While we were in Bolivia, we took the girls to their very first soccer game, which turned out to be an epic match between the two great football clubs of La Paz: Bolívar and The Strongest.

Our relatives’ neighborhood is a stronghold for The Strongest, so the girls got yellow scarves featuring the team’s tiger mascot, and they learned to shout, “Tigre! Tigre! Tigre!” and also “GOOOOOOOOAL!”

There was plenty of football drama, plus a half-time show with traditional Bolivian dances, like this handkerchief-waving cueca.

The Strongest managed to prevail, and afterward we roamed the streets in search of salchipapas, a Bolivian street food mostly involving sliced sausage and french fries.

Just outside the Hernando Siles football stadium you’ll find a traffic roundabout surrounding a sunken temple. Featured in my novel, this temple contains a replica of the Bennett Monolith, the mysterious pre-Incan deity discovered at Tiwanaku in 1932. For almost seventy years, the original statue stood here in La Paz, scarred by pollution and the bullets of revolution. In 2002, the 20-ton artifact was finally placed in a protected museum at Tiwanaku, where it belongs. For more about Tiwanaku, see my next post.