This past week I was able to travel to the southern part of Bolivia to the city of Tarija. This is a city close the the border of Argentina that has close to 200 thousand in population. Tarija is truly a beautiful city that maintains many of it’s colonial roots. This was my first time visiting this part of the country but I was surprised at how similar it was to Cochabamba only smaller. We were there for a pastor’s conference put on by the Bethel Baptist Church with Pastor Fernando Flores and Pastor Johnny Daniels from Puerto Rico. Each night of the conference there were close to three hundred attending from all over Bolivia. There were also several special speakers there for the conference Pastors Garven Walls, Don Strange, and Paul Kingsbury.
Apart from enjoying the preaching and fellowship usually when I travel I like to try some of the typical food from that area. Before leaving for the conference several people told me that I had to try a dish that consists of small crabs and fish cooked whole. This at first didn’t sound too appetizing to me and I had to ask, where did they get the crabs seeing that we are a landlocked country and miles away from the ocean. It turns out that these little creatures come from the river and to maintain my reputation I had to give them a try. It was actual not too bad and the little fried fish were better than the crabs. The only part that was difficult at first was that you have to eat them whole.
