The morning had been cloudy, cold, and disagreeable but the afternoon was worse. Clouds of dust and peals of thunder ushered in the usual storm. Our road, however, was not as rocky and precipitous as on the preceding days. We crossed several broad plains, joined the Potosí-Challapata trail and passed near Vilcapujio, another of the battlefields of the War of Independence. In 1813 the soldiers of Buenos Aires had again invaded Bolivia to assist the patriots of Upper Peru. They reached Potosí in safety and were on their way north to Oruro when they were met here at the fork in the road and defeated by the Spaniards. A few days later came the battle of Ayoma, near Macha. The result was temporarily fatal to the cause of Bolivian independence.
We had another unpleasant experience on our arrival at Ancacato, on the evening of the fourth day. Bolivian travellers had, as before, taken possession of all the available rooms and we had a hard time persuading the master of the poste to allow us to remain.
At a distance of two or three miles from the tambo is the old Indian town of Ancacato lying spread out on the level floor of the valley which was at present brown and desolate although it had signs of being cultivated in the rainy season. Like other Indian towns, the only conspicuous feature of Ancacato was the tower of its large church. The rest of the town consisted of brown huts as much as possible like the color of the hills.
The next morning we met an unusually large number of llamas on their way from Challapata to the interior carrying small boxes of European merchandise. The monotony of this morning’s ride was varied by the spectacle of a mounted Indian trying, like “Mac,” to drive a pack mule that was quite unaccustomed to such service and most unwilling to keep the road. There are no fences or walls to mark off the road from the surrounding country and an active pack animal can take to the hill as often as he pleases. Most of them are either too weary, too tame or too well acquainted with the punishment that follows, to attempt such amusements, but this one was new at the game and he led his driver a merry chase over frightful rocky slopes, up and down precipitous hillsides, and through the dry bed of a stream. “Anywhere and everywhere” seemed to be his motto.
A short hour’s ride brought us through the pass over the Cordillera de los Frailes and out onto the great tableland where the horizon on every side, except behind us, seemed to be as level as the ocean. Far away to the southwest we could just make out the dark lines and specks that denoted the whereabouts of Challapata and the railway station.
Challapata is an old Indian town, but there has grown up at some distance from it, near the railway, a little modern settlement where white-washed warehouses, hotels, stores, and a telegraph office offer a marked contrast to the brown mud-huts of the more ancient city. The population is said to be more than two thousand souls. Of these by far the larger part are Aymarás who speak little or no Spanish. The streets of the new town are wide and sandy, hot and glary like some of our western towns. We thought the hotel was most comfortable and even luxurious, after our experience of the past few weeks, but I dare say that the traveller coming the other way would turn up his nose at its primitive accommodations.
CHAPTER XIII
ORURO TO ANTOFAGASTA AND VALPARAISO
Notwithstanding its comfortable beds, wash-stands, and billiard-table, we were glad enough to leave the hotel at Challapata and take the train for Oruro. Our only regret was that we had to say good-by to old Fermin whose faithfulness in his care not only of the mules but of ourselves, had made us grow very fond of him. We gave him a little gratuity which he almost immediately offered to Mr. Smith in exchange for a cheap silver watch the latter had purchased in Jujuy!
On our way northward to Oruro we got distant glimpses of the saline waters of Lake Poopo that receives the overflow from Lake Titicaca by means of the Desaguadero River but has no outlet of its own. On our right were the low summits of the Cordillera de los Frailes and on the intervening plain was an occasional town with brown huts and a conspicuous church. Once in a while we saw chulpas, so-called “Inca tombs,” really Aymará, in which interesting remains are often found. The Ferrocarril Antofagasta-Bolivia, a very narrow-gauge road constructed and managed by Englishmen, was built to reach the important silver mines of Huanchaca which, in the early ’90’s, exported annually eight million ounces of silver. Once on the plateau, it was an easy matter to connect the railroad with Oruro whose output of silver at that time was about a million and a half ounces. Furthermore, Colquechaca, with an equal output, was only two days away and pack trains could bring the silver readily to the railway.
The road has proved to be a splendid investment, yet Great Britain has never favored Bolivia with much capital. Apart from this line and a small bit of railroad near La Paz, there are almost no British enterprises in the country. It is said that even Ecuador, backward as it is, has twenty times as much British capital as Bolivia, while Argentina has two hundred times as much.