MONTERO

MONTERO

29.03.1994


In the middle of March a friend of the vet at the dairy came to visit. When he saw Simon he fell in love with him straight away and insisted that we should take him to a dog show which they were going to hold in Montero, near Santa Cruz in eastern Bolivia, about 250Kms. away.  Since it was at the week-end, we decided to go for the jaunt and so that I could see what that area is like.  

The further you travel from the project area the fewer trees there are, because the colonization programme has led to the felling of forest.  The change is gradual, of course, but as you cross the River Ichilo which marks the border between the provinces of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz the difference is more marked, because Santa Cruz is the boom area and it has opted for cattle ranching.  The ranches are huge in Santa Cruz compared to the small "chacos" and "chacras" in Cochabamba.  First of all the pasture lands are similar to the "dehesas" in Andalucía or Extremadura with numerous trees left standing for shade, but the closer you get to Santa Cruz the fewer trees are left until, as Robert told me (because I did not get that far), Santa Cruz itself is like a desert with a tremendous erosion problem.  Since the trees have been cut down, it is windy there (This I noticed when we touched down in Santa Cruz on the incoming journey) and the wind increases the erosion.  

The distance between Chimoré and Santa Cruz is more or less the same as to Cochabamba, but the road is infinitely better, being surfaced all the way except for a 50Km. stretch which is either a series of sand dunes or a quagmire, depending on the weather.  This stretch was also surfaced at one stage, but the Brazilian road-building company, Andrade y Gutiérrez, did not put in any drainage, so, when the rains came, they just washed the surface away.  The asphalt was also supposed to be a certain thickness but when it washed away it was clear that it was only about 5cm. thick!  Unlike the road to Cochabamba, which crosses mountains and so forth, there is no excuse here for bad  road-building, because the terrain is absolutely flat.  The only technical point to be borne in mind is that when the rains come they are torrential and good drainage is essential. Never mind!  They have just won another tender to build more roads somewhere else in the country.

As the terrain changes, so does everything else.  There are fewer indigenous people wearing the traditional Andean dress.  There are more European features to be seen and a smattering of Brazilian-type Negroid mixes.  The villages are hives of activity and, like the farming, things are done on a much larger scale.  The rice de-husking factories (ingenios) are proper factories with silos etc. and not little one-man-band, back-yard activities.  People do not cart their goods on their backs as they do on the altiplano and in the Chapare: there are plenty of horses and carts.  Most people ride horses using the traditional Andalusian tack. The sensation it gave was that you were getting nearer to Argentina and Brazil, which is true in geographical terms, of course, but also in cultural terms.  Altogether the pulse of the area  is quite different.


The dog show was to be held at a place called Guabirá Expo-norte, which turned out to be the Montero fairground on the outskirts of the town.  The agricultural fair was on, which is why they were having the show at all, and business was brisk.  There was a magnificent bull hall with beautiful animals immaculately turned out.  Another pavilion housed the horses, also in peak condition.  The installations were first class with a clean individual stall for each animal with its feed and water containers and plenty of straw on the ground.  There were also stalls with agricultural machinery, mainly for the harvesting of sugar cane, and  a Mennonite display with hand-made ox yokes and other leather harness.  They also had a model pump made of wood which consisted of a wheel with a cord and little rubber rings.  When the handle of the wheel was turned the system pumped up water from a well.  They had three models: one for wells up to 10m. deep, another up to 20m. and a third for wells of up to 30m.  Most ingenious.

It is interesting that there is a considerable Mennonite community here.  They have immigrated mostly from Canada and they wear distinctive clothes: the men wear blue denim dungarees with a checked shirt underneath and a big hat.  The women wear long dresses with long sleeves and a scarf covering all their hair, for all the world like orthodox Jewish women.  Their children are spotlessly clean and impeccably well behaved.  They are farmers and run their farms on a traditional basis using animal traction and intermediate technology, like the water pumping system.

Eating places were not scarce and, once again, the predominant food is, like in Argentina, great steak barbecues, which people were tucking into with gusto.  

At the dog ring the police put on a display first.  We did not get to see that because they asked everyone with a dog to move away out of sight of the ring so that the police dogs would not be distracted.  Then there was a kennel club exhibition of dogs belonging to the Santa Cruz Kennel Club.  They mostly belonged to one lady who owns a breeding kennel.  She had Siberian huskies, salukis, Yorkshire terriers, miniature pinschers, Kerry  blues and Argentinian dogos, which are white like bulldogs but bigger and very aggressive.  There was also an Old English Sheepdog and I can't remember the rest.  From her married surname, Justiniano, the kennel owner may be a relative of one of the government ministers.  She was a typical example of the archetypal Santa Cruz woman, who, from all accounts, is not shy to show her female attributes to best advantage.  However that may be, she certainly was a professional at showing her dogs off to best advantage. She took each one around the ring and then a minion came on and stood with it while she took the next one around.  

Then we had the competition and Simon won first prize.  Amazingly, he behaved very well, walking and trotting around the ring nicely.  The only flaw was when the vet came to examine him he wanted to jump up and kiss him all over, which was not in the script at all.  Afterwards people kept coming up and asking if they could have their photo taken with him and he posed like a film star.  Other people, who had long-haired dogs, wanted to know which shampoo I used on him and other such trivia. We met other vets who insisted that we should register him with the kennel club and show him.  He is probably the only dog of this breed in Bolivia and they are fascinated by the novelty value.  Some of them knew something about the breed because they had seen them in the US. Anyway, it was fun and took Robert's mind off the problems of work for a day, which was a good thing in itself. All in all, the only trivial day we have had since we arrived!