MUNGO EATS Latin America

We are currently a few hours away from Sucre.  I know, this is not where we told you we were going, but we changed our minds.  I am sure that the national park would be beautiful.  The scenery is supposed to be magnificent, but we are just not sure if we want to bounce around, half lost on bad roads for hours to days, to get to somewhere we are not sure we can be at.  We tried to look up info on the internet, and there  is very little about the park.  So, we decided instead to head to Sucre. 

Yesterday, we left the campground south of La Paz.  We REALLY needed food, for us and for the dog, so we went in search of a grocery store.  We found one in the next town, without too much difficulty, but we had a hard time finding a parking spot.  The grocery store, was pretty good, found some items that we haven’t seen in a while.  When we went out to the van, we found a national policeman wandering around it, looking at the plates and stuff.  He told us that we were not allowed to park where we had parked for more than 5 minutes.  Then he told us that we had to move further up the street to park for longer.  Both these things we understood.  What we did not understand, was whether or not we were getting a ticket for parking where we had.  We both thought he said we had to pay, but he did not give us a ticket.  We moved up the street and parked where he had asked, but when we looked back at where he was, he was not paying ANY attention to us whatsoever.  No ticket in hand, cop not watching us at all, maybe we misunderstood, we got back in the van and drove away.  Now understand, that we are neither fast, quiet,  nor hard to spot, so I am sure if the cop wanted to get us, he could have.  No one came after us.  We just hope there is not an all points bulletin waiting for us when we try to cross the border out of Bolivia.  What scofflaws we are! 

We had a terrible time finding our way to the highway.  We eventually made it, but we bounced around on a bunch of back roads for at least an hour.   We knew the direction we wanted to go in, just couldn’t find the right way to take that direction.  In any case, we finally hit the highway and all was well.  We ended up stopping for the night on the altiplano a few kilometres short of Oruro.  Oruro is a pretty industrial town and we were unsure as to whether we would find lodging there or not.  We found a place off the highway, hidden by a large rock, and that is where we spent the night.  There was NO ONE around.  Mungo got to run amok, and was very, very happy for it.  The night was very quiet, and we all had an excellent night sleep. 

This morning we drove through Oruro and headed towards Sucre, by way of Potosi’.  Sounds simple, but not so.  It would seem that our map and our GPS’s map, don’t match the real road.  So we hummed and hawed, drove forward and back a while, before we decided to ignore both map and GPS and follow the one little road sign.  It ends up the sign was right, the maps were wrong…again!  Tonight we are a short ways out of Potosi’, camped next to a river, not a real pretty river, but a river all the same.  I don’t think it will be as quiet tonight as it was last night, we are just off a dirt road, and there seems to be a fair bit of traffic on the small road.  Whenever a vehicle goes by, they feel the urge to honk at us.  I’m hoping the traffic dies down at night.   

Hopefully we will find a nice hostel in Sucre tomorrow and spend a few days exploring what is supposed to be a beautiful town.