{"id":4593,"date":"2022-07-17T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-17T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/?p=4593"},"modified":"2022-06-06T20:40:19","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T20:40:19","slug":"overnight-buses-and-exploring-sucre-bolivia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/?p=4593","title":{"rendered":"Overnight Buses and Exploring Sucre, Bolivia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We took our first overnight bus from La Paz to Sucre. It was a 12-hour trip. We arrived at the bus station in La Paz an hour and a half before our bus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We learned that we could have shown up and booked the bus tickets at a cheaper price than we paid online at www.ticketsbolivia.com<\/a>. When we arrived, several people were shouting out destinations and walking up to people to try to make a sale. We also learned that you have to pay extra to exit the bus terminal, and it has to be in cash on the bus. It was not much money, but it is always good to have cash for these types of situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We chose the bus company Trans Copacabana. All bus companies have good and bad reviews, so it\u2019s hard to know which one to choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since we were there early, we got seats 1, 2, 4, and 5 on the top of the bus. Seats 1 and 2 were in the front row, which meant more leg room, but the light from the headlights of oncoming cars was annoying. There are curtains, but they aren\u2019t blackout curtains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We purchased tickets on a bus with sleeper seats, known as cama seats, but they do not fully recline, and the foot rest does not come up, so you cannot lay down. The seats are leather and slippery, and they are not comfortable for a 12-hour overnight journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There was a bathroom on the bus, and it was working, but there was no toilet paper. Always have toilet paper with you in South America. We read horror stories of the bathrooms not working and the bus not stopping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bus left at 7:30 pm, and it was a bumpy ride from the start. We all watched some shows or listened to booked until about 10 p.m. Lucas and Henry fell asleep and slept for several hours. I slept for about an hour at a time. At 3 a.m., I woke up, and Lucas was watching a show. Henry woke up shortly after that. None of us got great sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We arrived in Sucre at 7:30 a.m. Our Airbnb host was kind enough to pick us up at the bus station and take us to our Airbnb. Sucre is a beautiful colonial town and the constitutional capital of Bolivia. We spent two nights in Sucre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The old part of Sucre is walkable. There are great restaurants, museums, and parks. Michael and I had a 5-course meal at a restaurant called Nativa. It is a popular restaurant, but we went mid-week and had no trouble getting it. Lucas and Henry stayed home and ate pizza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We visited the military museum and learned about Bolivia’s military history. Bolivia is not happy that Chile took Bolivia’s access to the ocean. The treasure museum gave us a glance at the mining history of Bolivia. Lucas and Henry liked seeing the gems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We did not know that Bolivia is famous for Dinosaur tracks. It has one of the largest collections of dinosaur footprints in the world. We went to Parque Cret\u00e1cico and saw Cal Orck\u2019o (lime hill in Quechua), a 1.2 km cliff with over 5,000 dinosaur footprints. The footprints are on a vertical wall that was a beach millions of years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A dinosaur-themed park sits next to the footprints. It has a collection of life-size dinosaur sculptures, including one of the largest sculptures: a 36\u00d718 meter replica of titanosaurus. There is also a museum, a virtual realty simulation, a movie about dinosaurs, a playground, restaurant and gift shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cretaceous Park can be reached from Sucre by bus, shuttle, or taxi. We chose to take the local bus, which took longer, but we got to a tour of the city, and the boys took a nap on the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our last day in Sucre was a full day because we booked another night bus, and it did not leave until 9:00 at night. A guide and driver took us to Maragua Crater and to Ni\u00f1o Mayu (more dinosaur footprints!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first stop was the Maragua Crater. It is a popular tourist destination, and many people do two and three day treks from Sucre to the crater. We thought the crater was created by a meteor, but scientists believe it was formed by tectonic plate movement over millions of years. The banding along the sides of the crater is evidence that it formed over a long period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We drove to the crater and hiked for about an hour up and around the top of one side. Bolivia does not disappoint with its scenery. We ate lunch at the hostel owned by our driver. The town located in the crater is tiny. There are a few hostels for hikers and not much else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We ended our day with a moderate 1.5 hour hike on an unmarked path to Ni\u00f1u Mayu where we got to walk along side dinosaur tracks. Hiking to these footprints was one of the highlights of our time in Sucre. It is definitely worth checking out if you visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our second overnight bus was only 7 hours long. We went from Sucre to Uyuni. Our seats were in the middle of the bus, and it was just as uncomfortable as the first overnight bus. The kids still loved it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We took our first overnight bus from La Paz to Sucre. It was a 12-hour trip. We arrived at the bus station in La Paz an hour and a half before our bus. We learned that we could have shown up and booked the bus tickets at a cheaper price than we paid online at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[134,139,16,138,15],"class_list":["post-4593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-south-america","tag-bolivia","tag-dinosaur-tracks","tag-family-travel","tag-sucre","tag-worldschooling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4593"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4634,"href":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4593\/revisions\/4634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gowatkinsgo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}