Hello everyone!
Ended up going to dinner last night. My stomach has improved a tiny bit! I felt hungry by the time we arrived! It cost me $5 Aussie for a delicious burger which came with chips and a coke!
This morning Anne, Courtney, Kate, Anthony and I caught a cab to the dinosaur footprints 20 minutes out of the city. All the others except Donna and Josh went on an organised tour, but it cost $35 US ($40 Aussie) and in total our trip to the dinosaurs cost us $7 Aussie. Budget life!
We arrived and watched a short film but it was in Spanish so we didn't glean too much from it. Then we had a short tour with a guide all to ourselves. He showed us the models of the dinosaurs that left footprints here that were to scale. The largest one was 36m long and the T-Rex was 12m.
Then came the main part of the tour. Here we ran into the others on their organised tour, and our private guide took us with them and about 20 other people down to the archaeological site. We had to wear helmets. The guide told us that 5000 footprints have been found here, of 400 different types. The dinosaurs that walked here were sauropods, ornithopods, anquilosaurios and teropods. In 1959 the cement factory that is next to the dinosaur place unearthed the footprints when quarrying the area but didn't realise. After years of erosion from machine vibrations and wind, the footprints started to show more and in 1985 could be fully see. In 1994 the workers alerted the authorities and in 1998 palaeontologists from Europe and the USA came to take casts and investigate.
The footprints are 68 million years old, and no skeletons were found on the site. Over the years sediment covered the footprints and preserved them. Apparently the soil here was too acidic to preserve skeletons, but a lot were found in Argentina in 1983. The wall of footprints is vertical nowadays due to tectonic plates pushing the ground up.
Then the five of us headed back to Sucre. We had lunch at a cafe in the main square and I had the most amazing sandwich, how I miss sandwiches like home! I had brown bread with ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, olives and mayo - YUM. Also had a strawberry and banana smoothie.
Next, Courtney, Anne and I decided to go to a castle 7km out of the city. We thought this would be a little different to anything we had done for a while. Built in the late 19th century and owned by a couple who were declared prince and princess of the Glorieta by the pope at the time, the only royalty in Bolivia's history. We got a taxi to drive us there, wait and drive us back for $3-4 Aussie each, gotta love taxis here! The castle was quite nice but also in slight disrepair. We are in a third world country though I suppose. We walked through all the rooms and climbed to the top of the tower, which had a Russian onion dome upon its top!
We came back to the hotel and had a look in some shops. Everything is cheap here except clothes. I lost one pair of leggings and my others are falling apart but ones here cost $30+! At home I pay $7 at K-Mart. Will just have to tough it out 'til London and keep on sewing them.
Now we are back in the room. Keeping with today's theme, Courtney, Anne, Anthony and I are going to watch 'Jurassic Park' on Courtney's laptop. Can't believe I have never seen it! I've been on the rides at Universal Studios in California and Singapore though!! For dinner we are thinking crepes!
Love to all
Claire-adactyl (Courtney's idea!)
Xoxox
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