We only passed thru La Paz (plans are to return for a Thanksgiving) and moved onto the historical capital of Sucre. In colonial days, the very wealthy, very educated people lived in Sucre instead of La Paz because Sucre is at a lower elevation (9400′) and much sunnier and warmer. It has palm trees! It was wonderful to meander in the parks (no coats), take a city walking tour . . . . We went through the market, the center of every town. Because of the warm climate, they have fresh tropical fruit every day. (And fresh squeezed options every morning, yummy). The guide explained that the religion here involves a combination of Catholic and Quencha traditions. Every region attends every other regions fair. There are many celebrations at the fair, but one consists of a parade through town. Participants from a region wear a mask specific to their region and parade ends at the church. Apparently, these are very long parades (the largest is 90,000 people)The masks are used only once, and in Sucre a mask museum memorializes this tradition and displays some of the masks. Since we were there on Halloween, it seemed appropriate and kind of cool to photograph the masks.

The walking tour ended with beers and a drinking game. The game goes like this: Given a cup of coins, and a 10 foot distance, you need to toss coins into the frogs mouth. If you missed the mouth, the coin falls into other slots on the table, but worth lesser points as it distances from the frog mouth. Coins are worth nothing if you overshoot or undershoot the table. The person with the lowest combined score paid the bar tab. David scored a respectable 50 points; Karen lost the entire drinking game (an over shooter by training) and picked up the tab for the whole group. 30 Bolivian BOBS!! approximately $4 USD. Things are kind of cheap here.