Breathless in Bolivia : At 12,000 in South America’s Andes, a visitor confronts altitude problems, pre-Columbian history and witches’ potions

LA PAZ, Bolivia —  Dust and dirt is all you see, then you see nothing. And then the nothing fades and a stagecoach roars into the distance, and three fugitives stand there, taking measure of a dismal high-plains landscape. This is about halfway through “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” and the fugitives are Butch, Sundance and Etta, the schoolteacher, who have decided to once and for all lose that persistent posse.

They have gone far south. To give the director a sense of how this new place should look, screenwriter William Goldman offered this shorthand description: Horrid little low adobe huts stretch out and an occasional pig grunts by .

“All Bolivia can’t look this way,” Butch says, trying to head off trouble.

“How do you know?” snaps Sundance. “This might be the garden spot of the whole country. People might travel hundreds of miles just to stand where we’re standing now. This might be the Atlantic City of all Bolivia, for all you know.”

From 1970 until this year, Robert Redford, Paul Newman and William Goldman were my primary sources of information about Bolivia. They came, they saw, they learned a little Spanish, robbed a bank or two, got off a few more quips. Then, of course, things went further south than Butch and The Kid had planned.

Flash forward to 1995. I’m planning a trip to Chile and Peru, but a gap yawns in its middle. There are five free days. And there is Bolivia, north of Chile, south of Peru, about the size of Texas and California together. One thing leads to another.

And soon, here I was staggering down a ramp onto the Tarmac of the La Paz airport on a gray afternoon, my head caught in a rapidly tightening altitude-sickness vise, my hand being shaken by a tour guide named Juan Carlos Nunez, whose other hand held a sign that said “MR. CHRISTOPHER.”

Now, I’m not quite ready to recommend Bolivia as a honeymoon destination, nor will I be building a summer house here. But I can say that Butch and Sundance’s introduction was not wholly representative of the Bolivian tourism experience. They never skimmed across the surface of Lake Titicaca, highest major lake on the planet; never strolled the island of Thor Heyerdahl’s boat builders; never learned what I did about the role of Andean llama fetuses in high-plains home construction. And when it was over, neither Butch nor Sundance got to swagger into his homestead, hand his wife a brightly colored good-luck gee gaw, and say, “Oh, by the way, I got this for you from a Bolivian witch.”

Manco, Victor and Thor

Once Juan Carlos and I connected, we headed straight for the banks of Lake Titicaca. From the airport, it was a 90-minute drive to the water, beginning with the crowded streets of El Alto, a densely populated, working-poor city at the airport that has erupted in just the last 10 years. We rumbled on past empty brown plains, adobe houses and scattered green shoots risen to greet the rainy season. Picture spring on the moon.

Juan Carlos helped with local history. Near the south end of Lake Titicaca, about 45 miles west of La Paz, lay the ruins of Tiwanacu, a sprawling complex (heavily restored) that may date back 3,500 years. (Archeologically inclined travelers usually spend an entire day on Tiwanacu; I gave it up to spend more time on the water.)

Beneath our wheels, meanwhile, lay an area known as Batallas, where farmers are still said to be finding bones and uniforms from the 1809-1825 war of independence against the Spanish. Now those neighboring fields sustain all manner of potatoes--sweet varieties in hues of red, orange and yellow, sour varieties in white and purple. The corn crop is nearly as varied, with kernels of red, white, yellow and black.

In another roadside neighborhood, Juan Carlos pointed to a sky-blue three-story house, one of the nicest in a clump of several dozen dwellings known as Huatajata. This, he said, was Victor Hugo’s house.

No, not that Victor Hugo. This Victor Hugo, more expansively Victor Hugo Cardenas Conde, was and is the vice president of Bolivia, a professor of social science, who in 1993 became the first indigenous Bolivian to hold the office of vice president. Though roughly two-thirds of the country’s 7.8 million citizens are descended from the pre-Columbian Aymara or Quechua people, most of those in power are mestizos who also carry Spanish blood. (In the countryside, calling someone an indio is considered an insult; the preferred term is campesino .)

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The lake, when it appeared at last, was a vast reed-fringed, bird-stippled mirror, tiny boats dotting its surface, land barely visible across the water amid mist and clouds. (I went in January, but most travelers usually come around July, during the drier, clearer South American winter.)

Gulping coca tea, popping aspirin and finally resorting to mysterious red-and-white capsules endorsed by Bolivians, I wrestled with a thin-air headache while we spent the next day bouncing across the water from one lakeside spot to the next. On the mountain slopes lay 1,000-year-old terraces, some still in use by farmers of potatoes, corn, barley and onions.

On the Island of the Sun (Isla del Sol), we heard the ancient tale of how the first Incas were created here, before their descendants went on to rule all of Peru and parts of Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia. On my boat, but fortunately not on most boats, this welcome bit of history was accompanied by a cheesy bit of tourist pandering: the presentation to each passenger of a certificate signed by “Manco Kapac, King of the Incas and Lord of the Sacred Lake Titicaca,” affirming that the aforementioned passenger had tasted the island’s sacred water. Mindful of the persistence of cholera in some corners of South America, I elected to pass on the sip from the trickling stone, thus making Manco a liar.

