Biocentro Guembe

The morning dawned warm (30 degrees) and sunny, with a warm wind blowing very briskly. Mariela's mum and dad took us into town for a breakfast saltenas (a traditional breakfast - a type of pie) which are only sold until midday. They were excellent. I had pollo (chicken). After this we drove out of town to spend the day at Biocentro guembe (and Mariposario resort). It is infact a resort cum butterfly park. It covers 24 hectares, has a big butterfly enclosure as well as an aviary. We were about 4 weeks too early to see all the different tropical butterflies, but did see a number of very colourful ones. In the bird enclosure we saw McCaws and Toulcans plus numerous other colourful parrots etc.

After that we went to the resort section, there they had numerous swimming pools, a fishing lake as well as a kayaking lake. Not too many people were ther, so we had a good time swimming (refreshing after the hot humid weather. Mariela and her daughter (Gloria - 13 months) joined us as did her mother. It was a great way to spend the day. The resort was being used to film a few episodes of the Bolivial version of "The Bachelor" (spelling might be a little off here). Saw two of the female contestants.. very attractive. Apparently the bachelor is a Bolivian who was born and continues to live the US. Apparently very wealthy.

We got back around 4.30 pm to have a late lunch. In the evening Mariela had arranged to take us to a resturant in town that had traditional folk music. Mariela's mother and her husband Jose Carlos also joined us. The meal was great, we had fish from Lake Titicaca, local Reisling wine and free champange (the resturant was celebrating 20 years. The music turned out to be 1960 -1980 western music (Police, Mama's and Papa's etc. Then we had a set of Argentinian/ Boliving music.. the two signers voice range was amazing, the locals and Argentinian visitors really got into it. The day finished around 1 am, when we finaly got to bed, shared with our spider (see the picture.

I have also included a few photo's of Mariela and Gloria plus one or two of the park.