Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
with them is still evident in the traditional costumes, folkloric dances, religious fiestas, love
of food and wine, and languid, sing-song accents of the Tarijeños. Known as
Chapacos
, Tar-
ijeños take considerable pride in their distinct cultural identity; closer culturally to northern
Argentina, they think of themselves as a people apart from the rest of Bolivia, and though the
region has provided two
presidents
in recent decades, it otherwise managed to avoid much
of the upheaval of the past century.
Plaza Luis de Fuentes
Bounded by calles Madrid, Sucre, 15 de Abril and Trigo
The focal point of the city is the peaceful, palm-lined
Plaza Luis de Fuentes
, named after
the city's founder, whose statue stands in the middle, dressed in full conquistador armour,
flourishing his sword in front of him. Surrounding the plaza are several restaurants, cafés and
ATMs.
La Catedral
A block west of Plaza Luis de Fuentes on Campero • Free
The dull modern
Catedral
's only redeeming feature is its brightly coloured piece of stained
glass depicting local peasants harvesting grapes. It stands on the site once occupied by the Je-
suit college, which was founded in 1690 and provided an important base for missionary ven-
tures down into the Chaco, before the order was expelled from the Spanish empire in 1767.
Iglesia de San Francisco
A block east of Plaza Luis de Fuentes on Madrid • Free
The simple
Iglesia de San Francisco
, founded in 1606, was Tarija's first church. The Fran-
ciscan college next door still houses a massive archive of historical documents from several
centuries of Franciscan missionary endeavour, and there's also a small collection of colonial
religious art inside, but you'll need to persuade one of the priests to show you around.
Museo Paleontológico
A block south of the plaza on the corner of Virginio Lema and Trigo • Mon-Fri 8am-noon & 3-6pm, Sat
9am-noon & 3-6pm • Free
The
Museo Paleontológico
has a fantastic collection of
fossils
from the Tarija valley. Most
are of mammals from the Pleistocene era (between a million and 250,000 years ago), and
many are from species similar to ones that still exist today, such as horses, bears and llamas.
There is a complete skeleton of the extinct
Andean elephant
(mastadon), plus several skulls
with tusks over 1.5m long. Also on display is an enormous skull of the
megatherium
(giant
sloth), at 5m in length one of the biggest land mammals ever to exist, and said by scientists
to be long extinct, though it's rumoured to live on in the depths of the Amazon rainforest.
Stranger still is the fossilized skeleton of a
glyptodon
, an extinct mammal that looks like a
distant relative of the armadillo. Upstairs there's a modest collection of archeological finds.