On roared the boat. In the sun-splashed lakeside town of Copacabana, a massive Catholic Church towered over a traditional grid of streets, and Aymara merchants peddled oversized popcorn in bags of bright yellow and blue. There were plenty of American and European backpackers around, too, because Copacabana is a principal connection for those traveling between Peru and Bolivia by land or water. (The floating reed islands of Lake Titicaca are on the Peruvian side, near Puno.)

Our last stop on the lake was the tiny island of Suriqui, home to about 500 residents, one church, two well-worn Foosball games, one museum store and no automobiles, there being no roads. The museum store was there to celebrate the island’s boat wrights, famous for their ability to bind reeds into vessels, and for fashioning the ship used by Thor Heyerdahl in his expedition from Morocco to Barbados in 1970.

In these explorations, Juan Carlos and I used the Inca Utama Hotel and Cultural Complex as our base. Built in the Huatajata area of the lake’s southeast shore, the place proved to be a marvel in itself. Its 54 rooms, restaurant and lounge were plain by American standards, but other amenities were strangely elaborate.

Hotel owner Darius Morgan (a French-Romanian who arrived in 1948 and now resides in Miami) clearly has his eyes fixed somewhere beyond the immediate horizon. He estimates that he has spent $10 million on the hotel complex, and also runs a sibling company, Crillon Tours, that offers day trips by hydrofoil to nearby islands and waterfront towns. At the hotel boat landing, a llama herder is paid to hang around with a dozen animals, thereby providing a little local color for arriving tour groups. An old man in a cap and with a reed canoe takes to the water when tourists approach by sea. Similarly, an 83-year-old kallawaya (traditional healer and fortuneteller) named Don Lorenzo throws leaves to predict the future. My favorite prediction came as I rose from my seat on the museum’s damp dirt floor: My jeans, Don Lorenzo told me, would need wiping off.

Then there are the hotel’s not one, or two or three, but four private museums. One explains the region’s ecology, another outlines traditional medicine practices, another describes cultural history and yet another is devoted to ancient Aymara cosmology. There, I climbed a flight of stairs, sat beneath a thatched roof watching a slide show and hearing about the constellations, when suddenly the thatch groaned and receded. A retractable metal frame was hidden beneath it, and now the heavens themselves hung directly above. If Walt Disney had been set loose in South America’s poorest nation (Bolivia’s per-capita income is estimated at $620 a year) instead of Anaheim, this is how he would have begun.

La Paz, llamas and witches

You could argue that a skyscraper is redundant in La Paz, since the city is already 12,000 feet up. But downtown is full of them, and they are surrounded by densely populated slopes that rise and cradle the urban area.

I am also told that one of the continent’s tallest mountains rises just behind the city--a snow-topped, 21,201-foot behemoth called Illimani--but I can’t be certain of this, because every time I looked in that direction, all I saw was clouds.

But even with Illimani subtracted, La Paz seems more vertical than horizontal, with level after level of residential neighborhoods climbing the surrounding steep slopes. After the raw rural expanses of the Bolivian high plains, it’s startling to suddenly find more than 1 million urbanites living atop each other, especially when they include campesinos in black bowler hats peddling surge protectors and WordPerfect software; red-coated guards standing motionless before the President’s House; street-corner money-changers looking to swap bolivianos for dollars and international business types venturing forth from their $100-a-night rooms at the Radisson Plaza or the Hotel Presidente.

Having said my goodbys to Juan Carlos, I was on my own in the big city. Above the traffic of the Prado, the main thoroughfare, in the high windows of the 16th-Century Basilica de San Francisco, stained glass glimmered weakly, the sun hidden by clouds. In front of the National Congress building, a 30-foot-high Bolivian flag billowed red, yellow and green. Near the corner of Calle Linares and Sagarnaga, near a collection of sporting goods stores, half a dozen street vendors lean against crumbling ocher walls, offering obscure herbs, strangely labeled potions, tiny bottles of brightly colored, not-quite-identifiable tidbits, each bottle intended to bring good luck in a different aspect of life . . . and shriveled llama fetuses.

This was the neighborhood known as the witches’ market, and fetuses have long been standard merchandise: Whenever a new building goes up in Bolivia, several Bolivians told me, the folk custom is to bury a llama fetus in the foundation for good luck. Most tourists are more inclined to purchase colorful sweaters or woodwork from one of the well-stocked shops nearby. I lingered at the stands, made the acquaintance of an ostensible witch named Margarita who said she’d been working the corner for eight years. Then I bought good-luck gee gaws because they were cheap and you never know.

