WAYFARING IN BOLIVIA--THE ROYAL ANDES
_Old Spanish Trail from Argentina--Customs Outpost at Majo--Sublime
Mountain View--Primitive Native Life--Sunbeaten Limestone
Hills--Vale of Santa Rosa--Tupiza’s People and Their
Pursuits--Ladies’ Fashions among the Indian Women--Across
the Chichas Cordilleras--Barren Vegetation--Experience with
Siroche, or Mountain Sickness--Personal Discomforts--Hard
Riding--Portugalete Pass--Alpacas and Llamas--Sierra of
San Vicente--Uyuni a Dark Ribbon on a White Plain--Mine
Enthusiasts--Foreign Consulates._
I journeyed into Bolivia, the heart of South America, from northern
Argentina with pack animals over the old Inca and Spanish trail.
The Pacific coast routes for reaching the imprisoned country are
by the railroad from Mollendo to Lake Titicaca, and then across
the lake and by the little railway from Guaqui to La Paz; by the
railroad from Arica to Tacna, and from Tacna by mules to Corocoro,
whence a stage may be had to La Paz, 60 miles farther on; and by
the railroad from Antofagasta to Oruro, 575 miles, and then by
stage to La Paz, 160 miles.
The ancient and historic route from the Atlantic is the one that is
followed in the prolongation of the Argentina Railway lines, and in
joining the new Bolivian links so as to form a complete section in
the Intercontinental or Pan-American system from Buenos Ayres to
Lake Titicaca. From Jujuy, 1,000 miles distant from Buenos Ayres,
up through northern Argentina, the course is in a double funnel
along the great _cañon_, or _quebrada_, of Humahuaca. The trail
widens in the valley of Tupiza, and then contracts from Tupiza
west and north into difficult mountain passes through the Chichas
Cordilleras and the sierras of San Vicente, until the Altiplanicie,
or great Bolivian table-land that lies between the granitic Oriental,
or Royal, Cordilleras and the volcanic Occidental, or Western,
Cordilleras, is reached.
The boundary between Argentina and Bolivia is the Quiaca River.
The town of La Quiaca on the Argentine side is the frontier custom
house. On the Bolivian border is a big ranch with a row of willow
trees. There is a fair road through an alternation of gravelly
mountain-sides and rounded tops. The first Bolivian settlement is
Majo in the valley, an adobe village of a few hundred inhabitants.
This place is the customs outpost. Majo has a government post, or
inn, which is called a _tambo_. The _tambo_ consists of a corral for
the animals and an adobe hut for the accommodation of strangers.
Lodging is free. The traveller spreads his blankets on the earth
floor or on the mud benches along the wall. The innkeeper, who is a
government official, provides him with food. I got chicken, rice,
and bread, which was luxurious feasting after ten days’ hardships.
Fodder was supplied the animals at a fair charge, and a smithy,
which was part of the inn, was free for the use of the _arriero_,
or muleteer.
It was September when I was at Majo. At five o’clock in the afternoon
the thermometer marked 76° Fahrenheit, and at seven o’clock, when
the sun had gone down, it marked 46.5°, a noticeable change. At
mid-day at this season the temperature was about 86°. In the early
morning before sunrise I had broken a film of ice on one of the
rivulets in a sequestered gulch.
But Bolivia is not seen from the little valley in which the hamlet
of Majo lies. After two hours of going down and up steep hills the
eminence on the edge of an extensive gorge is reached. It is the
first view of the Royal Andes and their sierras. A sublime sight it
is. The change from the arid, half-desert scenery is startling. The
mountains in the foreground lie in irregular, transverse black and
gray masses, and through the mists the fleecy peaks and pinnacled
precipices are visible. The dominating one is Guadalupe, 18,870
feet above sea-level, the Pike’s Peak of Bolivia. Closer at hand
the sierras are covered with some appearance of vegetation,--pale
green cacti and russet brown thorn-bushes or acacias. I followed
the ravine down along the banks of the dried-up river, which was
bordered with pepper trees and willows. In this valley are a number
of attractive small farms. After leaving it there is another hill
climb. Yuruma, the hill village, is a dilapidated collection of
adobe cabins.
Genuine Bolivian life, the primitive and patriarchal existence,
I encountered in the villages of Nazarene and Suipacha. They lie
on either side of the Grand, or San Juan, River, which is easily
forded in the dry season. It was a rural scene that would have
delighted the poet or the philosopher who wants to go back to
Nature. Nothing more tranquil in all the world than this secluded
nook in the Andes. The women were washing clothes in the streams,
the men and boys were working in the fields, the flocks of sheep
and cattle grazed placidly in the valley and on the hillside, and
everybody had a respectful greeting to the stranger, sometimes in
Spanish, sometimes in the Quichua tongue. The donkeys wandered
about bearing clay water-jars and apparently without a driver until
a small and wrinkled old man with most wonderfully patched and
brilliantly colored trousers, screamed to them, and they stopped
where a customer waited. The cabins were of adobe, or unbaked brick.
Some were quite neat and were half hidden in gardens surrounded by
mud walls covered with thorn-bushes.
I never met so many very old people as in these two primitive
villages. Far from the carking cares and ambitions of the world, they
follow their uneventful course until the sands of life literally
run out. In front of one cabin was an old woman crooning over her
bowl of porridge. She appeared to me a vitalized mummy. I reined
my mule before a dwelling a little farther on and asked, “What is
the age of _la viejicita_ (the little old woman)?” “We don’t know,
sir,” replied the occupant, civilly. “We think she is more than
one hundred and fifteen years old. Her great-grandchildren say she
is one hundred and twenty-five.” I might doubt the family records
of the crone as preserved by the great-grandchildren, yet seeing
her it was easy to believe that her life may have spanned three
centuries,--born in the late years of the eighteenth and stretching
through the nineteenth into the twentieth,--for she certainly was
more than one hundred. When the Bolivian census was taken a few
years ago, the enumerators reported 1,261 persons whose age passed
the century mark, and many of these centenarians dwelt in this San
Juan valley.
The gold-hunters at various times have ruffled the placid life of
the inhabitants. A ledge of quartz cropping out from the side of
the sierra near Suipacha has been attacked viciously, but more
promise has been held out by the placer yields. Its sands are not
all golden, yet they have yielded enough to encourage the investment
of a large amount of capital in companies formed for the purpose of
dredging the river-bed. These enterprises have their headquarters
in Buenos Ayres. During my journey I found the people impatient
for the arrival of the heavy dredging machinery which was at the
seaboard awaiting transportation. It arrived later.
After leaving Suipacha there was a very hot and dusty hill climb of
three hours, although most of it was along a fine piece of mountain
highway, really a splendid triumph of road engineering. The hills
all around here seemed to be limestone, and the sun beating on them
created the most intense heat that I experienced anywhere. In the
morning at sunrise my thermometer registered 50° Fahrenheit. In the
early afternoon in the midst of these limestone cliffs it marked
110° Fahrenheit. This was 15 degrees higher than at any other point
in the journey. I might have questioned the correctness of the
thermometer, but its previous and its subsequent registrations I
was able to verify, so that there was no reason to doubt its verity
in registering this locality.
But though the glaring sun and the choking dust made the afternoon
very uncomfortable, there was compensation. It was almost dusk when
we--myself, the muleteer, and the pack animals--descended into
the vale of Santa Rosa and found it gloriously restful. A model
ranch spreads through the valley. The bed of the river is among
spur cliffs and broken mountain walls on either side, out of which
plunge miniature Niagaras. The stream is bordered by willows. It
narrows until its course is forced through a cliff which rises
sheer in front to the height of 700 or 800 feet and is known as the
Angustora, or Narrow Way. The needle-point chasm made by the river
has been enlarged by artificial means, and the narrow way is wide
enough for ox-carts.
After the Angustora the course broadens again into the valley. The
stream is very crooked and has to be forded often. At this season
the fording was not difficult, but in January and February, when
the rains come, the only passage is along a trail well up the side
of the precipice, for the river-bed is a tumultuous torrent.
Tupiza lies in this vale of Santa Rosa, the brook being an affluent
of the San Juan and sometimes called the San Juan. I entered the
village by moonlight. I left it early one morning by starlight. The
night of my arrival fourteen hours continuously in the saddle had
wearied me greatly, yet the physical sensation disappeared in an
instant on entering the beautiful valley, bathed as it was in the
soft moonlight. When taking a last look at it, there was the same
impression of charm. The river is fringed by drooping, feathery
willows of the softest and most velvety green. They seem to be
taking a perpetual bath in the dews. There are also the pepper
trees. After a long desert ride the sober verdure of these trees
is always refreshing. It is a harbinger of revivified Nature, but
here in contrast with the glistening green willows they are the
merest drabs.
The mountains which shut in the valley are brown, with granite flanks
exposed; and the sunsets--ah! the artist would have to penetrate this
lovely region to see whether the miracle of silver gray changing
into impalpable azure and then flaming into red prairie fire can
be transferred to canvas.
Tupiza is the most important place in southern Bolivia. It is
the gateway north, south, east, and west. It is 9,800 feet above
sea-level. The town has 5,000 inhabitants, and is the head of
administration for the department. The church edifice has twin towers
and a blue front, with much gaudy and gingerbread ornamentation
inside and out. The government building, which includes the custom
house, post-office, and telegraph office, is more tasteful. It is
of two stories, with brown front and with arcade windows. There
are a few two-story houses with narrow window balconies, but the
dwellings are mostly of one story, with sloping grass-thatched roofs
and whitewashed or dark blue fronts. They have square inner courts,
or _patios_, and are without windows opening on the streets. As
the street door is kept closed, there is complete seclusion from
outside life.
The plaza is ornamented with feathery willow trees, under one of
which in the heat of the day the public business is transacted,
the desks and chairs being moved out from the government building.
I watched the process for a couple of hours one day, and found it
a not unpleasing picture of local and patriarchal administration.
A fountain in the centre of the plaza at all hours is thronged by
the men and women with their earthen water-jars, gossiping and
quarrelling. There are many small shops for the sale of fruits,
vegetables, and gaudy handkerchiefs. The women venders exercise
squatter sovereignty on every street corner.
Ladies’ fashions are of so world-wide an interest that I digress
to describe them as they were seen at Tupiza, as I had seen them
in the primitive villages of Nazarene and Suipacha, as I saw them
afterward at Uyuni and other places, including the capital.
The prized possession of the Bolivian Indian woman, and her chief
pride also, whether she is pure Indian or _chola_, is her petticoat.
Her dowry is in this garment. Like the Dutch woman of tradition,
she carries her wealth about her. These petticoats are of all the
colors of the rainbow and divers other hues not found therein. I
first noticed them at Nazarene, and remarked the love of color,
which must be inborn, for the garments were of purple, violet, fiery
red, crimson, scarlet, subdued orange, glaring saffron, blue, and
green. They were very short, reaching barely below the knee, and
no difference was observed between childhood, maidenhood, matronly
middle life, and wrinkled old age. Glancing from my window in
Tupiza, I thought it was a parade of perambulating balloons.
The more well-to-do of the Indian women have stockings and shoes,
but the love of color does not extend to the hosiery. Most of this
wear is of ordinary brown or black. There is, however, pride and
something like social distinction with regard to the footwear. I
was amused on seeing the number of russet gaiters. Later at Uyuni I
remarked that the prevailing fashion was high-heeled French gaiters,
but in Tupiza and the other villages the extreme was not so great.
Nor does the possession of the shoes make stockings necessary. Many
of the Indian women with their plethora of petticoats apparently
consider the acme reached if they can also have shoes, and do not
fret themselves over hosiery.
These women have a habit which the bashful traveller does not
at first understand. When he sees one of them calmly removing a
petticoat, he is apt to turn away, but he need not do so. It may
be that the advancing heat of the day has caused the wearer to
discard the outer skirt, but more likely it is the vanity of her
sex, and the desire to make her sisters envious by showing what is
beneath, for each new vesture disclosed is more brilliant than the
one which overlapped it. I sat in the plaza at Tupiza and watched
two Indian women try to make each other envious. The first one
removed the outer petticoat, which was of purple. This divestment
disclosed another garment of blazing red, and after that came a
brilliant yellow. The other woman started with a green petticoat,
and gradually got down to a mixture of blue and yellow. By that
time I had begun to fear for the consequences, and made a pretence
of turning my back by strolling to the hotel.
From Tupiza to Uyuni is three days’ hard riding with horse or
mule, and usually it is nearer four. The region is graphic in its
grandeur of conical peaks, Chorolque, Guadalupe, Cotaigata, Ubina,
eternally snow-covered, which hold beneath their granite domes a
mass of mineral wealth that is for the centuries. The trail by which
one passes is along the torn flanks and through the harsh passes
of the Chichas and the San Vicente ranges.
