Many of the llama drivers carried primitive musical instruments. The most common form was a bamboo flute or flageolet with six holes. On these the Indians succeed in playing weird, monotonous airs in which a fantastic reiteration of simple strains is varied with occasional bursts of high, screechy notes. Some of the drivers had little guitars of a very primitive construction on which they thrummed rather monotonously. Some had their wives and children with them. The women were nearly always engaged in spinning yarn with a wooden spindle which they handled with the dexterity of a professional juggler. Two or three men, and a boy or so, generally accompanied a caravan of sixty or seventy llamas. Each driver carried a knitted sling made of llama wool and found no lack of ammunition by the roadside with which to urge forward his flock or to head off a stray animal. We were always amused when we met a drove. The leaders would approach gingerly, stretching their long necks and looking very much like timid, near-sighted dowagers. They scarcely knew whether to advance or to retreat. A few flying rocks from the slings of the drivers, followed up by encouraging shouts, generally decided the leaders to proceed, but some were so palpably “frightened to death” by everything they saw, we were surprised they had managed to live so long. Occasionally a herd coming from Sucre laden with chocolate or sugar and bound eastward, would meet one coming from the railroad with foreign merchandise. This nearly always resulted in great confusion and much shouting. The llamas looked so stupid we wondered how they ever succeeded in extricating themselves and proceeding in the right direction. At one point where the road almost disappeared among a wilderness of huge, scattered boulders, we met a large drove that had lost all sense of direction. Every attempt of the drivers to get their animals headed the same way met with failure. The beasts seemed to be infused with some centrifugal force which sent every one of them in a different direction from his neighbor. Owing to the huge rocks, it was impossible for the poor creatures to see one another or the drivers. They may be there yet.
There is something extremely amusing in the soft tread, the awkward gait, the large innocent eyes, and the inquisitive ears of the llama. Many had the tips of their ears decorated with bits of colored worsted. I saw two that were decked out with very elaborate headdresses. They never seemed to be in a hurry, any more than their Indian drivers, and their disposition is much more gentle and inoffensive than I had been led to suppose.
About ten miles from Ocurí I saw several fat lizards each about six inches long. The altitude at the time was about fourteen thousand feet, the record height for lizards, so I am told.
Soon afterwards we got a glimpse to the northwards of the sharp peaks near Colquechaca, one of the highest towns in the world, which owes its existence, as do so many of the Bolivian towns, to the presence in its vicinity of rich silver mines.
We reached Macha at noon on the third day, after a hot ride of thirty miles from Ocurí.
Macha is another dusty-brown, Indian town lying on the slopes of a large valley. Near by we saw some evidences of cultivation. The fields were surrounded with walls of dried mud and had large adobe gates reminding me of the Sogamoso valley in Colombia. That region, however, was so much greener and more fertile than this that the resemblance ceased with the gates and fences. It should be remembered that the rainy season here had only just begun.
As we descended the east side of the valley, we met a six-mule coach on its way from Challapata to Sucre. The curtains were drawn down on all sides to protect the passengers from the dust and glare. Their outlook was rather limited. A quarter of a mile beyond we met a drove of relay coach mules, in charge of two mounted postillons.
There is a moderately good coach-road two hundred and ten miles long from Sucre to Challapata. The coach runs fortnightly, in pleasant weather, and takes five days for the journey. Personally, I should prefer almost anything rather than to be shut up in a Bolivian coach and yanked over these rough, dusty roads, but I suppose some people would relish even that better than jogging along forty miles a day on a mule, as we chose to do.
We left Macha after a light lunch but had not gone a mile before we were pelted by a violent thunder-shower accompanied by hail, some of the stones being as large as marbles. To add to our discomfort the mules had made rapid marches since leaving Sucre and were very tired. The road out of the valley was steep and slippery. When we reached the summit, the storm renewed its fury, and we all shivered with the cold, in contrast to the burning heat of the morning. At this height, whenever the sun shines, the glare is trying and the heat really uncomfortable. As soon as the sun passes behind a cloud, however, one experiences all the rigors of winter.
We arrived at the lonely isolated poste of Aconcawa just at sunset. The Aymará postillons were as disobliging as possible. Four or five Bolivian travellers had reached the poste ahead of us and taken possession of the only available sleeping room. The night was bitterly cold and wet. The altitude was something over thirteen thousand feet. After some difficulty, we succeeded in forcing our way into a room where the cebada or barley straw was stored. South of Potosí the fodder for the mules is generally alfa or alfalfa but hereabouts it is cebada. The Indians were so afraid of our damaging the straw by sleeping on it that they swept it up and piled it on one side of the room as high as possible, raising clouds of fine dust in the meantime. The dust did not settle for many hours and brought on asthma when we tried to sleep. Soon after leaving Aconcawa, Fermin’s sharp eyes detected three vicuñas, feeding, a mile away to the south of us. I could barely make them out with powerful field-glasses and should never have seen them at all but for the keen-eyed gaucho. It seemed strange that these should be the only vicuñas which we saw in a wild state in our entire journey in southern Bolivia. Travellers fifty years ago speak of meeting them constantly in the more desolate parts of the mountains. Before the great demand arose for vicuña rugs, those highly-prized trophies of the casual visitor, these graceful and beautiful creatures, with their fawn-colored coats, were one of the most interesting features of travel in the lonely upland pastures of the Bolivian and Peruvian mountains.