My Last Day in Santa Ana del Yacuma. (Oh how I will miss it)

I've had a very busy two weeks. Two weeks ago I had to travel to Cochabamba because my brother Jorge got married. I will post those pictures in my next post. This week I have been signing up my kids for school over here, in Bolivia, so I will be coming and going to Miami. 

We decide we wanted them to go to school here in Santa Cruz, because very soon Rebecca will be graduating and going off to the university, and we want our kids to live life, like my husband and I lived, and to see a different kind of culture. I still have my houses and business in the US, so I will still be living in Miami, but I will be traveling to Bolivia more often to check up on them. It will probably be only for a year, because like I said, Rebecca will be graduating and she wants to go to the university somewhere in the US. She still doesn't know where yet, but she's checking online, and she has received many letters from different universities across the US.

Before I went to Cochabamba, I had been telling you guys about my trip to Santa Ana. Here are some pictures of my last day there. This first one is from the Procession. There is a parade where they take the virgin around the town. Many people dress up with the original attire of the  Movimas, which is the original tribe of Santa Ana del Yacuma.

These are the Mamas dancing,

and this is a Machetero. The feathers in his crown, come from the tail of big parrots from the Amazon.

The Procession happens in the morning, and in the afternoon, for three days there is a huge Corral, where there is bullfighting, but not the kind that there is in Spain. This type of bullfighting is much less elegant, but it's so entertaining. Many people get drunk and go inside the Corral to try and mount the bull. There was this guy that dresses as Zorro, who got on the bull a few times,

and here is a girl that mounted the bull better than all the guys who tried before her. 

Another part of the entertainment, is when the planes pass by the corral. They pass by so low that sometimes it's scary because of the noise.

After the corral, everyone goes to las carpas to have some drinks and dance. There met the Zorro guy and one of the Mamas. They even posed for the picture.

 

The Mama even invited me to dance with her. The night ended with me and my cousins dancing with her and drinking beer from her tutuma, which is half of a big seed from a tree called Tutumo.

The next day we went back to Santa Cruz. My trip to Santa Ana was the most fun I have ever had and it was also very educative, because I had the chance to experience all the things there were to experience.

Big Bulls, Horses, and Another Church

My trip to Santa Ana del Yacuma was filled with memories of when I was a little kid. I was born in Santa Ana, but I never actually lived there. I lived in Cochabamba until I was 15, but every year my dad, who was a pilot, took my siblings and I to Santa Ana for the Fiesta. 

You can read here, what happened on our first day of being in Santa Ana. On our second day, we woke up early in the morning, because we didn't want to miss the horse parade. Everyone who has a horse goes around the main plaza and around town .

Later that day we were invited to a cattle auction. My dad ha a very big farm, not far from Santa Ana, so we went to see the cattle. Let me tell you, I have never seen such beautiful cattle. We had lunch there while they showed the cattle.

While the auction was going on, they had activities for kids and grown ups. Rebecca, Leonardo and Camila wanted to go horse riding, so my uncle gave them a horse to go around. 

After they rode for a while, the games started. They had horse races and also a game called Sortija, which my son wanted to do. He had to go running on a horse and at the end he had to get a stick to go through a ring that is hanging on a string. He went three times, and he won once. He's the one in red on  this picture:

After the auction we went home to shower, we all smelled like cows, but as we were going around the Plaza, I had a chance to take a picture of the church when there wasn't a crowd in front of it.

Here's a link to my first post about Santa Ana.

Santa Ana del Yacuma, Land of my Heart

Hi Internet! I just came back from my trip to Santa Ana del Yacuma, and let me tell you, I had the best time of my life. Santa Ana is a very little town, where I was born. I had not been there in 9 years. We had planned to go there this time because it was the town's fiesta. The fiesta is celebrated in honor to the town's church virgin, which the town was named after. The town was celebrating it's 300 years of foundation, and I knew it was going to be a very big party, everyone who is from Santa Ana was going to be there.

We left to Trinidad on Monday, July 21st, the next day, very early in the morning we left to Santa Ana. The trip there was a little bit of an adventure, because the road is mostly dust and we had to cross in between plants and trees. We got to the first barge like around 10 in the morning. 

This picture is of my husband getting on the barge in the Mamore River:

After we crossed this river, we drove a little bit more and then got on another barge, but it was much smaller than the first one. 

When we finally got to the town, the first thing I wanted to see was the street they had named after my grandfather. The last time I went there, my grandfather was still alive, so when he died they named one of the main streets after him. 

That night we went to the main Plaza to see all the folkloric traditional dances after church. This one is of the Macheteros. They dance with their machetes and their parrot feathers on their head.

This picture is of some kids dancing like Toritos or little bulls. They go around dancing while the band plays behind them. They wear a cape with a little bull's head and ribbons on their horns

That night after watching the Toritos and Macheteros, we went out to the Carpas(tents), which is a street that they close, just to put tables and music. There you can drink and eat. My cousin payed the band to play the whole night, so when we got tired of being in the Carpas, we decided to go home, and my cousin had the brilliant idea to tell the band to follow us home, so we walked 5 blocks with the band behind us, and we danced in the streets. 

We danced until 7 in the morning, and this was just my first day in my beautiful town. Wait until I post pictures of what happened the rest of the days I was there. Believe me, you will want to see this.

