Day 71 - Jurassic Park

Sucre

We had extended our time in Sucre by a day to include Monday, as spending a weekend in a town is always limiting with so many things being closed. We planned our day and headed off to the Ethnographic and Folklore Museum only to find it was closed. The streets were strangely quiet for a Monday, the only people walking around seemed to be gringos. It was a public holiday of course, because May Day had fallen on a Sunday .... bummer!

We walked around town for a while trying to find something that was open without much luck, then decided that we should visit Cal Orcko, a dinosaur park where thousands of dinosaur footprints had been discovered, and the largest such site in the world. It wasn't high on our list but we were getting desperate!

Intro to dinosaur tracking

We caught a taxi with another couple, negotiating a price with the driver for the four of us for the return journey and a stopover of two hours - the price was a little high, but consistent with what we'd read online. The site was originally a huge quarry, the tracks were discovered while excavating, and eventually a tourist attraction was developed around it. The place wasn't that bad - things like the full size dinosaur models were probably aimed more at children, but we still found them quite interesting, there were all sorts of dinosaurs of all sizes represented.

Brontosaurus maybe?

We did the guided tour down to the cliff face where the dinosaur tracks could be inspected more closely, There were thousands of tracks, the guide pointed out the different types of tracks, the paths different dinosaurs took, and provided an explanation of the history of the site, and why the cliff face was now vertical.


After that we headed back to town with our driver, who on arrival decided to double the price and say the price quoted was per couple, it ended up in an argument and with us walking away - not the most pleasant way to end the trip. When will these drivers learn that with the internet the going rate for things like taxis is no longer a secret and an opportunity for overcharging .... five minutes online and you can work out what things are supposed to cost!

Something we've seen in Sucre that we haven't anywhere else so far is the young children (not older than 10 or so) working the city square for money - they draw very childish drawings in chalk on the pavement, or stand in front of cars at the traffic lights "juggling" (throwing one ball up and catching it). Gringos like us are targeted as a soft touch by our appearance, and the children seem so young to be trained in this business with no supervising adult ever appearing.