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Rosie and Joe in South America
hola todos, got into Sucre this morning, capital of Bolivia its home to one of the best univerisities in the Americas so it is quite a young place as you can imagine. the buildings here are all very old and pretty although not as stunning as i thought they would be, the city center was declared a UNESCO (?) world heritage site in 1991 and most of it has been preserved so it looks much as it did 100 years ago.
the bus journey was horrendous, we had to jump on one that started 3 hours away in santa cruz and so had some awful seats right at the back which actually leaned slightly forward and left no gap between us and the seats infront which were, as necassary for a 12 hour night journey, semi- camas. it was a very bumpy ride and at one point the bus actually had a bit of its under carrige fall off which meant stopping for an hour in the pitch black on the thin, gravelly mountain road to secure it so as to turn around and go back to the nearest village and have it welded back on! ahhhhhh it was nerve racking to say the least... any way all part of the experience isnt it?
we arrived in the city at about 8.30 in the morning and went straight to a hostel so we could dump our bags and go to the Cal Orko DINOSAUR FOOTPRINTS!!! wow they were amoungst one of the most amazing things i have ever seen. they are the biggest known collection of dinosour footprints, discovered by the quarry workers in 1994. the prints were laid down between 65 and 85 MILLION years ago on a flat bed of mud or sand covered by shallow water and were then covered by a protective layer of ash from a volcanic explosion. they were then fosolised by further layers of soot and ash and then the Andes began to rise 25 million years ago brining them to where they are now. they lie on an area of 30,000 square meters of near-vertical rock face and it contains over 250 prints from 4 different types of dinnosours, 3 herbivours and one carnivour! one of the tracks is thought to be that of a brontosaurus and the longest track, over half a kilometer long made by a t-rex! its madness though because they continue to blow up the quarry below it so you have to walk through and around the working CAT forklift trucks and lorries, which move just how i imagine the dinosours did, and the roars of the limestone exploding around you! it was brilliant! they have now got funding from the bank so that they can preserve the prints using silicone but it has taken years and sadly they seem to be slowly erroding away.
we are going to stay here for a night and then move on to Potosi in the morning to go on a guided tour of the silver mines.
loads and loads of love to everybody. xxxxxxx rosa y jose
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