A Very Beautiful Restaurant

A couple of weeks after we got to Santa Cruz, we went out looking for a place where we could have lunch, and we stumbled upon this beautiful restaurant called La Bella Napoli. It used to be an old house that they remodeled and turned it into a restaurant. When we parked we were shaded by a huge canopy of grape vines.

When we went inside, it was even more beautiful. Many things caught my eye, specially the staircase.

We went upstairs and out to the balcony to take a look. The vines from upstairs looked amazing, and full of grapes. The grapes looked so delicious that I wanted to get one, but they were not that easy to reach.

 

All the furniture was made of bamboo and wood, even the light fixtures. The windows and doors had stained glass that made them look even more beautiful.

This picture was hanging on the wall next to the staircase, and it was painted in a very shiny metallic paint, that I had never seen before.

Even the fish aquarium was very ornate. 

The chairs were made out of wood and roots, with leather covering the seat.

This was my favorite piece in the whole place. 

Maybe it was the wood or, maybe it was just the idea of having all that wine to myself.

Tomorrow I'm leaving to a little town called Santa Ana, and I won't be able to post until next week, because I don't have a connection over there, so I will try to post as soon as I come back to Santa Cruz. I will miss you Internet.

My Birthday. 34 Ain't That Bad

My birthday was on Monday, and I had one of the best birthdays ever. Although it didn't start like that, because I had a little fight with my husband, he redeemed himself later on that day. 

I had a bunch of people call me all day, asking me if I was going to do anything, and I told everyone that I was gonna call them if I decided to do anything. Herland had a few things to do during the day, so I hardly saw him, but when he got home and saw that I had no plans of doing anything, because my apartment here is very small, and I have too many friends to invite, he went out to make reservations at a restaurant. He called all my friends and family, and told them to go there. When I got to the restaurant, I almost fell to the floor. I had been there before but I didn't know that there was a patio area, which was so beautiful, it almost made me cry. The patio has a huge open area , and there is a huge sitting area that is all made out of bamboo, with very nice sofas and chairs.

We sat there until everyone got there. When everyone arrived, the Maitre D' sat us at our table, which already had a few shrimp and calamari appetizers. All my friends enjoyed eating seafood,which isn't very easy to find, because if you didn't know, Bolivia doesn't have access to the ocean, so to eat seafood is a very special thing here.  

I had so many friends that  the table endless. Here you can see part of the table. You can't really see where it ended in this picture.

Herland had chosen as a main course a cut of meat that was so tender and so delicious, that everyone complimented him on his choice. When we started eating I suddenly heard a loud horn playing behind me, that was when I turned around and saw the Mariachi playing. I love Mariachi!

We danced a little and then I continued enjoying my party. We drank and ate and had a very awesome time. 

Here's a picture of my kids. I had to post this picture, because it is very difficult for me to take a picture of the three of them together without having them fighting with each other. Even they had a great time. 

I hope every birthday I have from now on, is like this one. I had the time of my life. 

I Need Your Help

Hi Internet! I have to ask a very big favor from you. I have been listed at a site for mommy bloggers called Top Momma, and I have a chance to be on their front page. If some of you click on my button, it will help with traffic to my blog. All you have to do is go here and click on my button. My button looks like this:

I will really appreciate it if you guys help me with this. Thank you.

I Just Wanted to Post These

I have some pictures that I have been wanting to show you, but I wasn't able to upload them, because my Internet connection was too slow these past few days. I took them here in Santa Cruz. This first one is of a sign Rebecca noticed at the American Airlines Counter at Viru-Viru Airport. It made us crack up. It amazes me how immature I am, when I see things like that, it reminds me of being in the sexual education class, and hearing kids laughing when the teacher mentioned the words vagina or penis. Hmm, maybe I was one of those kids.

The next two pictures are not funny, but they show a little of the beauty you can find here. The first one is of a flower, I think it's called Heleconia, but I'm not sure. The second one is of a hummingbird getting some nectar from a flower.

Another thing that you find by the bunch here, are the cafes and restaurants. We went with some friends to a place called Mr. Cafe, and there was a band playing cover songs from the eighties. They were excellent, they were so good, that I felt compelled to take a picture of the singer, he even posed for me. He did this after I had taken a few other pictures of him, I guess he felt he would pose for his biggest fan, even though the table full of girls sitting in front of him looked so excited, just look at the girl to the right. I repeat, they were really good.

A Very Special Place, Cotoca

A week after I arrived in Bolivia we went to a little town named Cotoca, It's half an hour away from Santa Cruz. This town is very famous over here because of the Virgin that they have inside the church. People all over Bolivia have very deep beliefs in the Virgin. They believe that she makes miracles, and people are to devout to her that they walk all the way from Santa Cruz to Cotoca as proof of their faith. Here you can read a little bit more about Cotoca.

Here is a picture of the front of the church. I couldn't go inside because it was closed, but I think I'm going next week again and I hope I can take pictures inside.

After we looked at the church, my friends and I got hungry and we went to this little restaurant right in front of the church. Here is a picture of the restaurant.

Inside the restaurant, my daughter noticed the funniest thing, plants growing on  the roof, so I had to take a picture of that, just to show you. I guess that happens because they use mud to make the shingles, and maybe it has little seeds, so that causes this crazy phenomenon. 

When we finished having lunch, we walked around the town. There is this street where they have little tents and stores. There is so many things to buy, specially pottery and native handcrafts. It was a very rainy day, so I didn't buy anything.

I think that next week we are going to a town that is in Brazil, but very close to the Bolivia frontier. I really hope we can go, so that I can take a lot more pictures.