The Sweetest Thing

Sucre is the idyllic setting for a gastronomic tour.

Not a bad start to the day - Coffee and Saltena in the El Patio courtyard cafe.

Sucre's sprawling market was an adventure every time we ventured through.

I feel confident in saying that Sucre was by far the most wonderful place we found in Bolivia. We couldn't believe this stunning city when we arrived. It sparkled with sophistication and crisp-clean beautiful buildings (it's the law!). Neon signs are banned all together. Nowhere we have visited was more worthy of city-wide UNESCO world heritage status.

Ironically, Bolivia started first but ended last. Because of it's extreme wealth of natural resources, the Spanish were most reluctant to grant independence to Bolivia. This answered our question for why Bolivia celebrated 200 years of independence last year and not in 2025, when the country had actually been freed for two centuries. The former Spanish colonies tend to celebrate both the day they went to the streets in protest and the day that freedom came.

Having lost it's capital city status to La Paz, Sucre has not lost an ounce of it's elegance. This was once the most important intellectual hub in the Spanish terrotories. It was from here that Bolivar organized the independence of a handful of countries and the supreme court still convenes here. Bolivia almost made him the first President, but instead thanked him by naming the country after him.

The Presidential Portrait (and cane) Gallery - Bolivia was named after Simon Bolivar who organized the freedom of a handful of countries from here in Sucre. Many revolutionary relics can be found here in the Casa de la Libertad including Argentina's first flag.

Yet Sucre's name came from Bolivar's free-thinking chum, General Sucre, providing a fitting name for the delicious welcome we received. Only in Bolivia can we afford to stay in one of the city's top hotels just off the main square and eat in the best restaurants in town. I kid you not. We tested the theory that a backpacker could afford the fanciest restaurant in town for no more than 10 dollars. It was true.

We couldn't believe our huge chateau room in The Grand Hotel. The living room area had an equally large curtained-window where we looked over the courtyard. The hotel actualy housed several lovely green courtyards (like most buildings here) behind the whitewashed colonial facades. The first night we watched a bond film on HBO (American cable TV) and then asked for a taxi to the best steakhouse in town. If you have not been a regular reader of this travel journal let me just say here that this is NOT our normal lifestyle!

Steph > On our first night we watched "Quantum of Solace" (the most recent James bond film which is set partially in Bolivia) in the comfort of the Grand Hotel. We were the first to criticise when they showed Bolivian men as well as women wearing bowler hats. Of course, after our know-it-all comments the night before, every Bolivian man we saw the next day was dressed in a bowler hat. It must be a Bolivian thing, or even just a Sucre thing.

Not ones to run away from indulging, we lived like kings in Sucre. Bolivian meals have so far been limited to a few set menu lunches at a "comedor popular" for about 16 bolivianos. That's right, an entire 4 course meal for a buck fifty. This was usually nice simple food and nothing really to write home about. With the small exception of the soups - essential starter to each meal - and man do Bolivians no how to make soups. Adding the right hot sauces is apparently an art. Otherwise, we had a lot of mediocre meals out of chicken and rice, until now.

When we arrived at the steakhouse it was a very modest placed but still reminded me a little bit of Peter Luger's in Brooklyn. That's not a small compliment. The steaks were enormous. The sides and salads plentiful. We even identified our one and only preferred Bolivian table wine, Kohlberg, from the Tarija Valley. Sweet is not always good - Most of the others were as sickly sweet as mulled wine at room temperature. Apparently, La Conception's 'Cepas de Altura' takes bragging rights for the highest fines in the world but this didn't translate to quality or even drinkability for me. A lot of the grape production goes to into making the local Singani brandy.

When we got over ourselves, it was time for a heavenly daily routine of food adventures. The best part was that the real luxuries are the little things in Sucre. To start our day we always went for a morning hit of Vitamin C. We never had to look far. The streets and main square are crawling with lovely old men who will squeeze you a glass right from their wooden cart. Pure goodness!

Liquid Gold - At 2 bolivianos, this might be the best value orange juice in the world.

After at least one OJ, we usually would go for a stroll around the Central Market. You could almost get lost in this maze of passages. I particularly liked watching the buzz of this monstrous market revolve around me from the central courtyard. This was where the fruit stands were conveniently located and we became spectators on stools while eating what everyone else seemed to be picking at - a mountain of fruit fresh fruit salad topped with yogurt, nuts and coconut shavings.

A fruit Salad from the central market courtyard, ground zero for Sucre's bustle.

Now I must reveal the king of Bolivian street food delicacies known as the Saltena. This cousin of the empenada was born across the border in Salta, Argentina but was taken in by Bolivia as a child of their own, now perfected and all grown up. The Saltenas in Sucre are arguably the best in the land. Salteñas are the ultimate Bolivian snack food. You’ll find these heavenly snacks nearly anywhere, from the bus window the local puschart on the street corner. We would pick one up mid morning (it's actually breakfast food) from one of two famous addreses before they famously ran out at 10am.

The salteña is a small pastry full of meat and vegetables, such as potatoes, peas and carrots. It's not as much as savory pastry as they are more often partly sweet and always a little spicy.

Steph's favorite was "El Paso de los Abuelos", or Grandparents' alley. Here we learned how to properly eat one like a chicken pot pie with a spoon. Previous attempts with our hands led to hot spillage of meat juice. Our other favorite was an upscale courtyard cafe that, although always crowded, was a beautifully quiet place to enjoy a coffee or morning milkshake like the locals drink. Steph remembers her reaction to El Patio where Saltenias cost 45p and was only frequented by Sucre's upper class. She noted that it was starteling that only rich people can eat in a place where the most expensive thing is 45p... "But why would others choose to pay this, when the street price even for tourists is only 15p - surely even less for them. So proportionately (they'd be paying 300% for the same product) it is understandable I guess."

Last on the list of our daily errands was the chocolatier Para Ti. Here we could pick up a few carefully selected fine chocolates to accompany a film at the end of the day. This may have sealed the deal for Steph's favorite place in Bolivia.

The masterpiece of our food adventure was reached in a remote neighborhood far from the center. By reputation, I had been looking forward to this restaurant as a highlight for the whole country. El Huerto was described as a classy garden party atmosphere where stylish cuisine was served among the Sucre elite. Could this be true? Would the waitor who opened the taxi door allow us inside wearing our smartest backpacker clothes - polo shirt, jeans and flip flops? He did, and the restaurant was all we had been promised. I had the magret de canard, steph a chicken dish known as "the last conquistador." Not only did we sit in the garden sun for hours, we came back for a second fabulous lunch on our last day with Libby and Andy. This sums up our time in Sucre by saying basically I would happily do it all over again, every day. If only Bill Murray had been stuck here on Groundhog Day he would have been a lot less cynical and even inspired.

Perhaps the cuisine of this landlocked South American nation doesn't draw the accolades like Peru, but many good traditional Andean recipes and hearty regional dishes were still a huge treat. I had a few oddities like alpaca steaks. We never tried the Anticuchos (grilled cow heart on skewers) served at markets and street stalls. A shame, perhaps. Throughout Bolivia we looked back on sucre with fond memories of a week where we did very little but enjoy it's streets and the food around every corner. Nothing could really beat it.

There are more dino footprints here than anywhere else in the world - 150 species across a canvas of 30,000 square feet.

With all this talk of food, I almost forgot to add that the most unusual attraction in Sucre were the thousands of dinosaur tracks found in a limestone quarrey on the edge of town in 1994. These ancient footprints criss-cross vertically along the wall since they are so old that they were formed when this land had not yet buckled vertically with the earth's tectonic shifts.