La Higuera
| La Higuera | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Che Guevara monument in La Higuera |
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| Basic data | |||
| Residents (state) | 95 pop. (2012 census) | ||
| height | 2047 m | ||
| Post Code | 07-0805-0102-4001 | ||
| Telephone code | (+591) | ||
| Coordinates | 18 ° 48 ′ S , 64 ° 12 ′ W | ||
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| politics | |||
| Department | Santa Cruz | ||
| province | Vallegrande Province | ||
| climate | |||
 Climate diagram Vallegrande |
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La Higuera is a town in the Santa Cruz Department in the South American Andean state of Bolivia . The Spanish place name means " fig tree ", which grows in large numbers in the area around La Higuera.
Location in the vicinity
La Higuera is located in the district ( Bolivian : Municipio ) Pucará in the province of Vallegrande . The village is located at an altitude of 2047 m eight kilometers east of the deeply cut valley of the Río Grande , which here separates the mountain ranges of the Cordillera Central in the west and the Cordillera Oriental in the east.
geography
La Higuera lies on a ridge of the southwestern foothills of the Cordillera Oriental .
The average annual temperature of the region is 18 ° C (see Vallegrande climate diagram) and fluctuates only slightly between 15 ° C in July and 20 ° C from November to January. The annual precipitation is almost 700 mm, with a clear dry season from May to September with monthly precipitation below 25 mm, and a humidity period from December to February with more than 100 mm monthly precipitation.
Transport network
La Higuera is 315 kilometers by road southwest of Santa Cruz , the capital of the department of the same name.
From Santa Cruz, the paved highway Ruta 7 leads west to Cochabamba and after 187 kilometers via Samaipata and La Angostura reaches the small town of Mataral . From there the route 22 branches off in a southerly direction and after 61 kilometers leads over Vallegrande to Guadalupe . Here is the starting point of the 2004 newly established Ruta 38 (" Ruta del Che "), which crosses the Río Grande in a westerly direction after 74 kilometers, and from which a side path leads south to La Higuera at the top .
population
The population of the village has decreased by about half in the past two decades:
| year | Residents | source |
|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 173 | census |
| 2001 | 119 | census |
| 2012 | 95 | census |
history
La Higuera became known through the Argentine - Cuban revolutionary and guerrilla fighter Ernesto "Che" Guevara , who was shot here on October 9, 1967 by the Bolivian army with the participation of the US secret service CIA .
Che Guevara led a small group of internationalist guerrillas who wanted to build a guerrilla army under the name ELN in Bolivia and were supported by Cuba. Before they could build a powerful group, however, they were discovered and embroiled in skirmishes with the Bolivian military, which was supported by the CIA. The troops were separated early on: Che Guevara led one group that wandered around the eastern slopes of the Andes in search of the second group and occasionally laid ambushes against the army . Contact between the two groups could not be established until the end. In the middle of 1967, the armed fighters' retreat became increasingly narrow for the Cubans. The second group was broken up on August 31, 1967; The German-Argentinian Tamara Bunke ("Tania la Guerillera") also died with her boss Juan Vitalio Acuña Núñez in an ambush near Vado de Puerto Mauricio .
Che Guevara's group, which in the end only consisted of 14 men, was tracked down by government troops on October 8, 1967 in the Quebrada del Churo (also: Quebrada del Yuro ) gorge near La Higuera . After heavy fighting, the wounded Comandante Che Guevara was arrested there and taken to the school building in La Higuera, where he was interrogated under the direction of a CIA agent. The following day, he was shot dead in the location without a trial . Che Guevara's body was supposed to be disposed of without a trace and was secretly buried in Vallegrande at the airfield.
In La Higuera, a monument in the form of a larger than life bust commemorates Che Guevara, and there is a memorial in the former schoolhouse.
Individual evidence
- ^ INE - Instituto Nacional de Estadística Bolivia 1992
- ^ INE - Instituto Nacional de Estadística Bolivia 2001
- ↑ INE - Instituto Nacional de Estadística Bolivia 2012 ( Memento of the original from July 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
literature
- Ernesto Che Guevara: Bolivian Diary . Verlag Volk und Welt, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-353-00267-7 .
Web links
- Relief map of the Vallegrande region 1: 250,000 (PDF; 8.75 MB)
- Municipio Pucará - General Maps No. 70805
- Municipio Pucará - detailed map and population data (PDF 677 kB) ( Spanish )
- Department Santa Cruz - Social data of the municipalities (PDF; 4.99 MB) ( Spanish )