Advertisement
The 2 nights in our favourite hotel in Santa Cruz were great. This trip was part of a goodbye trip for Ben with one of his school mates. It's an apartment hotel with several swimming pools, tennis court, football and basketball pitches/courts, snack bar by the pool a paradise really. As it's winter they do packages at unbelievable prices. I always like the moment when the manager comes out and sees me and says "hello Mr Parker good to see you again"!. One time the Chef in the restaurant even made us a speical dish! So we'd arranged a separate apartment for Ben and Diego. We met them in the morning at the buffet breakfast.
I set about downloading the British Grand Prix over the wifi but in the morning found that only some of it had downloaded and I was blocked from the internet. I called up the systems manager who looked into it. He came back to me with and with a sharp intake of breath said "6Gb, that's rather a lot you've downloaded!". I'd managed to grab most of it so Joe and me were able to catch up with the world of F1.
I think
my favourite region in the whole of Bolivia is the area to the East of Santa Cruz known as the Chiquitania. It's vast areas given over to cattle with very few people. It's famous for the Jesuit mission Churches. If you've seen the film "The Mission" you'll know what happened to the Jesuit Missions in Paraguay. Well this area continued the story where the film finished. One of my good friends is a Maryknoll priest and loves this area so much that he leads tours around the restored churches. I think he's done over 30 tours or visits in the 12 years he's lived here. I was with him earlier this year as we took a leadership training course to this remote area.
Joe's been there before but Andrea hasn't and I really wanted to show her the beautiful open countryside, the amazing churches and for her to be able to meet the friendly people. So on Tuesday morning Joe, Nady, Andrea and I set off for Concepción, one of the first mission communities you reach from Santa Cruz. It's about a 4 hour drive.
The journey is out through the industrial farming part of Santa Cruz. There's
a lot of money made here with Soya and Sunflower farming. There are vast fields, some of which are owned and farmed by the large Menonite communities that have lived here for centuries. As you go further east there are a few more hills and it gets hotter. The farming is now just cattle ranching. Loads and loads and loads of beef cattle. Eventually you come to Concepción.
It's a small dusty (very red earth) town with lots of wood and carvings. The Jesuit Church has been restored to its original glory. We attended a mass in the evening and apart from the lights and basic PA system you could be sitting there 200 years ago.
We stayed at the lovely Hotel Chuiquitos where they've got a fantastic Orchid collectiion and ate at the Buen Gusto restaurant.
The following morning we were woken up by the talking parrots just outside our room. Breakfast was lazy and slow and we packed our bags and returned to Santa Cruz. Joe had a drive on the quiet roads and Nady wanted a photo of what she called "Paradise".
Ben and Diego met us in time for a dip in
the pool and something to eat.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.171s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0231s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb