In the evening a party of foreigners arrived, consisting of a wealthy Franco-Boliviano and his two sons who were on their way home from Paris. They amused us by their elaborate preparations to supply themselves with drinks and edibles. Little alcohol stoves were kept busy making hot toddy, and drinks without number soon produced a very drowsy party.
We got an early start the next morning and, in an hour after leaving Pampa Tambo, came in sight of the great river Pilcomayo which is associated with the tragic death of the French explorer, Creveaux. The Pilcomayo rises west of Potosí, receives the turbid waters that have passed through Potosí’s smelters, flows east and then southeast towards Paraguay, finally joining the Paraguay River just above Asuncion. Were it not for the gigantic morass, the Estero Patino, which interrupts its course for about fifty miles, it would serve as a convenient means of communication between the mining region of Bolivia and the Rio de la Plata. Most of its course is through the Gran Chaco, a debateable land that has been only partly explored.
East of the Andes, where the affluents of the Pilcomayo are almost interlaced with those of the Mamoré, in the watershed between the basins of the Amazon and the Paraná, lies a region of rich tropical forests with possibilities of development that appeal very strongly to far-sighted Bolivianos. The conditions are tropical, the soil is fertile, and there is an abundance of rain. There are, however, in this region, many tribes of wild Indians of whom little is known and who have shown no desire to encourage the advent of strangers. Transportation is exceedingly difficult.
We found that a suspension bridge had been built across the Pilcomayo at its narrowest and deepest point, but owing to the tardiness of the wet season, we were able to ford the stream lower down and save a détour of several miles. After crossing the river we rode up a dry gulch in which an attempt at cultivation by means of irrigating ditches was producing both pomegranates and peaches.
An hour’s ride beyond the river brought us to Calera, a little hamlet of Indian huts with a very primitive tambo. We had counted on resting here during the middle of the day, but there was absolutely nothing to be had either for man or beast. We could have unloaded and unpacked our own supplies, but there is no point in eating when your mules cannot eat, and so we pushed on, twelve miles further, to the town of Yotala. Our path crossed a low range of barren hills and then descended a thousand feet or more by a steep, winding path to the river Cachimayo which we forded without difficulty. In this little valley we found many attractive plantations, the fincas or country houses of the wealthy residents of Sucre. Extensive irrigation has transformed the bed of the valley into what seems like a veritable paradise, so great is its contrast with the barren region around about.
Yotala is an old Spanish town, much more dead than alive. There was an inn, misnamed a “restaurant,” where there was nothing to be had in the way of food for any of us. Fermin finally succeeded in finding a poor widow who had a little fodder for sale and was willing to let the mules eat it in her back yard. As for ourselves, we had to fall back as usual on canned goods, just as though this were an isolated poste, twenty miles from anywhere, instead of being a town of several thousand inhabitants. We spread out our little lunch on the stones of the plaza under two trees.
As it was noon, and the sky cloudless, the sun shone with considerable ferocity. Presently a slovenly official with an expression on his face that said plainly he was not quite sure whether we were distinguished travellers who ought to be looked after or only vagabonds who should be driven off, came and inquired if we were French merchants. On receiving a negative reply he seemed rather relieved and withdrew to the shade of his own house. Of course if we had whispered the magic words “delegados de los Estados Unidos,” all would have been different.