Vallegrande (Spanish language, meaning 'Big Valley') is a small colonial town in Bolivia, located in the Department of Santa Cruz, some southwest of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. It is the capital of the Vallegrande Province and Vallegrande Municipality and serves as a regionally important market town.
The town was the first burial site of revolutionary Che Guevara, after his 1967 execution.
Geography
Overview
The town lies in a big valley (hence the name) at an altitude of 2,030 m (6,660 ft) and has approximately 6,000 inhabitants. It has a mild temperate climate due mainly to its valley location, altitude, and the cold winter fronts the sweep the plains of Santa Cruz known as "Surazo".
Climate
Vallegrande has a subtropical highland climate (Köppen:
Cwb). Temperatures are relatively temperate annually, with high levels of diurnal temperature variation due to the altitude. Precipitation falls mainly during summer storms, while winter is marked by a drying period.
Climate
Economy
The main industries in the area revolve around agriculture and its derived products. The region is mainly dedicated to the production of grains such as corn and wheat, and fruits such as peaches, apples, grapes, pears, chirimoyas and plums. Among the value added products the most important are homemade bread,
chamas, fruit liquor, wine, handmade rugs, and other handcrafts.
Transport
Vallegrande can be accessed via a spur road branching off the (old, southern) Santa Cruz to
Cochabamba highway and has an airstrip off Av Circunvalación 2do Anillo.
Personalities
Che Guevara
On October 8, 1967, the
Argentina Marxism revolutionary
Che Guevara was captured by the CIA-assisted
Bolivian Army nearby
La Higuera, where he was killed the next day. The body was buried in Vallegrande, on an airstrip near Av. Circunvalación 2do Anillo, and was returned to
Cuba in October 1997, where he was buried in a mausoleum in Santa Clara. A "Che Guevara Mausoleum" is located in Vallegrande on the former burial site and can be visited by tourists.
[ The Local Deity: Bones or Not, Vallegrande's a Must Stop on the Che Route by Joshua Hammer, Newsweek, 1997][ Che Guevara Legacy Lives on in Bolivia BBC News, August 24, 2004][ Bolivian Town Recalls Che Assassination Prensa Latina, October 8, 2008][ Che Sat Here: The Making (and Marketing) of a Martyr by Alex Ayala Ugarte, Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2009 Issue]
Edil Casiano Sandoval Morón.
Important Bolivian politician in the decades of the 1960s and 2000s, he was named illustrious son of Vallegrande.
See also
External links