[Illustration: Sandstone Pillars near Tupiza]
The morning we left we followed the river-bed, passed some good
farms and mud huts, and continued through a pasturage on which were
grazing goats, llamas, and sheep. The vegetation was of yellow
mustard flowers in bloom, pale cactus stalks, brown thorn-trees,
and clumps of russet grass. There are a big, gaudy ranch-house,
which looks like an imitation French castle, and an ornate little
chapel at the head of the valley before it narrows into a chain of
crooked gorges. The mountains seem to lie squarely across the way
in irregular masses, like gigantic wedges, but there are abrupt
hatchet gashes in the sides and many defiles, crevasses, and chasms.
A few miles from Tupiza the geological formation is very curious.
At a distance the appearance is that of an old city of crumbling
brown cathedrals, towers, buildings, and solitary sentinels. The
sandstone formations resemble brown instead of crystal stalagmites.
Some of the figures are strikingly grotesque. It is really a series
of crenellated mud mountains which have been worn by the atmosphere
and the water cutting down and washing away the earth.
The first stopping-place is the hamlet of Ingenia. This place has
a _tambo_ and a mud chapel and church. The Indian natives were
blear-eyed, dirty, and the most repulsive that I met anywhere, but
they were devout and hospitable. They escorted me to the chapel to
see the image of the Virgin, which had some special history, and they
got some fresh eggs for me. The altitude of Ingenia is 10,200 feet.
I set out in the early morning with my pack animals and muleteer,
all of us in ill humor because of a bad night’s entertainment. The
day’s journey to Escariano, the next lodging-place, was not a long
one. Beyond Ingenia the river course is narrow, and allows no room
for ranches or even farms of the ordinary size, though there are
some pasturage and a weedy kind of grass, scrub fir, or juniper. I
was surprised at the number of quail which started up from every
bush, and also at the variety of song-birds that hardly would be
looked for in a treeless country.
Two or three hours from Ingenia the thread of the trail along the
margin of the ravine narrows until it is not possible for animals
or persons to pass. On entering the long _cañon_ it is necessary
to call out and make sure that no one is coming from the opposite
direction. The echoes rumble through the gorges and finally die
away. If no answering call is heard, it is safe to go forward along
the edge of the sloping precipice. Sometimes _tropas_, or droves
of burros and llamas, get into this gorge from both entrances, and
then there is a controversy, and also a difficulty about backing
out until space can be found for passing.
The _cañon_ opens into a circle of slaty limestone hills, which
have to be climbed and descended with considerable care. There
are some white cactus bulbs with yellow flowers, and also in this
locality some abandoned mine shafts. The cost of fuel and of freight
transport made it necessary to close the mines until a railroad
shall be built.
An incident of the day is thunder and a threatened rain. A ragged
purple curtain hangs over the summit of Guadalupe, but that is far
away and the clouds pass. They are followed by a soft wind which
grows almost into a gale.
These winds are said by the Indians to cause the _siroche_, which
is the dread both of the natives and of travellers. Some authorities
claim that the illness is due to the presence in the earth of
minerals, which are exhaled like gases and poison the atmosphere.
I had been warned especially against this sickness when crossing
the sierras between Tupiza and Uyuni, but during my travels in the
Andes I experienced only one attack of _siroche_, and this was
before reaching Tupiza. It had been a long morning climb and ride
across sandy plains and among the cactus and fir underbrush. Coming
up gradually from the sea-level and by slow stages, I had not felt
any serious apprehension, though somewhat troubled by a neuralgic
headache and by just the appearance of bleeding at the nostrils.
That morning the wind was blowing so softly that it seemed to cradle
itself. A feeling of intense depression came over me. It was purely
mental, because the day had not advanced far enough for the physical
fatigue to manifest itself. I was out of temper, and my nerves were
on edge. At noon, taking the observation of the temperature by means
of a Centigrade thermometer, I found myself in a hopeless muddle in
trying to reduce it to Fahrenheit. The method was absolutely clear
in my mind,--“divide by 5, multiply by 9, add 32,”--but at every
calculation the result was different, though I was certain I was
following the rule. Finally I turned to the muleteer and asked him
crossly, “Loreto, what’s the matter with me?” “It’s the _siroche_,
sir,” he explained. “The wind is very bad to-day, but if you can
keep on for a few hours we’ll be all right.” Then he looked at me
a little suspiciously and said, “I don’t think we had better stop
here.”
