, only to discover it included kidneys, intestines and blood sausage!
• Witnessing the "Mothers of Plaza de Mayo" march in remembrance of their children who "disappeared" (taken by military) in the 70s
• Feeling young again hanging out with the hostel crew - although I did go to bed at 1.30am every night, when they were all going out clubbing! Such is the Argentine custom of eating dinner around midnight.

After enjoying a deluxe flight from Buenos Aires to Santa Cruz (Bolivia), I wimped out of the 14 hour overnight bus trip from Santa Cruz to Sucre (Spitzy/Helga - memories of that nightmare trip to Varanasi still fresh!) because it was only A$67 to fly. I chastised myself for about 24 hours afterwards, especially as I´d accidentally booked on the 1pm flight instead of 9am, but the amazing views flying over Cochabamba and Sucre were worth it. So I´m slumming it now in a cheap hotel and eating from the market! The Spanish school isn´t open until Monday anyway, so I´ve just been exploring the white city of Sucre on foot. Although its the capital city, its a relatively small city (pop 150,000) and only at 2,790m altitude - I´m already finding it hard to breathe walking up hill and cold at nights, what will I be like in La Paz?!