Palacio Portales
When I started out this
afternoon, the weather was a perfect mix of brilliant sunshine and cool
breezes. The sun was hot, but the breeze
refreshing.
The man at the Palacio Portales
told me that the gardens would open at 3:00.
After lunch, it was 2:00, so I needed to do something for an hour. I looked on the map for things close and then
things distant. I noticed to the
southwest was an arrow that pointed to the Virgen of Urkupiña. So I hailed a taxi and asked if he could take
me to the Virgen and then to the Palacio Portales.
The Virgen was not as close as I
expected. It was 12 kilometers of busy
traffic. Once we arrived in the town of
Quillacollo, it was worse. I had no idea
where we were and the driver made a dozen right turns and two dozen left
turns. Within ten minutes I thought I
had been taken to the edge of the world.
But he did get me to a quaint little plaza, with an enormous church.
The town is not that old, little
more than 100 years old. But in the last
century it has developed one of the most important festivals in Bolivia. Both the Virgin Mary and Pachamama (Mother
Earth in the Incan religion) are worshipped side by side, blending the two
religions as one. My belief as an
evangelical Christian, is to worship the one true God, anything else breaks the
first commandment. I see the need for
missionaries, both foreign and domestic.
After getting lost in
Quillacollo, we headed back to Cochabamba and the Palacio Portales.
The Palacio Portales was built by
Simón Iturri Patiño, one of the five wealthiest men
in the world 100 years ago. In today’s
money, he would easily be worth $80 billion, putting him the top 25 wealthiest
men of all time. He made his wealth in
tin. I guess you could say he was the
Tin Man.
Bolivia made its mark early in
the Spanish colonial years when silver was found in the mountains around Potosí.
By 1900 the silver had played out, but one of the greatest tin mines in
the world kept Bolivia in the world’s view.
Having that much money helped Patiño control Bolivian politics for
decades, as well as the world tin industry.
Not long after he died, his mines were appropriated by the State.
The Palacio Portales was meant to
be his European palace, set in the Andes.
He became ill while visiting Europe, so stayed in Paris and London
during the 1920s while the Palacio was being built. He spared no expense on the palace and
grounds, importing most of the materials from Europe. He returned to South America, but never
returned to his palace in Cochabamba. He
died in 1947 in Buenos Aires.
I didn’t get to go inside. I arrived at 4:00, but the last tour of the
palace was at 3:30. I could wait another
two hours, and I was tempted. But I got
to see the gardens. I have been to
beautiful gardens in Italy, the Borghese and d’Este, and I have been to
beautiful gardens in Spain, the Alhambra and Aranjuez, but nothing had me
prepared for this beautiful little garden.
It just became one of my favorite places on the planet.
Strolling the shady garden made
me feel humbled. I wasn’t humbled at a
man so rich that he could build a place like this. Instead I was humbled at the natural beauty
of the garden. The bougainvilleas were
still blooming, but many of the blooms were faded, because winter is
approaching. Beds of daisies and lilies,
and other flowers I didn’t recognize, were sprawled around me. I was humbled by God’s creation. This could not just happen by chance. A creator, with a master plan, created a
world so beautiful.
As Jesus said, Solomon, in all
his splendor, was not dressed in the beauty of a field of flowers.
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