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The Los Angeles Times, June 26, 1898, p.14:

STEAMBOATING ABOVE THE CLOUDS

ALL ABOUT TITICACA,
THE HIGHEST NAVIGABLE LAKE OF THE WORLD.


From Our Own Correspondent.

    CHILILAYA (Bolivia), May 30, 1898.--Steamboating above the clouds. Floating calmly over the highest navigable waters of the globe. Sailing under the glacial snows of the loftiest peaks of the Andes, so near the sky that heaven and earth meet close around you and make you think you are on the very roof of the world.
    This is what I have been doing for the last day and night upon Lake Titicaca. As you read this letter you will be sweltering under the hot sun of an American summer. It is always winter upon Lake Titicaca; a cold wet winter during half the year, and a cold dry winter during the remainder. At some times the winds from the Andes sweep over the waters like a blizzard, and at others it is as calm as the Dead Sea in midsummer...

    Some of you will soon be going to Mount Washington to avoid the heat of the city. This great lake is more than twice as high up in the air as the top of Mount Washington, and it is situated amid scenery which is infinitely more grand.
    Some of you will spend your vacations upon our Great Lakes. This lake is almost as big as Lake Erie. It has an greater average depth than Lake Superior and its scenery is a combination of that of Lakes Lucerne and Geneva, in Switzerland, and of our own beautiful Lake Champlain.
    Our Great Lakes freeze over in the Winter. Titicaca never freezes. I have written of the skies of the Andes. Those of Titicaca have all of the beauties of the Andean heavens, combined with others peculiarly their own...

    The air is so clear that you can see for miles. Leaving Puno, Peru, I was shown the sacred blue Island of Titicaca, fifty miles away, and soon other islands came into view, which seemed to float upon the waters as though they were balloons or balls and not the outcroppings of the highest mountain chain of our hemisphere...
    You know of Lake Titicaca from your geographies. They will tell you it lies in the Andes, about half way between the Isthmus of Panama and Cape Horn, 12,550 feet above the sea. They represent the lake as oval in shape and state that it is 120 miles long, fifty-seven miles wide, and that it has an area of 5000 square miles. Some of these statements are true, others are all conjecture. The lake has, in reality, never been carefully surveyed...

    In crossing from Peru to Bolivia we sailed a distance of 110 miles over water which was in many places, the captain said, more than 1000 feet deep. Lake Superior has, I believe, an average depth of something like six hundred feet [the actual average depth of Lake Superior is 483 feet, or 147 meters, with a maximum depth of 1333 feet, 406 meters]...

    Think of a body of water like this at an altitude of more than two miles above the sea. Let it be more than three hundred miles from the ocean in a basin which next to Thibet [Tibet] is the loftiest inhabited plateau of the world. Remember that you must cross a mighty desert and climb on the railroad over a pass which is nearly three miles above the sea to get to it, and you have a slight idea of the wonders of Lake Titicaca.
    You must add, however, that while it is fed by the snows and glaciers of the Andes, it has itself no visible outlet to either ocean. Nine rivers flow into it, but only one carries off any part of its waters. This is the Desaguadero, which connects it with its little sister lake, known as Lake Poopo, which lies about two hundred and eighty miles further south in this same Bolivian plateau. The Desaguadero has in this distance a fall of 500 feet. It is a rushing turbulent stream large enough to be navigated by steamers for a part of its length. It carries off a large volume of water, but Lake Poopo has no outlet to the sea, and notwithstanding this drain Lake Titicaca remains at the same level whether the season be wet or dry, year in and year out.

STEAMERS OF THE HEAVENS.

