A week ago today - March 25th - all the North American temple missionaries as well as three of the Latin couples took an all-day bus trip and visited two places.

First we went to the Parque Ecoturismo Pairumani - which is just what it sounds like:  a big park where the government has preserved the natural environment.  Unfortunately I had forgotten to charge my camera the night before and was afraid of the battery dying before we got to our second (and more glamorous) stop, so I took only a couple of pictures at the park.  Here they are:

You probably can't read it, but the words on the effigy say "Thieves will be hanged." I don't know if they mean it or not, but I should think it's a pretty effective deterrent - wouldn't you?

 

Notice the wildflowers beneath these signs.  There's water in this park - you can sort of see the stream in the picture below.  It is a good healthy stream and it is falling at a tremendous rate.  In fact, it was used to provide hydroelectric power for the super-rich industrialist whose country home we went to visit after our picnic here.

 

That building you can see in the above picture was part of the electrical generating plant.  We walked past it (and past the bull you see tethered there -- we don't know how he got there, since this is government land and he's obviously private property -- but oh well) - to some nice picnic tables (with nearby rest rooms.)  There was a hike (about a mile, I think, and at this altitude it was WORK) up to a little grassy plateau from which we could see forever - and also see the dam and resultant waterfall that were built to fuel the hydroelectric plant.  Although it took us an hour to get here, we weren't that far out of Cochabamba.  We could see the whole city from this mountain.

 

After our hike and picnic, we drove about 20 minutes back down the mountain and toured the country home of a man I'd never heard of, but his story is so interesting I'm going to add it here . . . a mini history lesson, but I think you'll like it.

His name was Simon Iturri Patiño.  He was born 1 June 1862, died 20 April 1947 in Argentina and was buried in Cochabamba.  I'll skip his early life.  The important thing is that as a young adult, he
started in mining with Compañía Hunanchaca de Bolivia, a silver company, and then with Fricke y Compañía. Patiño was assigned to collections for the store, and in 1894, he agreed to accept a deed of land in compromise for a $250 debt owed by a prospector. The deed turned out to be for the rocky side of a mountain, and Patiño was fired from his job for settling an account in exchange for a worthless piece of property. Legend has it that Patiño was forced to pay back the store from his own funds, and was stuck with his own bad bargain.

The mountain turned out to be richer in minerals than anyone had imagined. Although the first several years of work yielded little, the turning point came in 1900 when Patiño located a very rich vein of tin, later called "La Salvadora" (The Savior). Over the next 10 years he built up the control of nearby mines and other important mines in Bolivia.  By the 1920s he had also bought out Chilean interests in his mining company and went on to buy tin smelters in England and Germany. By the 1940s he controlled the international tin market and was one of the wealthiest men in the world, hence his "title" The Tin King (Rey del Estaño).  During WWII he was considered to be one of the five wealthiest men in the world.  How about that?!?  And I'll bet you had never heard of him either.

What is really sad is that because of his health (he had a heart condition that could not survive the altitude in Bolivia), he had to live abroad for the latter half of his life.  He never set foot in this beautiful home he built in the country for his wife and children and I believe the same is true of the even more grandiose home he caused to be built within the city of Cochabamba.  Apparently his family spent at least half the year in Bolivia, even though he had to stay in another country.  His descendants (great-grand-children) still come to the country home in the summers.  They live in the second story; the first story is a museum.   His city home has been given to the government and is a museum we have yet to visit.

Here are the pictures of his country home - which interestingly enough is called the "Villa Albina" (named for his wife.)  It is open 1 hour each day (from 3-4 pm) Monday through Friday.   This is what you see as you walk down the long driveway. The grounds are extensive and utterly beautiful, too.

 

This is a little closer view so you can maybe read the title near the top in the center: Villa Albina.

The statue (Venus, or ???) stands in the center of a lovely circular garden, facing the house.

This is what you see when the front door is opened and you step inside. The house is built around an open courtyard - typical Spanish architecture.

Here's a picture of the two of us sitting at the fountain (our backs are toward the front door.)  I tried to post this in Facebook instead - sort of as a trailer to bring friends to look at the rest of these pictures - but couldn't get FB to cooperate, so . . . it's here instead.

The view of the house taken from in back. There also is a long one-story wing off to the right, behind
that enormous tree.

 

Now pictures of the interior . . .  the first is a room that was originally a music room - for family concerts and/or for visiting musicians to perform.  Now the Patiño Foundation uses it for board meetings, if we understood the guide correctly.  (To me it looks like an old-fashioned church sanctuary - what do you think?)

This room was NOT used for music, nor was it the dining room.  We are not sure exactly WHAT it was, but it's pretty.

This was the "ladies' sitting room" - not really a boudoir or powder room - but still a place they gathered to primp a little, I guess.

This may have been meant for an office - or perhaps just a formal sitting room.  The most important thing about it, to me, is that a portrait of Señor and Señora Patiño hang here.

This is just one end of the dining room (I wanted you to see the grandfather clock.)  This table seats 24 and is fully extended all the time.  The room is quite elegant, but I don't know if I could enjoy a meal in a "fuschia" room.

This was their ballroom.  Of course now you see tables and chairs in little groups, but I guess the tables were removed and the chairs placed around the perimeter so they could have room for dancing.

This was another small sitting room - not sure why they needed so many.  Notice how HIGH the ceilings are - much more than the 9' ceilings in our La Verne home - these must be 12' or 15' high.

This was a tea room - as in "4:00 afternoon tea" like they have in Great Britain.  The room is twice this long with several more sets of tables and chairs.

I should have put this at the beginning with the exterior shots, sorry.  They actually had a swimming pool.  The gardener was mowing the grass around it while we were there.  It must keep a full staff of gardeners busy taking care of this place because the gardens and grounds are enormous.  There is also a fish pond big enough to use a small rowboat in.  There's an archway-walk with a gazebo built out into the water, and the gazebo has a little boat dock.

 

 

And finally, one shot of a small part of the grounds, taken as we were walking back up the driveway.  

 

We really enjoyed seeing this BEAUTIFUL home.  Several of us remarked that we could just imagine ourselves living here, dressed in long dresses with hoop skirts (sort of like those Southern mansions you read about) - but only if there were a multitude of servants to keep the place clean and do all the laundry, ironing, cooking and so on.  In other words, living like a multi-billionaire, which Señor Patino was.  How sad that he never got to see this place or live here.  What good is all the money in the world if you can never go home to the place you love?  I'll bet he would willingly have traded a chunk of his money for a new heart.  Too bad heart transplants hadn't been figured out yet.