Samaipata
I know it is a week late, but there has been so much going on that I am slow to get this blog to you. But it is with great pleasure I want to introduce you to Samaipata and
tell you about my weekend visit with the family of Fernando and Mariela. I already posted about our weekend together, but you need to see a few pictures of this little town.
In Quechua, the language of the Incas and still spoken
throughout the Andes, samay means rest and pata means an elevated place on a
shore. So Samaipata is an elevated place
of rest along a shore. It was the site
of the furthest eastward expansion of the Incas. From the fort here, they tried unsuccessfully
to conquer the Guarani in the area of Santa Cruz. I will give a bit more history when I tell
the story of the ruins in an upcoming blog.
Fernando and Mariela live just two blocks from the
plaza. The streets surrounding the plaza
are mostly cobble-stone and surrounded by the traditional type of houses you
find in eastern Bolivia. There are also
many that are very old, even back to colonial times.
The plaza of Samaipata is probably half the size of the main
plaza in Santa Cruz, but has much more artwork, mostly statues. From the ones I am posting, you can see that
some are like the plazas and rotundas everywhere in Bolivia, imposing
historical statues of heroes of the past.
But Samaipata has about a dozen small carvings that are easily described
as “different.” There is a frog, women that
look like they are emerging from an egg, or a man in the mouth of a snake. In the very middle, instead of a statue of a
hero, is a sundial. Blooming trees
surrounded the plaza.
We walked around a little bit on Saturday afternoon looking
for some local honey, which we never found.
We did encounter the public library with drawings of “The Little
Prince.” We walked through the market,
which is more comparable to a stall at the Ramada, and a lot cleaner.
Before I headed back to Santa Cruz because of a special
service at church the next day, Fernando and Mariela took me to the Pueblito, a
reconstructed Bolivian village. It was a
imaginative view of what a colonial village would look like, complete with
church, plaza, and shops of all kinds surrounding the plaza.
If I had the money to build a little house here, I would do
it. I could imagine myself living in
this quiet, little town, with the perfect weather. I would have a garden of roses, morning
glories, jasmine, daisies, lavender, and rosemary, just for the beauty of the
flowers. I would try to grow a fruit
tree or two, or maybe a grape vine, and a few vegetables. I’d get up late, but
write half of the day before going on an afternoon hike. At night, in this
place far from city lights, I’d look at the beauty of the Southern Cross and
the sweep of the Milky Way behind it.
If you ever visit me in Santa Cruz, we will take the two hour journey to the mountains to stay here for a few days. You will not want to go home. Yes, Samaipata is just that beautiful.
Here is a link to my first novel. I need a few of you to buy it and recommend it on Amazon.
The Spartan Sisters
Here is a link to my first novel. I need a few of you to buy it and recommend it on Amazon.
The Spartan Sisters
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