I had no desire to stop there under the savage sun, while the wind
was forming white mantles of sand on the fir bushes, and told him we
would go on. We kept on, and I began to feel myself again, though
for a period of perhaps six hours I was in a condition of collapse
similar to that which I often had experienced following attacks
of sea-sickness. In my own case, however, there was none of the
nausea which accompanies that distressing malady, and which with
most persons is also an incident of _siroche_. My muleteer’s fear
was that I would insist on stopping or on turning back. He had had
that trouble with two or three persons whom he had guided over the
mountains, and, as he told me, they had given him a great deal of
worry by their whims.
Having had this attack, I was a little apprehensive with regard to
crossing the _punas_, or table-lands, from Tupiza to Uyuni, and I
could see that my _arriero_ also was watchful. But I felt not the
slightest symptoms. Mining engineers who make that journey two
or three times a year told me that they always suffered from the
_siroche_. Animals likewise suffer from it. The horse is of little
use in these altitudes, and the mules are not immune. My own pack
animals gave out twice.
My greatest annoyance was from the blistering and bleeding of the
lips due to the dry wind. The natives grow expert enough to save
themselves by means of scarfs while riding, but I found that this
method gave me no protection. My lips were swollen unnaturally, and
local applications did not reduce the swelling or the pain except
temporarily at night. It was weeks before they became normal, and
this I found was the gravest inconvenience in traversing the
_punas_. My nerves also were under intense strain. That tension is
unavoidable so high up, but it is something that gradually can be
overcome. After living a month at an altitude of 12,000 to 14,000
feet, I experienced little annoyance from keyed-up nerves.
The increased heart movement is something which no one can escape,
and it varies only in degree according to the individual. Jogging
along comfortably on the back of a mule, the accelerated action is
not appreciated, but let the traveller get off to rest the animal
by walking and he quickly discovers the limit of his exertion. In
my own case I found it easier to climb the hills afoot than to
descend them, the heart apparently pumping with more regularity on
the up-grade. But at night, after a hard day’s travel, on lying
down to sleep it would be half an hour to an hour before the
trip-hammer beating would lull itself away into slower and more
regular palpitations.
From Escariano to Tambilla is a wearying ride. The course is across
gorges and chasms, up the dry river-bed, then down for a good many
hundred feet and again up into white plains covered with scrub. The
longest climb is up the corkscrew height of Portugalete. It would
be not only cruelty, but physical impossibility, to surmount this
summit on the back of a mule, and I trudged it at an even pace with
the panting pack animals. The pass or gateway of Portugalete is
14,137 feet above sea-level. Through this pass the railroad will
wriggle its way.
After the divide was reached the descent was fairly steady, though
abrupt. Guadalupe was in sight part of the day, and there were
also glimpses of other peaks, snow-covered, while in some of
the transverse gorges which the sun did not penetrate I saw the
perpetual ice and snow. I stopped two or three times to gather a
handful of snow, and then climbed back on the mule, passing in a
very brief space of time from temperature below freezing to 90°
or 95° Fahrenheit. On this slope were pasturing many alpacas and
other sheep as well as goats and llamas.
During that long day we passed just two human dwellings, adobe huts,
and reached Tambilla after nightfall. Tambilla lies in a valley,
but its altitude is 12,900 feet. The Indians who kept the _tambo_
were very indifferent to our comfort. They were having some kind of
a celebration, and at first professed not to understand Spanish.
As the _arriero_ knew a little Quichua, he went after them in the
Indian vernacular, and I swore some Spanish oaths, which were not
nice but which brought out sullen rejoinders and the promise of
something to eat. This was prepared in time,--the usual _chupé_,--but
having seen its preparation, my stomach revolted, and I went to
bed after partaking of hot coffee and crackers. During the night a
freight train arrived, burros laden with dynamite for the mines,
and I felt satisfaction in hearing the freighters, all of whom were
natives, take possession of the sleeping quarters of the inmates
of the _tambo_.
It was a relief to get away in the early morning long before sunrise.
The sun disclosed the edges of a vast mountain plain, with sand-dunes
and scrub breaking its monotonous stretch and a rim of chalk-white
mountains enclosing the whole basin. This was the Sierra of San
Vicente. Again I noticed the presence of both quail and song-birds.
About noon we reached a bend in the dry river-bed and even a
rivulet of water. A ruined cabin and a corral fallen into disuse
were here. In front were two graves marked by stones and a rude
cross. My muleteer mused a moment. He pointed to the cabin, then
to the graves, and shook his head. “I was here a year ago, Señor,”
he said, “and they [pointing to the graves as though he could see
their tenants] were there [pointing to the cabin] then.”
