They have zebras to help pedestrians across the zebra crossings to get to the main square. It was a bit confusing as each individual crossing would split into two in the middle of the road. That’s why the zebras were there to show you when you could go.
They were not very effective at helping us figure out the crosswalks, which have only one pedestrian signal head at each end, so half of the traffic has a green light either way. But they were very enthusiastic nonetheless.
In the middle of a bunch of colourful hills is a cement factory.
The cement factory mines limestone from the hills for the cement.
Big machines peel off layers of the limestone bit by bit.
But this section was high in manganese, which is no good for cement, so they stopped mining.
It had nothing to do with finding these:
Back in the cretaceous, the wall was flat, and covered in shallow mud.
Dinosaurs walked through the mud and left footprints.
All kinds of dinosaurs.
Tiny little theropods.
And bigger ornithopods.
And armoured anklosaurs.
And giant titanosaurs!
They all left their footprints together in this one muddy area.
And they hardened and dried.
And got filled in with more mud.
And eventually the tectonic plates shifted and the flat section of mud became a nearly vertical wall.
Which was found by the mining company, and then by us.
Titanosaurs are awesome.
There was a parade in the square in Sucre to commemorate the day Chile invaded Bolivia.
Every school had a marching band and the whole class parading behind.
Most of the marching bands were quite large.
But not terribly good.
Most of the schools had big standards that they carried in front.
This one involved a taxidermied bird. I wondered why Shep doesn’t get a taxidermied thunderbird to carry around.
The entire school marched along behind the bands. First the boys.
Then the girls. Most of the students looked like they didn’t really want to be there.
Because the students were marching from the square back to their schools, they all went different directions. This combined with the narrow streets made it a very crowded and confusing parade.
