Bolivia: The Vertical Burial in Sucre

In both La Paz and Sucre we made a couple of visits to their public cemeteries with locals and I just found their burial traditions so weird and wonderful I had to write about it…

The front facade of where the person is slotted into is decorated by the family with all manner of things – little bottles of Coke or wine; flowers; photos; loving words… Ladders are dotted all over the place so family members can access the higher ‘graves’. It looks like a patchwork quilt of memorials.

By the way, Sucre is the constitutional capital of Bolivia, the capital of the Chuquisaca Department, and the 6th most populated city in Bolivia. Located in the south-central part of the country, Sucre lies at an elevation of 2,810 meters (9,214 feet). This relatively high altitude gives the city a cool temperate climate year-round and much thinner air.