El Cristo
The Cristo is a monument is located on Avenida el Cristo
Redentor and the Second Ring, in the middle of a rotunda with traffic streaming
around it. If you continue north on this
highway you will get to the airport, so coming into Santa Cruz for the first
time, you will meet this statue.
The statue was cast in bronze by the sculptor Emiliano Lujan
of the city of La Paz in the year 1961.
Its original purpose was to commemorate the Fourth National Eucharist
Council in 1961. The dedication ceremony
was attended by then president, Victor Paz Estenssoro.
The statue faces the city of Santa Cruz, seeming to bless
the city. In the busy, rough and tumble
world of Santa Cruz, it is a good thing to have Christ looking down on the
city.
On the southwest corner of the intersection is an open-air
chapel, with a beautifully carved wooden cross facing the monument.
The road running south from el Cristo is lined with
restaurants, many of them old and serving traditional Bolivian meals. A friend and I sat and enjoyed a nice meal
here after spending the day at Interpol.
It is an avenue, so that means a divided street. The median is like a park. There is a wide walkway, with trees, a
fountain, statues, and plenty of places to sit and watch the busy traffic pass
by.
At the far end of the avenue is the Palacio de Justicia, the
tallest building in Bolivia and one of the tallest in South America. With a few exceptions of buildings in Sao
Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Santiago, there are just not that many tall buildings
compared to what we have in the States.
It seems that every time I visit the Cristo monument, three
times since I moved here, I haven’t been able to catch the light just
right. The sky is too bright and the
statue too dark. One day I need to go
near dusk. Maybe then I will catch it.
Artur and I at the Cristo in Rio, Summer 2015
It is nothing compared to the amazing statue in Rio de
Janeiro, but it should surely be on your list of places to see in Santa
Cruz. After you take some selfies of
yourself in front of the statue, stop and have a nice meal at a sidewalk café.
Some of this information was gleaned from the Spanish Wikipedia
page on El Cristo.
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