4-2 through 4-4-10: Our last 2 weeks in Sucre were relatively uneventful; the highlight was a trip into the mountains outside of Sucre to Aritumayu Ecolodge. A lodge employee picked us up in an old Toyota Land Cruiser. The road to the lodge was very bad secondary to erosion but it led to a beautiful lodge with lots of trees that the owner had planted 20 years ago to help reforest the area. The lodge didn't have electricity so we used headlamps, candles or kerosene lamps at night. We hiked to an aqueduct built in the 1900s that still carried water to Sucre (via a pipe currently instead of the water running along the top). Aritumayu is Quechua for 'closed river' due to the secluded nature of the area where a river runs through the property.
We took a short horseback ride around the mountains and took in the beauty of the canyons and waterfalls. The kids enjoyed riding and hanging out with the horses; the horses were able to freely graze on the lodge property but the owner (Don Jose) would shoot small rocks at them with his slingshot if he saw them munching from the flower garden area.
Since we were at the lodge Easter weekend, Mike and I brought up foil-wrapped chocolate candies for an improvised Easter egg hunt in the flower garden. We left late Sunday around 7 p.m. to return to Sucre. There was a restriction on car traffic in Sucre until after 6 p.m. due to voting for the city elections (having them on Easter Sunday didn't make sense).
4-9-10: Mike and the kids finished their studies at Bolivian Spanish School and they received certificates. Everyone was sad to say goodbye.
4-10-10: We sadly bid goodbye to our landlady and friend Rosita and her dear dog Spot and hopped on an overnight bus heading to La Paz, Bolivia. La Paz is located at an elevation of 3,660 meters making it the world's highest capital city. The city sits in a "bowl" surrounded by the high mountains of the altiplano. As it grows, La Paz climbs the hills, resulting in varying elevations from 3,000 meters to 4,100 meters (9,840 ft to 13,450 ft). Overlooking the city is towering, triple-peaked Illimani which is always snow-covered and can be seen from several spots of the city.
We found lodging in La Paz the next morning upon arriving, rested, then headed out to explore the town of Tiwanaku and its Pre-Colombian archaeological site of the same name (75 km outside of La Paz). Tiwanaku is recognized by Andean scholars as one of the most important precursors to the Inca Empire, flourishing as the ritual and administrative capital of a major state power for approximately 500 years. We enjoyed touring the on-site museums and marveling at the ruins and stone statues. We saw areas that were actively being surveyed for future excavation.
4-11-10: We took a plane out of La Paz this morning headed for Cusco, Peru. It was a short 1-1/2 hour flight; it beat taking the bus for 17+ hours. The La Paz airport is the highest airport in the world with an altitude of 13,323 feet. Tibet in the Republic of China has the two highest airfields in the world; Bangda airport (15,548 feet) and Lhasa airport (14,315 feet). Mike noticed that the runway was very long (2.5 miles actually) and that the plane took much longer than usual to achieve lift-off due to the low air pressure at this elevation.
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