ACROSS THE BOLIVIAN FRONTIER
Soon after our arrival at La Quiaca, at 9 P.M. on November 15, 1908, we
received a call from two rough-looking Anglo-Saxons who told us
hair-raising stories of the dangers of the Bolivian roads where highway
robbers driven out of the United States by the force of law and order
and hounded to death all over the world by Pinkerton detectives, had
found a pleasant resting-place in which to pursue their chosen
occupation without let or hindrance. We found out afterwards that one of
our informants was one of this same gang of robbers. Either he decided
that we were disposed to regard his “pals” in a sufficiently lenient
manner to make our presence in Bolivia immaterial to them, or else he
came to the conclusion that we had nothing worth stealing, for we were
allowed to proceed peaceably and without any annoyance wherever we
journeyed in Bolivia. He put the case quite emphatically to us that it
was necessary for them to make a living, that they were not allowed to
do so peaceably in the States, that they desired only to be let alone
and had no intention of troubling travellers except those that sought to
get information against them. They relied entirely for their support on
being able to overcome armed escorts accompanying loads of cash going to
the mines to liquidate the monthly payroll. This they claimed was
legitimate plunder taken in fair fight. The only individuals who had to
suffer at their hands were those who took up the case against them.
Having laid this down for our edification, he proceeded to tell us what
a reckless lot they were and how famous had been their crimes, at the
same time assuring us that they were all very decent fellows and quite
pleasant companions. Don Santiago, who in his capacity as coach-master
and stage-driver, has had to carry hundreds of thousands of dollars in
cash over the unprotected Bolivian highways, assured us that he had
never been molested by any of these highwaymen because he never troubled
them in any way either by carrying arms or spreading information of
their doings. If the Bolivian bandits are half as bad as they were
painted to us that night, Don Santiago must lead a charmed life for he
and his stages certainly offer an easy mark for any enterprising outlaw.
The view from our hotel the next morning across the sandy plaza of La
Quiaca was anything but inspiring. The plateau is so high and dry that
nothing grows here. Even the mountains, whose tops are really higher
than our own far-famed Pike’s Peak, look stunted like low sand-hills.
Partly finished adobe houses, which were gradually meeting the demands
of the newly-born commercial life of La Quiaca add to the forlorn and
desolate appearance of everything. There was nothing to make us wish to
stay any longer in Argentina, and we eagerly welcomed Don Santiago and
his eight-mule team that
[Illustration: OUR COACH LEAVING THE HOTEL AT LA QUIACA]
rattled up to the door a few minutes after six o’clock.
A quarter of a mile north of the town we crossed the frontier and
entered Bolivia. For the next four hours there was little in the
landscape to relieve the monotony of the journey. As those who are
familiar with stage travel know to their cost, bumping over rough roads
of stone or sand, in a cloud of dust with nothing to see on either side
except a brown, treeless, rolling plateau, is not exciting. Nevertheless
the process of keeping eight mules on the go, up hill and down hill, is
never absolutely devoid of interest. As it was quite impossible for the
driver to reach the foremost mules with his long whip, he employed a
strong-lunged boy to race alongside of the mules, pelt them with stones,
curse them in his worst Spanish, and frighten them into frantic activity
with the lash of a short-handled whip which he laid on with no delicate
hand. The mules became so afraid of his mad rushes that when they heard
him coming they bolted in the opposite direction, sometimes pulling the
stage-coach a rod or two off the road.
In a rarefied atmosphere that would almost kill a foreigner who should
try to run any distance, the Indian boy only found it necessary to take
short rests on the running-board of the coach, and even then he had
breath enough left to keep up shrill whistling and loud shouting so as
to make the mules remember his presence. If he stopped this continuous
performance he heard from the driver in no uncertain language. The
result was that, notwithstanding the primitive cart-track, the stage was
able to make the sixty miles between La Quiaca and Tupiza in twelve
hours. To be sure, there are two changes of mules and the luggage is
carried on a separate wagon. But the road is as bad as it possibly can
be. So much of it is in the bed of a stream, the coaches can only run in
the dry season, May to November. In the rainy season the road disappears
under swollen rivers and resort has to be had to saddle and pack
animals.
In this extremely arid region the business of feeding the mules is a
most difficult one. The rainfall is very slight. It is only by
irrigation that fodder will grow at all. The ground is not sterile but
it is so dry and parched that it does not look as if it would ever grow
anything. The Indians in the vicinity are Quichuas, who speak the same
language as did their former masters, the Incas. They are a patient race
with little ambition and few wants. This does not prevent them, however,
from charging all the traffic will bear when any one desires to purchase
alfalfa or barley straw for his mules. Don Santiago told me that he had
once been obliged to pay as high as forty dollars, gold, for enough
fodder to give an eight-mule team a proper luncheon. Needless to say,
transportation is expensive. The coach-fare from La Quiaca to Tupiza was
ten dollars, about sixteen cents a mile. A charge of two cents a pound
is made for luggage. None is carried free.
