121218: La Glorieta, the Eiffel Tower and the Siete Patas

The Eiffel Tower

We were woken by the Bolivian version of the dawn chorus - the barking of the neighbourhood's dogs.

Today our plan was to go and La Glorieta, an ornate mansion on the outskirts of town. Originally built by a man who made his fortune from the Potosi silver mines and now in public ownership.

We asked Carmelita to drive us there, which she did winding her way through the maze of Sucre streets.

On the way we passed an army barracks with some guards dressed in yellow.

La Glorieta was also at one time used by the army and there is a base adjacent. There was a river running almost dry through the site and a bridge, guarded by a sole soldier who looked so bored. The bridge had signs with military virtues painted on them.

La Glorieta itself is a huge, pink fantasy palace, with three towers - one which resembled a mosque minaret.

First up were the incredibly posh stables and carriage house. They were adorned with fancy ironwork and horses heads. Next was the main house with its clock tower - not working. Most of the house is gutted but some marble fireplaces and a tiled bath room remain.

It was all beautifully ornate, in a style reminiscent of Al-Andalus, such as you find in Sevilla, Cordoba and Granada.

Kevin climbed the minaret. It was all very civilised as the spiral staircase was narrow. No one ascended until the previous group had descended. Joan is rubbish at heights and took photos from the ground.

Beside the house was a large garden with dry fountains and empty pools. There was a dovecote with a few doves cooing.

The gardens must have been quite an oasis at one time.

Dry fountain

Folly

Next door to La Glorieta we could see a strange fancy building. It was the Sucre International Convention Centre.

To see La Glorieta and to eat at the Recoleta mirador was our only aim for the day. But Carmelita had other ideas and had brought a book about the 7 "patas" of Sucre. Pata means foot in quechua - but they are more like hills. So she drove us round six in the morning. Some of the streets were incredibly steep, catching the bottom of the car as Carmelita turned down them.

Pata

Most were unremarkable to our ignorant eyes but there were some grand buildings from the colonial period. Most of the houses are single storey, with whitewashed walls and terracotta rooves. Carmelita told us that Sucre is called the "cuidad blanca" - the white city of South America. We pointed out that Arequipa in Peru also makes the same claim. She laughed.

Carmelite nunnery

We also passed by the now closed railways station where there was a sad looking locomotive rusting away. behind it was a mural of Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

Old loco

Che

Train staion

Close by there was the Parque Bolivar were there was a small and not very good re-creation of the Eiffel Tower. It was surpirisingly bad as the tower was made by the very same Gustav Eiffel. We've come across his work several times on our travels. Firstly a pre-fabricated church in Arica, Chile and then a bridge in Arequipa, Peru. But most famously we should have come across his work in New York - the Statue of Liberty - but it was a very cold day when we accidentally visited NY, we only had clothes for the desert and we didn't fancy walking a couple of blocks to see the statue. How churlish!

Parque Bolivar

She lives near where we are staying - an area called Las Americas as most of the streets are named after other American countries. She allowed us a couple of hours to "descansar" - to detire ourselves in the afternoon before taking us to see the local cemetery - one of the biggest tourist attractions in town. There were stalls selling drinks and snacks outside.

To be honest, it was a very fine and well tended cemetery with grand mausoleums for the city's richest families and other specialist mausoleums for nuns, Masons, university staff and even lorry drivers. There were walls filled with individual windows with flowers and momentos of the dead. The most poignant was the children's wall with teddies,toys, small pop bottles and solar driven nodding flowers. However recent events meant that neither of us were comfortable there.

So Carmelita drove us to the last pata, near La Recoleta Fransiscan Church. She showed us a sector with steep narrow streets - named after cats. (We only saw dogs) Then she pointed to another small pink palace -a mini La Glorieta that is now a town hall. She managed to blag us a tour of the building by a security guard who showed us the little chapel there, the tiled courtyard and then led us up a rickety spiral staircase to the top of a tower where there were views of the city.

At top of tower

View from tower

A local dog came with us too. The staircase was very narrow and shook as we went up and down. Joan surprised herself by actually making it up there.

Rickety staircase

Cathedral Tower

Colonial square

President Arce

Theatre

St Barbara'a hospital. She is the patron saint of miners and drivers

Church of the patron saint of dogs

Finally we were driven to La Recoleta church. It was closed for the day but Carmelita insisted we returned tomorrow morning to see it. Opposite the church is a viewpoint of the city and the restaurant where we had chosen to eat.

The tables were in a garden where hummingbirds buzzed so quickly that we could not photograph them. But Kevin took some random photos and with a bit of luck, cropping and artistic licence we caught one of these beautiful creatures.

Humming bird

In the hills around the city lightning flashed and dark clouds rolled.

Joan had a Pisco Sour - the first of the holiday - and we ate homemade pasta and gnocchi with a creamy walnut sauce. This place is famous for its views of the sunset but the clouds meant there wasn't much of one.

At seven, Carmelita collected us and drove us home. Just as we arrived, the storm hit town and rain came thrashing down. The front of our apartment has a glass wall so we had ringside seats for the show.