A young solder at the Chaco War Museum (photographed by Nessa)
After a pleasant two day stay in Santa Cruz, the Columbia-NYU team took a long bus ride to the small town of Villamontes in southeastern Bolivia, near the Paraguay border. We stayed the night in our hotel and awoke to the dusty, friendly town that will be our home for the next few weeks.
Unlike Santa Cruz, the country´s wealthiest city, Villamontes is a quiet rural town where dogs laze on the sidewalks and few cars fill the wide streets. Our guidebooks told us that this is Bolivia´s hottest town, but we arrived during the tail end of a rare cold front. Still, the weather hardly stopped us from exploring the local market, eating at delicious restaurants, and enjoying the relaxed air of Villamontes.
Today we also met our host in Villamontes, Marcelo Gonzalez, who runs the Teach a Man to Fish agricultural school twenty minutes outside town, where we will also be living starting Monday. Marcelo and his translator, Cartson, a very friendly German student who has spent many years in Bolivia, directed us to a market for some warm clothes before returning to his office. Carston joined us for a wonderful lunch at a steak place Marcelo recommended near the town´s main plaza. He answered a lot of our questions about the school, the area and the country. Afterwards, he took us to the town´s sole museum, El Museo del los Heroes del Chaco, commemorating the Bolivians who died in the ill-fated Chaco War against Paraguay in the 1930s. After a nice tour from a young soldier, we wandered into the town´s only towering strucutre, the Church of San Francisco Solano, the patron saint of Villamontes. After exploring some more of the town and a pleasant dinner on the plaza, we turned in, eager to see more of the town and ready to start work at the school.
Tomorrow, we will venture to Yacuiba, a commercial town south of here where we will shop for some supplies. It´s been exciting exploring this country over the last few days. More detailed entries to come in the future as we continue to settle in.
- Jack