Our first stop was at Mojo, to change mules and eat a “breakfast” which
consisted of the customary highly-spiced mutton and potatoes. We were
not “favored by the addition of an excellent roasted guinea pig” as was
Edmond Temple when he stopped here in 1826. Yet guinea-pigs are still
common hereabouts and we saw several on the road.
Mojo is a village of four hundred inhabitants. There is a small branch
office of the Bolivian customs service here which is supposed to look
after travellers and their baggage. The principal custom house for
southern Bolivia is at Tupiza, a much more agreeable spot for the
residence of the officials and a natural distributing point for the
region.
A short distance from Mojo we began an abrupt descent. In one place the
hill was too steep to permit the road to make a proper turn, so we all
had to get out and help lift the stage-coach around a “switch back.”
After this tortuous zigzag we came out on a broad plain over which we
passed without difficulty to the banks of the river Suipacha.
The water was low and the cart-track attempted to steer a straight
course up stream. But as the shrunken current meandered over the sandy
river-bed, we were obliged to ford it every three or four minutes. This
entailed constant difficulties, for the leading mules would invariably
stop to walk as soon as they entered the water, while the others trotted
briskly in and tangled up the whole team. Perhaps the fault was mine,
for I was having my first experience in driving an eight-in-hand, and
the hard-mouthed mules took particular delight in giving me a bad time.
Notwithstanding our difficulties, we reached Suipacha on time, and
stopped to change mules.
This valley was the scene of one of the earliest victories of the
patriots in 1810 at the beginning of the wars of independence. It will
be remembered that after the glorious 25th of May, recently celebrated
in Buenos Aires, the Argentinos attempted to free the province of Upper
Peru from Spanish control. The result of the victory of Suipacha was to
cause the Bolivians to rise and join the Argentinos against their
oppressors. The patriot army marched joyously northward across the
plateau, although the Argentinos suffered greatly from the cold and the
high altitude. When they reached the southern end of Lake Titicaca, the
Spanish army, augmented by hundreds of obedient Quichuas, attacked the
patriots and practically annihilated them.
Suipacha itself, situated on a slight elevation above the banks of the
river, looks like all the other small villages of this arid region.
Plenty of sand and stones, a few mud-walled hovels, some thorny scrub,
here and there an irrigation ditch and a green field, and on every side
barren mountains. A favorite form of fence here is a wall of adobe
blocks, adorned with cactus or thorny mimosa branches.
Suipacha is said to have six hundred inhabitants but it did not seem to
be any larger than Mojo. From here a road goes east to the important
city of Tarija, a pleasant, fertile town in southeastern Bolivia that
enjoys a charming climate, and has often served as a city of refuge for
defeated Argentine politicians who are glad enough to escape to such a
land of corn and wine after unsuccessful revolutions on the dreary
pampas.
The road to Tupiza took us northwest, and continued to follow the bed of
the Suipacha or Estarca,
[Illustration: THE “ANGOSTA DE TUPIZA”]
and one of its tributaries. In the valley were several farms or _fincas_
as they are called here, where small crops are raised by irrigation.
Half-way from Suipacha to Tupiza we passed through a magnificent rocky
gateway called the Angosta de Tupiza. Cliffs five hundred feet high rise
abruptly on each side of the river, leaving barely room enough for the
road even in dry weather. For a distance of seventy feet, the width is
less than thirty feet. Beyond the gate the mountains form a spacious
amphitheatre. During the rainy season, from November to March, it is
frequently impossible to pass through this gorge, even on good
saddle-mules. Fortunately for us, the rains had not yet begun, and we
had no difficulty.
We reached Tupiza, a town of about two thousand inhabitants, just at six
o’clock. It is only ten thousand feet above sea-level, nearly two
thousand feet lower than La Quiaca, and is prettily situated in a plain
less than a mile in width, that in this region may fairly be called
fertile, so great is the contrast with the surrounding desert. Good use
has been made of the water in the little stream, and there are many
cultivated fields and trees in the vicinity.
The plaza is quite an oasis in the wilderness. It is carefully
cultivated and the shrubbery and willow trees make it a delightful spot.
Around the plaza are a few kerosene oil street-lamps on top of wooden
poles set in stone foundations. The white tower of a new church rises
above the trees and makes a good landmark. Near by is the large
two-story warehouse belonging to the Bolivian government and used as a
post-office and custom house.
