La Higuera (; ) is a small village in

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

located in the

Province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

Vallegrande Vallegrande (''Spanish: "Big Valley"'') is a small colonial town in Bolivia, located in the Department of Santa Cruz, some 125 km (bee-line) southwest of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. It is the capital of the Vallegrande Province and Vallegrande ...

, in the

Department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

of Santa Cruz. It is situated in the La Higuera Canton (civil parish) belonging to the Pucará Municipality.

Geography

The village is situated some 150 km (bee-line) southwest of

Santa Cruz de la Sierra Santa Cruz de la Sierra (; "Holy Cross of the Mountain Range"), commonly known as Santa Cruz, is the largest city in Bolivia and the capital of the Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia), Santa Cruz department. Situated on the Pirai River (Bolivia), P ...

and 15 southwest of Pucará. La Higuera lies at an elevation of 1950 m. Its population (according to the 2001 census) is 119, mainly indigenous

Guaraní people Guarani are a group of culturally-related indigenous peoples of South America. They are distinguished from the related Tupi people, Tupi by their use of the Guarani language. The traditional range of the Guarani people is in present-day Paraguay b ...

History

On October 8, 1967, the

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

revolutionary

Che Guevara Ernesto Che Guevara (; 14 June 1928The date of birth recorded on /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificatewas 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source, (Julia Constenla, quoted ...

was captured by the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

-assisted

Bolivian Army The Bolivian Army ( es, Ejército Boliviano) is the land force branch of the Armed Forces of Bolivia. Figures on the size and composition of the Bolivian army vary considerably, with little official data available. It is estimated that the arm ...

in the nearby ravine ''Quebrada del Churo'', ending his campaign to create a continental revolution in South America. Che Guevara was held in the schoolhouse, where he was killed the next day. The body was then brought to

, where it was placed on display and afterwards secretly buried under an airstrip.

Che tourism

A monument to "El Che" and a memorial in the former schoolhouse are the major tourist attraction for this area. La Higuera is a stop on the "Ruta del Che" (Che Guevara Trail) which was inaugurated in 2004.The Che Trail in Bolivia
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References

External links

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
Che Guevara's 81st birthday Marked in Bolivia
''Ahora'', June 15, 2009 {{Che Guevara Populated places in Santa Cruz Department (Bolivia) Che Guevara