“Black and white are absolute...expressing the most delicate vibration, the most profound tranquility, and unlimited profundity.” - Shiko Munakata
The drive down to Sucre was much more eventful than the drive to Potosi because of a car race that blocked the road for more than two hours. We were going along, doing sixty kilometers per hour on a really curvy mountain road, when suddenly we saw a long line of cars up ahead. At first, we thought that somebody had wrecked, but our driver told us that the road was closed because of a car race. The owners and the passengers of the cars and buses have vacated their vehicles to climb the hill and watch the race. The scene reminded me the movie "The Day After Tommorow" because of all the rows of empty cars. We followed the suit, and climbed up a hill. We didn't see anything for a while, and we thought it was over because some cars started driving up from the other side of the barricade, creating a very interesting situation with a line of cars facing-off. However, we learned a little later that those people just got tired of waiting and jumped the barricade. I wonder about people sometimes. Then, the race cars started coming. I am not a big racing fan, but I have to admit that seeing cars race by at crazy speeds was exiting. We finally got to Sucre around six and had the evening to ourselves to go out and have fun. The next morning, we walked around Sucre and learned a little about the city's rich history. Sucre was the base of independence fighters in 1809 and the place of the constitutional assembly in 1825. Therefore, the city was the capital of Bolivia until the civil war in the 1900s. There is a law in Sucre that all the buildings around the main square have to be white - that is why I titled this entry "the white city." Most of the museums in Sucre were closed because of the car race, which lasted two days, so we had some down-time to catch up on homework and sleep. Later that day, I went to the soccer game, which the team from La Paz lost horribly. However, the event was really fun. We stayed in Sucre for another night and returned to La Paz the next morning, together with the disgraced soccer team.