In the early ’80’s, before the construction of the Antofagasta railway,
most of the commerce of Southern Bolivia passed through Tupiza and the
custom house had more importance than it has now. To-day it has less
than a tenth of its former business. With the completion of the railway
to La Quiaca and its contemplated projection to Tupiza, however, the
local revenue business is bound to increase.
Even at the time of my visit (November, 1908), the street in front of
the custom house was blocked by scores of bales and boxes recently
arrived from La Quiaca and awaiting examination prior to being shipped
north to Potosí on the backs of mules.
On the opposite side of the plaza was a branch of the National Bank of
Bolivia. Here we found that the Bolivian dollar or _peso_ is worth about
forty cents in our money.
The common currency consists of banknotes ranging from one to twenty
_pesos_ in value. These depend entirely for their value upon the
solvency of the bank of issue. Several banks have failed, and the
Indians are very particular what bills they accept. They dislike the
bills of banks that have no agencies in the vicinity and prefer the
bills of the National Bank of Francisco Argondaño.
The nickel subsidiary coinage is usually genuine and is in great demand,
but the smaller silver coins are frequently either counterfeit or so
badly made that they do not ring true and are not accepted by the
Indians with whom one has most to do on the road. Consequently it is the
common practice to tear bills in two when change cannot be made in any
other way. The result is that perfect bills are growing scarce and the
expense of issuing new ones is being felt by the banks. Several times
when cashing checks at branches of these banks, I was paid entirely in
half bills. They are accepted in almost all parts of Bolivia but are at
a discount in La Paz and are not received at all in some localities.
We are told that the scarcity of subsidiary coinage, and the relative
frequency of counterfeit money, is due to the native habit of burying
all coins of real value lest they fall into the hands of unscrupulous
officials and rapacious soldiers. Since time immemorial, enormous
quantities of articles made of the precious metals have been buried by
the Indians.
Tupiza was the scene in 1819 of one of those ineffectual skirmishes in
which the unaided Bolivian patriots endeavored to secure their
independence. In fact, this old trade-route from the Pampas to Potosí
was the scene of numerous engagements during the Wars of Independence.
There are two hotels in Tupiza, one of them being the headquarters of
that section of the Bolivian army which is stationed here to guard the
frontier. The other is more commonly resorted to by travellers. Our inn,
the Grand Hotel Terminus, a long, low building once white-washed, with a
courtyard paved with cobblestones and a few bedrooms opening into the
court, was run by an amiable rascal who I believe claimed to be an
Austrian. However that may be, he belonged to the type that believes in
charging foreigners double the regular tariff. “For one roast fowl,
$2.00, a bottle of vichy, $1.25, one bottle of German beer, $1.00, half
pint of Appolinaris, $.40.” We were not able to get any discount.
Instead of fighting our own battles we foolishly referred the matter to
Don Santiago who lives at the hotel, has his office here, and depends
upon the hotel proprietor for a number of favors. Our request naturally
put him in an embarrassing situation, and all he could say was that the
charges seemed to him to be regular. The proprietor appeared to be drunk
most of the time, but he was not too drunk to charge up all drinks to
his American guests.
There is a club here which was not in a very prosperous condition at the
time of my visit. This may have been due to a patriotic celebration that
had taken place a fortnight before. At that time a little poetical
drama, reminiscent of the first conflict for independence in 1810, was
played in the club-rooms. The drama, written by a local poet, was
dedicated to Señor Aramayo, the Mæcenas of Tupiza, a member of the
wealthiest family of southern Bolivia, and the owner of several rich
silver mines and a large importing warehouse.
The shops of Tupiza were not brilliantly lighted although they contained
quite an assortment of articles of European origin. The trade which they
appeal to is that of the mule-drivers, the _arrieros_, who congregate
here while their cargoes are being inspected by the revenue officers.
The Indians of the vicinity, whose money comes chiefly from the product
of their irrigation ditches, have little to spend.
Tupiza boasts two newspapers; one of them a biweekly, now in its third
year, and the other a literary
[Illustration: FANTASTIC PINNACLES IN THE VALLEYS NORTH OF TUPIZA]
weekly that had recently been started by the author of the poetical
drama just alluded to. The weekly refers to the celebration in most
flattering terms. “Undoubtedly social life in Tupiza had increased so
far that it is high time to commence to notice its faults and
deficiencies. These could easily be removed with proper enthusiasm and
good will. Tupiza is a centre of social culture, but unfortunately it is
not yet able to appreciate such worthy theatrical spectacles as have
recently taken place!”