Guembe resort offers a natural getaway for Bolivian tourists
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia – Butterflies glide through the air inside the caged dome. Out of a lush, green bush, a blue butterfly darted to greet me. It turned, flashing its iridescent wings and disappeared.
Nestled into the trees and manicured bushes, the butterfly house at Biocentro Guembe is just one gem the popular resort has to offer for tourists looking to escape for a few hours or days near Santa Cruz.
Linked with bricked and gravel paths and lined with tangerine trees and flowering shrubs, Guembe also has an aviary, bees and a monkey island. All coexist with the visitors and guests at the resort.
Inside the butterfly house, Guembe staff members raise and maintain 14 native species of butterflies. The reason to care for native species was the plants that the butterflies feed, said Efrain Del Carpio, a Guembe supervisor. Butterflies recognized plants from their native habitat.
“They will keep looking for certain plants until they found the plants or until they die,” he said.
Guembe’s butterfly lab shows the insects at various stages of a butterfly’s life. Visitors can see butterfly eggs on leaves, caterpillars crawling and eating leaves, cocoons hanging off leaves and butterflies leaving their cocoons. Then, they go to live in the butterfly dome and the eggs that they lay come back to the lab.
The staff protects the butterflies as they grow and get ready to go into the dome, Carpio said, adding, “They have natural predators at every life stage.”
They are helpless to wasps, bees, praying mantises and other predators.
The critical care of the butterflies represents the theme of the resort and the meaning of its name.
Guembe owner Carlos Reznicek, a University of Arkansas graduate in the mid-1970s, loves nature and created Guembe out of that passion, said Pablo Reznicek, Carlos’ son and a former partner owner of the resort with his father. It opened in 2005 after several years of construction and planning.
The name Guembe refers to the Guembe plant. It was believed that when Adam and Eve were rejected from the Garden of Eden, Eve covered herself with a Guembe leaf. The plant grows on palm trees, without killing or harming the host plant. It creates a relationship with the tree through an exchange of nutrients that both plants need.
The resort also has a symbiotic relationship with its guests and the animals being raised and cared for.
The resort, also is known for it massive aviary, stretches 46 acres on property where the elder Reznicek had his home.
The aviary houses numerous tropical birds including parrots, peacocks and toucans. The birds fly nearby and are not shy about showing their colors. Some of the birds were former pets that owners decided they could not care for anymore and gave them to the park.
Next to the birds is a large area devoted to tortugas, or turtles native to the region. Dozens of the reptiles slowly lumber across the dirt while watching visitors on the nearby paths.
On the other side of the park, Monkey Island has squirrel monkeys and capuchins climbing all over a tree-covered island in the middle of a small lake. While the monkeys were supposed to remain on the island, a few were spotted jumping from tree to tree outside the lake, near the bungalows.
For many Bolivians, the daily ticket price of 150 bolivianos, or about $20 (U.S.), is pricey – in line with ticket costs for similar parks in the United States.
The resort, with a hotel, restaurant, bungalows, pools and beach volleyball courts, attracts around 300 people per week during the winter season and around 4,000 people a week during the summer.
“We are looking to expand, but we face challenges with buying land,” Carpio said.
Bolivian student Alfonso Roca contributed to this report.
This story is part of the 2014 Lemke Abroad program for the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism at the University of Arkansas.
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