The afternoon was a gradual but steady climb among vast sheep
pastures which were still peopled with many flocks, although nearly
all the huts had been abandoned by their human dwellers. Toward
evening after another long ascent we crossed an easy gradation of
summits and then down to Amachuma. It is 12,444 feet above sea-level.
The Indians at Amachuma were indifferently hospitable. At first they
professed ignorance of any language except Quichua, but later, when
the government innkeeper appeared, we got passable accommodations,
one of the mud benches along the wall being cleared of the dogs
and the natives in order that I might spread my blankets.
From Amachuma the next morning we rode for two hours up and across
the chalk-white hills, and then a dark ribbon forked out on a vast
plain below. “That is Uyuni,” said Loreto, my muleteer, simply. It
lay against the horizon like a frozen sea. For the first time in
weeks Loreto became enthusiastic. “There [to the north] is Oruro;
there [to the south] is Antofagasta; there [to the east] the Potosi
silver mines; here, Huanchaca silver mines; but, Señor, there is no
water in Uyuni for my mules. I shall have to lead them back here
to-night.”
Uyuni is a waterless oasis on the salt pampa.
Two hours descending through the white sand and scrub and we were
on the outskirts of the place. The most prominent spot which we had
seen proved to be the cemetery. The town is a staked, plain kind of
settlement, without shrub or tree. The railroad yard, enclosed by
a corrugated iron fence stockade, takes in most of the municipal
territory. Caravans of llamas and droves of burros and mules filled
the streets. Much of the freighting is done by the llamas. There are
many small shops and several very extensive warehouses and supply
stores.
Uyuni is an outfitting and shipping centre. It is on the edge of
one of the most productive and varied mineral districts in Bolivia.
In 1885 there was almost no settlement, but the development of the
Huanchaca and the other mines made a town necessary. Huanchaca is
nine miles away on the railroad spur. Though the company a few years
ago was compelled to spend a large amount of money in pumping out
the Pulacayo mines, the output was diminished only temporarily. It
furnishes the bulk of the freight down the railroad to the coast
at Antofagasta.
Everybody in Uyuni is an enthusiast on mines. I felt myself in
Colorado or the Black Hills when the local judge and a party of
citizens came to welcome me. The judge drew a rough map of the
district. “Here,” he said, “is tin; there, gold; yonder, silver; over
there, copper; out this way, borax; off here, bismuth; this way,
lead; a little beyond, antimony.” He and his fellow-citizens were
very anxious for the railroad to be built to Guadalupe and Tupiza,
so that the mineral industry could be assured of transportation
facilities.
In strolling about I observed all the characteristics of the native
Indian race, and of the _cholos_. The fondness of the women for
bright petticoats and French gaiters I have recounted. It affords a
lesson to the political economist by showing that artificial wants
can be created and goods sold in remote communities. Not only were
French gaiters in demand, but gaudy handkerchiefs for head-dresses
and also much jewelry that was not gaudy. Many of the women had
finger-rings and ear-rings of gold. They appeared superior to the
men, who are given to imbibing alcohol. But I would not be too
censorious. I had seen these men in the desolate, lonely passes
and on the dreary sand-plains, and was not sure, if my life from
New Year’s to New Year’s had to be passed in the same way, that
whenever I got into Uyuni with a chance for human companionship,
I also would not get drunk.
Uyuni is intensely cold, lying, as the town does, at an altitude
of 12,100 feet under the snow mountains which send down their icy
breath, and on the salt plains which, when the rays of the sun
are off them, are scarcely less chilling. The legend told every
newcomer is of going to bed with a bottle of hot water to keep the
feet warm, and waking up to find the glass in fragments and the
ice retaining the perfect form of the bottle. I did not have this
experience, but in September, which is in the beginning of Spring,
the cold was penetrating enough to make me believe the story.
I noted on Sunday several foreign flags flying over various
consulates; and this was a reminder that Uyuni, through its
commercial and mining interests, is a kind of international centre.
The Italians, French, Germans, and Chileans have the largest
interests among the foreigners, though a fair proportion of the
business is in the hands of Bolivians. Some of the foreigners
originally came over the trail from Argentina. More of them followed
the routes of travel from the Pacific.