Not every street corner is as striking as the witches’ market, but I found another highlight about 10 blocks north. On a handsome cobblestoned pedestrian street called Calle Jaen, city workers carefully tend one of the few colonial neighborhoods left in town, and five municipal museums huddle. They charged a combined admission of less than $1--the lure of the architecture alone was enough to get me in--and held me for more than an hour. The Museo Costumbrista was full of costumes and brightly colored, wonderfully detailed miniature figures in dioramas. The Museo de Litoral Boliviano had weapons and old maps, including some showing the coastline Bolivia lost in the much-lamented 19th-Century Pacific War against Chile. The Museo Casa de Murillo showed paintings, pottery and woodwork. The Museo de Metales Preciosos offered gold and silver under dramatic lighting. And the Museo Tambo Quirquincho combined silver work with modern sculpture and paintings.

Bolivian political history doesn’t get much attention in those museums, which may be just as well; it’s complicated, and not pretty. By one count, the country has seen 180 attempted coups since independence in 1825. In, president Gualberto Villarroel was dragged out into the Plaza Murillo by displeased constituents and hanged. In the middle 1980s, annual inflation rates raced beyond 20,000%. More economically stable now, the country continues in poverty, despite the remarkable mineral resources that made it one of Spain’s key holdings in colonial days. Top politicians have been repeatedly targeted by charges of corruption, often in connection with the country’s cocaine trade, an underground export business whose volume has been put as high as $2 billion a year.

The strongest drugs anyone offered to me in Bolivia were those red-and-white capsules for altitude sickness, and I felt about as comfortable on the busiest streets of La Paz as I do in Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade. I’ve heard the same soundtrack in both places: those ubiquitous altiplano guitarists and pan pipers, strumming and huffing their way through “El Condor Pasa.” By the time my last night in town arrived, I was breathing easily at 12,000 feet and ready to cap my stay off with a folk music and dancing show, even though the show wasn’t scheduled to begin until 10 p.m.

I found the club, Pena Naira on hopping Calle Sagarnaga, and waited, watching travelers from various foreign lands shuffle in until just before 11, when the lights dimmed at last. The performers drummed, they strummed, they jumped and circled. And when they were done, many returned to sit in back and pound rhythm on the tables and holler encouragement to the other acts. Thus, as the night moved along, and the masks got more colorful and the performers more accomplished, the club began to resonate like the inside of a big drum.

At 12:30 a.m., I bailed out into the cold, thin night air and let gravity lead me downhill toward my hotel. In the morning, as my plane began its journey over the Andes toward Peru, Bolivia made a fade-away exit that seemed familiar: The high plains dwindled to distant dirt, then to a cloud of dust, then nothing.

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GUIDEBOOK

Pausing for La Paz

Getting there: American Airlines offers daily connections from LAX to La Paz via Miami, with restricted round-trip fares beginning at $1,193. LanChile has weekly flights, connecting with AeroPeru at Lima (fares begin at $1,343); Aerolinas Argentinas also flies weekly, connecting to La Paz on Lufthansa at Lima. Taxes add about $20 to each U.S.-Bolivia ticket.

Where to stay: The Radisson Plaza Hotel (2177 Av. Arce, La Paz; telephone 011-591-2-316-161, fax 011-591-2-316-302; $150 for a standard double room, including tax and breakfast), about a mile downhill from the city center, is as fancy and costly as La Paz gets. The Hotel Presidente (920 Calle Potosi; tel. 011-591-2-368-601, fax 011-591-2-354-013; $120 per double, tax and breakfast included) is similarly high-end, but more Latin-flavored, and sits in the heart of downtown. More affordable is the Sucre Palace Hotel (1636 Paseo el Prado; tel. 011-591-2-363-453, fax 011-591-2-390-251; standard doubles $40-$45), with worn but clean rooms. Many city hotels, including the Hotel Alem (Sagarnaga 334; tel. 011-591-2-367-400) offer more modest accommodations (12 rooms with private bath; 44 without) for less. Near Lake Titicaca, the Inca Utama Hotel (c/o 1450 S. Bayshore Drive, Suite 815, Miami, FL 33131; tel. 305-358-5353, fax 305-372-0054) has doubles for about $87. Crillon Tours, which arranges day trips and overnight excursions within the country, is at the same address and phone. Where to eat: Advised to eat light in the high altitude, I favored snack restaurants in La Paz. One was Eli’s (1497 Av. 16 de Julio), which has been busy on the Prado since 1942 and offers nothing for more than $7. Cafe Ciudad (on the Plaza del Estudiante draws a youngish mix of locals and travelers, stays open 24 hours and offers nothing for more than $5. A more formal option, with city views, is the Bella Vista restaurant atop the Hotel Presidente (entrees $8-$15).

For more information: Embassy of Bolivia, Tourist Information, 3014 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008; tel. (202) 483-4410. Bolivian Tourist Information Office, 97-45 Queens Blvd., Rego Park, NY 11374; tel. (800) BOLIVIA or (718) 897-7956.