Roca y Coronado
It was a cold morning and I
didn’t want to crawl out of bed, but I wanted a hot coffee. Those of you in the States don’t understand
the difference in the cold here. Yes it
is only 60 degrees, but it is 100% humidity, your clothes are never fully dry,
and there is a damp wind blowing. There
is the promise of sunshine and warmth, but in Santa Cruz that can just be a
tease.
Roca y Coronado
I was out quickly and knew it was
best to walk before I settled into my coffee.
I had a route I intended to take for a few weeks, and today was the
day. I was going to walk to the Statue of
Roca y Coronado on the Second Ring. It
was an easy walk around the First Ring (Iralá and Cañoto) to the Statue of Cañoto. I did a blog about him, one of the heroes of
the Bolivian War of Independence from Spain.
Ramada Market
It was crowded at the Ramada
Market, but I went down the middle of the Avenue, where there is a nice
tree-lined walk, almost a proper city park.
The streets were crowded with people hurrying to work, stopping to buy
breakfast at one of the dozens of vendors, and children walking to school. It was a little quieter when I made a left at
the Cañoto statue down Avenida Roca y
Coronado. At the far end of the street
is a statue of two young men carrying rifles and a flag.
Cañoto Statue
This is the Statue of Jorge Roca
y Gumercindo Coronado. This is one of
many statues by David Paz Ramos across the city of Santa Cruz. In a book Anna gave me entitled “Santa Cruz…
Historia y Poesia,” it says this about the statue: “It was erected in homage to
the martyrs who defended the rights of the oil royalties. Roca and Coronado
were members of the Union Juvenil Crucenista that participated of the civic
days of 1967 asking for the recognition of the petroleum perks of the 11
percent.” I recently wrote about Melchor
Pinto and his efforts to get the national government to grant the 11% to the
people of Santa Cruz. This looks like
another research project for a blog!
I was ready for a coffee at the
Café Patrimonio. I was ready to sit and write on their
beautiful patio filled with contemporary art and write in my notebook. But I forgot to bring my notebook with
me. Well, I could just sit and look at
Instagram and Facebook, except periodically my phone won’t open those apps and
today was the day. They have a bookshelf
and I picked up what looked interesting, “Mask of Apollo.” I read a few paragraphs, managing to wade
through the Spanish, but finding the author interesting. I looked at the cover to discover it was
written by Mary Renault, an author I read several times as a teen. I’ll have to go back to read the next several
pages. Now I have a goal for when I
come.
I had been out for over two
hours. A good morning. But I needed to get back to my novel
Onesimus, so I closed the book and started for home.
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