We left Tupiza on a bright, clear morning and rode northward through a semi-arid region where we were continually reminded of Utah and southern Colorado. For two leagues we saw no house and met no one. The floor of the valley was broad and flat, covered with sand and pebbles, and occasionally intersected by small irrigating ditches. Almost the only green things were cactus and mimosa trees. Barren hills that appear to be crumbling rapidly away rose abruptly on each side. In some places, the eroded hillside took the form of chimneys, ruined factories, or even forts. In others erosion had produced fantastic pinnacles, and often the buttressed hills looked very much like cathedrals.
About nine o’clock we met a Quichua family, the wife carrying the baby and spinning, the man carrying his wooden plough on his shoulder and driving his oxen to an irrigated field where he proposed to do his spring ploughing. His wife had on as many gaudy-colored petticoats as she could afford. Such is the fashion of the country.
Near one of the irrigating ditches under the shadow of the buttressed walls of the cañon, we came upon a hundred mules. Some of them were carrying huge packing-cases, large enough to hold the entire body of the patient mule, provided of course that it were properly cut up and the extremities shortened. In general the pack-mules were fine, large animals, well able to carry their three-hundred-pound loads. With such a caravan as this go a dozen arrieros who rise each day three hours before dawn and commence the everlasting task of saddling and loading. When this is done, the men eat a hearty breakfast, prepared in the meantime by one of their number, and then start out for an eight-hour march. About five o’clock in the afternoon, or earlier, if they have by that time reached a suitable camping-place, the caravan stops and unloading begins, which is finished barely in time to give the men a few hours of slumber before the whole process has to be repeated.
Fortunately, most of these cases of merchandise were packed in Germany where they know how to meet the exigencies of South American mountain travel, and although the great wooden boxes were banged against projecting rocks by the roadside and often allowed to fall with a crash when the saddle-ropes were untied at the end of the day, the contents were practically sure to reach their destination in good condition.
At noon we came to a group of freshly white-washed adobe farm buildings, the property of an absentee landlord. Here we were able to purchase green fodder for the mules, and luncheon, in the shape of very hot soup and tea, for ourselves. In one of the buildings was a district school with six or eight pupils, the scholars evincing their studiousness by learning their lessons out loud. The resultant noise would considerably jar on the ear of a highly strung New England “schoolmarm,” but the good-natured Bolivian teacher did not know that he had any nerves, and only wanted to be sure that all his pupils were busy.
After lunch our road continued up the same arid valley past flocks of goats that strove to get a living from the low-hanging branches of the mimosa trees. Some of the more adventurous had even gone up into the trees to secure a meal.
In the middle of the afternoon, we climbed out of one valley and looked down into another. From the pass we had a fine view of the valley through which we had come. The prevailing color was brown with here and there a touch of dusty green. All around there was a confusion of barren hills and arid mountains without a single evidence of human habitation. The only sign of life was the long line of the mule caravan which we had passed earlier in the day. The country is so unfitted for the habitation of man that the general effect of this and of most of the scenery in southern Bolivia is oppressive and dispiriting.
Shortly before sunset, however, we came to a beautiful spring called the “Eye of the Water,” which bubbled up by the roadside and flowed off into carefully guarded irrigating ditches. As was to be expected, there was a small Indian village in the vicinity. The villagers were Quichuas, wearing small felt hats, scanty shirts, and short loose pantaloons made of what seemed to be homespun cloth. It was rather attractive in appearance, and as it had the romantic flavor of being made here by the Indians, we were inclined to purchase some until we discovered that it was only “imitation” and was made in great quantities in Manchester, England. These Quichuas are a humble folk, excessively polite to each other, doffing their hats whenever they meet. Both men and women wore their hair in long braids down their backs.
The little village sprawled up the side of the cañon just out of reach of the floods which occasionally pour through this valley in the rainy season. In one of the huts a kind of spring carnival was being celebrated with a reasonable amount of drinking. Solemn singing and a monotonous tom-tomming of a primitive drum were the only signs of gaiety except a few bright flowers which they had gathered somewhere and put in their hair. As no rain was to be expected and the village had the usual component of filth and insects, we set up our folding cots in the dry bed of the stream. The elevation was about ten thousand feet. The stars were very brilliant. The night was cool, the minimum temperature being 47°F., a drop of forty degrees from the afternoon’s maximum.