I had expected low of Bolivia but not low enough. These
buses are incredibly rough, scary, smelly, really smelly and
 the driver... what a disaster. The best thing I could do was
just to fall asleep and ignore his driving. 

SUCRE, BOLIVIA!!

Mesa Verde Congregacion in Sucre. Right on the edge of the
big market in town so super busy just outside the door.

So how do I start talking about Bolivia?!?! Its definitely the most interesting place i've been to. I still see new things everyday that are like no way! So first was the bus ride... a perfect introduction to start my trip off. Muddy switchback roads that the bus could barely get up. Skinny blind corners don't bother them, they just toot the horn and cruise around the corner with speed. They stop every few hours in the middle of nowhere for a toilet stop. So even the women just go a couple of metres from the door of the bus. But I arrived alright and the locals told me that every bus is like that. So here I am in SUCRE. I'm staying with Diego and Karina, the couple from Argentina that are here serving. Awesome house and pretty close to town. The first week was really good. I met all the need greaters. As they're called. In our congo there's a couple from the States, Justin and Ana, a sister from Japan, sister from Chile, another sister from the States and there's always witnesses that pass through for a few days that are visiting just about every place in Bolivia choosing a good place to come back and serve in the future. Theres about 5-10 in each congo I think and 4 missionaries. Theres 5 congregations and one in the native language, Quechua. So there's 5 congos and around 225,000 people in Sucre. And in Tarija, a city to the south, there's 11 congos and less than 200,000 people. So Sucre's got lots of need!! Cool city tho. It took me a couple of days before I stopped puffing coz its at 2800m. The preaching here is REALLY good. Even though the people are really quiet and shy but they eventually listen. Sucre's kinda a mix between really rich and super poor so you see some crazy things. And theres quite a few foreigners roaming around town all the time too. I think its the safest, relaxed city in Bolivia just about. The cool thing about here in Sucre is it's not to hard to live coz its a city but you still get the awesome experience doing the preaching. And there's heaps of need greaters to do stuff with and get away from spanish for a while. AHH!! Lucky. My head was getting sore from spending two months without any english at all. So I've been going on bike rides all the time with these guys. Out to the middle of nowhere to little lost towns 30ks out in the country.

Karina & Diego (from argentina) and
Summer, Justin and Ana. From the USA

Cholita (traditional bolivian woman) collecting rubbish. Like
she does every morning

.

Halfway up the wall looking down

Every Monday is the official day off from witnessing. I think that came from the missionaries. So we always go rock-climbing. Normally its Justin, Ana, Steve, Emily, Richard, Kattia and Rob. It's super fun whenever we go. Your arms are sore for a few days afterward though.

Got the sail up coz the sun is so HOT

This town is famous for its white buildings and colonial
style

Diego out selling his yummy custard filled little buns. The
only sort of thing like this in Bolivia so the sell quick as.

Three sisters did a traditional
dance at the going away
party for Summer.

Theres two halls in Sucre. This one is on the otherside of
town and right on a main street. Really nice inside.

40 percent of the cars in Sucre are taxis
 and 20 percent of these have dodgy
conversions like this.

Another monday climbing

Very very typical lady. With one of those sacks where they
carry pretty much everything. Food, clothes, normally babies.

Playing football with the brothers Sunday night

This day, most of the congo went to
a sort of a resort (well for Bolivia it is).
A couple of pools and a football court
 and some bbq areas so we spent half
the day relaxing. Super super hot day. 

Me, Karina and Diego

Just before getting on the Toyota Hiace heading for Zudanes.
Valentina(Chile), Iyako(Japan), four from the States and me.
CRAZY hot so need a hat

                                                                   ZUDANES!
So every second Wednesday, some of us go to a little town called Zudanes two and a half hours out of Sucre. We take a Hiace to get there normally full of 15-20 people. We're so crammed together so it's a perfect time to give people the mags and talk to them. It's a bit mean because they can't get away from us haha. What a town though. There's no real territory maps for the place so we just carry on from where we finished last time. And after the first couple of times, your doing RV's most of the day anyway. Every door is a RV and when we walk down the 'main street' people come up to us asking questions and everything. We always have a lunch at one of the local restaurants and it gets us going for the afternoons.

When we first arrive, we go and get a coffee. And study with a
couple of ladies from the central market. With Ana

No doors, no flush and 20c to use.

Having lunch

John visiting from the States preaching to a man. One
shocking thing in Bolivia is the peoples feet. They look like
 petrified bits of wood covered in dirt. This guy had one of
the worst i remember

Setting off on one our weekly rides. Justin, Ana, and visiting
 from the States, Hayley and Amanda

A little rest in the shade. Ana and Justin

One Monday we went to one of the best places to climb
around. Called Siete Cascadas. Its a fair walk but really awesome

Me and Steve on the wall. Steve's doing the super hard bit.

Super cool night. We had a dinner with
 food from different countries. This is dried fish
 and alcohol from rice from Japan that Iyako
gave us to try. 

Pretty common sight. People just chuck their chillies outside
in the street for a few days so that they dry and then use them
 to make the most typical dish from Sucre, Pollo picante. (Hot chicken)

On a bike ride with the airport behind me

In one of the parks in town. NZ isn't quite how it should be

One Saturday a month the congo goes
 to Zudanes. Cesear on the left with
Walter sitting next to him and Jeantoine
behind him.

Having a lazy rest just after lunch in
the town plaza

At the end of the day

The cool thing to do in Zudanes.
Probably the only thing to do for fun
aswell. I went out and bought one but
its super hard

In the main street. Two cholitas selling
seeds. Sitting in the street all day

Having lunch with a few in Feli's house. With another couple
from Japan

Gringos night playing pool

A man making adobe bricks

Some ladies drying wheat

Richard out in front like normal. Amazing countryside.
 Pretty dry though. Really old buildings and stone walls all
around the place

Rob and I doing some work for the
convention thats at the end of Sep

I went with another congo preaching to a town called Tarabuco.
We spent the first hour preaching in the school! Ivan and I with
 some kids about 10 years old. He read a part of the Great Teacher
book

A man was showing us his cool shoes so
I jumped on them

Having lunch with the Tarabuco crew. Some brothers form
 Italy

Pretty average territory here in Sucre.
Dusty, lots of dogs and lots of walking

One Saturday in the little town Yotala. Kids doing a big
dance around the town all dressed up.

Rob's just like whoa

Finding our way to to the mountain. Crossing some guys
garlic farm

 So one monday, we got on a bus to Potosi. All we knew was that there was a mountain that looked awesome for climbing about half way there so we just got on the bus hoping that we wound see it and just tell the driver to stop. I think we climbed to about 3600 m on the bus and then another 100 m up the mountain. A couple of guys did some climbing straight off while a few of us went for an explore around the mountain. We spent all day there. Found a cool little clean pond to swim in so that was sooo good. We were all pretty much dead by the end of the day

So this is the rock. We pretty explored all of it. Sweet as view.
 I saw a wild Chinchilla too. I was dead though after an hour
of walking

Our lunch spot. We found a cool easy
 wall to climb so stayed here for a while

We found a cool little river. Wasn't keen
enough on swimming in it tho. Just by the
look of the water

We hadn't really worried about our ride back but just figured
that we'd get a truck or something. After 45min of walking
we finally thumbed a ride. We got a sweet view of the mountain
 pass on the way back

Building and putting together the stage for the convention
with heaps of brothers

One day a year Bolivia has a day without any cars on the roads
 so we made the most of it and went for a cool as ride. This is the
 central plaza in the middle of town

Rob doing some bouldering.  Like a pro

Our Sunday witnessing group.
In one of the areas way above the city