Early in the morning on the 28th of January we got back to Santa Cruz from our trip to Trinidad. However we had decided that we wanted to visit the FSC certified floor factory Inpa in Conception and therefore we imidiately booked a bus to Concepcion. After a short breakfast at Santa Cruz bus station we were therefore off again on a bu going far off the beate track. This became the beginning of a long journey through small villages and a hard trial of our patience with the Bolivian bus services.

Our first trip got us to conception in the middle of the afternoon where we found a nice small hotel and went to see the local church. This was a remarcable beautifully carved building dating from the mid seventeen hundreds when a group Jesuit monks had penetrated deep into what was then a wild borderland inhabited by hostile indigenous Chiquitanos whom they had converted to christianity. They had then managed to found a dozen small communities who adopted european agricultural practices and erected these fantastic wooden churches. This society, which has been called an independent theocratic utopia, ended in 1767 when the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuit's from the Americas. However, about half the churches have survived until modern times and were mangnificently restored during the last 20 years. The Church in Conception wwas the most magnificent example of the Jesuit missions and Conception also held two museums covering the restoration of the churches, their history and the architect who had made his fame through the restoration project and gone on to design 56 churches and chapels around the world.

After having seen the church and museum we saw the sunset over the church and town square where we had dinner and hung out into the evening. The next morning we went to visit the Inpa Factory just outside town and interview the Dutch director of the company. It was interesting to see the factory and hear about his experiences although. Even though it was obvious that he found that there was much corruption among the Bolivian officials and NGO's his main critique of the FSC system was actually that it was too beaurocratic and had too much control. Even though this showd that there was room for improvement it also indicated that the system actually checked his factory properly, which was positive.

After the meeting we had hoped to get an early bus back to conception, but as this proved impossible we unwisely decided instead to get a bus to San Ingacio to go more straight to the brazillian border. We ended up only being able to get a bus at five in the afternoon and the trip which we thought would take four hours ended up taking six hours. When we got to San Ingacio in the middle of the night the only open hotel we could find was a rather fancy one. And although the room which had both a hammock, aircon and a great double bed was fantastic it was a bit more expensive than we planned. The nex morning we then foun that we would only be able to get an onward bus at noon and we therefore had time to go and see the old missionary chrch in San Ignacio. We then got on another bus which was supposed to take six hours then ended up taking nine which meant that we arrived in San José one after the train that we had hope to catch to the brazillian border. When the bus made a short toilet stop in San Rafael I managed to quicky run out and get a picture of a third of the old wooden churches other wise the day was filled with watching the cotriside which was dominated by scattered forests and soyfields with huge areas of cattle ranching in between.

In San José we waited at the station untill midnight hooping that there might be another train so that we would not have to postpone or arival to Brazil for another day untill we finally got together with a Brazillian girl and booked a taxi to drive us the six hours to the border. Thus we finally arrived to the Brazillian border early in the morning of the 31st of january and stepped back inside civilization.

It had however been an interesting trip out in the contryside of Bolivia. The areas most famous feature was the old wooden churches and it was strangely fitting that we during our trip here saw many menonites. Although they were much later imigrants their out of place old fasioned european outlook fitted strangely with these fantastic churches. The menonites had emigrated mainly from germany about a century and kept to a very traditional lifestyle. The men wore dark blue or black coveralls and light blue shirts and the women wore lare black dresses. They looked very european, with some men being taller than me and spoke German with a strange accent. We later read that there are more than a hundred thousand menonites living in Bilivia and Uruguay. They are geneally known as good organizers and have been able to farm many areas that was previously left baren. The director at Inpa had also told us that the so far the menonites were the only ones who had had the knowledge and resources to convert their farmland to soy farming.