    The steamboats which sail upon Lake Titicaca might be called the steamers of the heavens. They sail at times in and out of clouds, and they are nearest the sky of any craft on earth. Think of lifting an iron of 600 tons over a pass higher than the top of Pike's Peak! This is what was done with the steamer Choya, upon which I am now writing. The ship was made in Scotland and brought to Mollendo in pieces. Here it was loaded upon the cars and carried over the Andes to Puno. It was there put together, and it now sails as well furnishes its passengers with as comfortable accomodations as any steamer of its size on American waters.
    It is as beautiful as a gentleman's yacht, and it can make twelve knots an hour without trouble. It is propelled by a screw, and its fuel is Australian coal, which is brought over than more than seven thousand miles of water and lifted on the railroad over the Andes to Puno, at the edge of the lake. By the time it reaches the ship the coal costs about $25 in gold per ton, but the traffic on the lake is so great that the steamers, I am told, pay for themselves many times over.

    A large part of the freight of Bolivia goes to the markets of the world via Chililaya and Puno over Lake Titicaca and the railroad to the seaport of Mollendo. Cargo is brought for hundreds of miles to this point upon mules, and on the steamer days it is not uncommon to see 1000 mules being loaded and unloaded there. In 1895 more than $1,000,000 worth of imports came into Bolivia by way of Lake Titicaca, and more than $300,000 worth of Bolivian goods were shipped out.
    There are now steamers once a week from Puno to Chililaya and return, and nearly all passengers and freight to and from La Paz, which is, you know, the biggest city and the commercial capital of Bolivia, go over this route.

    I am now on my way to La Paz. The city is about forty-five miles, or almost a day's ride by stage, from here, and all baggage, freight and passengers are carried there by horses or mules. The United States mail for Bolivia is brought across Lake Titicaca and carried, with other foreign mail, on a wagon to La Paz. I tried to bribe the mail carrier to take me with him today, but the weight of mail bags was 1600 pounds, and he said that this was all his 8-horse team could haul on the gallop, and that I must wait for the stage tomorrow.

CARRIED OVER THE MOUNTAINS ON MEN'S BACKS.

    The ship on which I crossed Lake Titicaca is the largest and finest of the fleet. There are three other steamers belonging to the Peruvian corporation or the English syndicate which has the monopoly of the traffic, and in addition they have little steamers which bring copper, silver and tin up the Desaguadero River from the rich mining region of Oruro.
    The Titicaca steamer line was founded by the Peruvian government as a part of its transportation system, which, as I have said before, was the most expensive ever planned or built. The first steamers cost more than their weight in silver. They were made in England and shipped to the Peruvian coast and thence carried on the backs of men and mules over the Andes. It was ten years after the ships were landed on the coast before they got to the lakes, and the English engineers drew salaries during the delay while bossing the job.
    One of the larger ships was later cut in two and a section of hull fifty feet long inserted. This work was done by the railroad shops at Arequipa, and the ship so lengthened is used on the lake today.

    The smaller steamers ply to and fro from the lesser ports. They visit most of the towns upon the coast and carry freight and passengers to the numerous islands.
See also: Peru News - Brazil News - Chile News - Argentina News

All of Bolivia is one time zone at GMT-4, with no Daylight Savings time.

  Bolivia News


    The Republic of Bolivia, named after independence fighter Simon BOLIVAR, broke away from Spanish rule in 1825; much of its subsequent history has consisted of a series of nearly 200 coups and countercoups.

    Democratic civilian rule was established in 1982, but leaders have faced difficult problems of deep-seated poverty, social unrest, and illegal drug production.

    In December 2005, Bolivians elected Movement Toward Socialism leader Evo MORALES president - by the widest margin of any leader since the restoration of civilian rule in 1982 - after he ran on a promise to change the country's traditional political class and empower the nation's poor and indigenous majority.

    In December 2009 and October 2014, President MORALES easily won reelection. His party maintained control of the legislative branch of the government, which has allowed him to continue his "process of change." In February 2016, MORALES narrowly lost a referendum to approve a constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to compete in the 2019 presidential election. However, a 2017 Supreme Court ruling stating that term limits violate human rights provided the justification for MORALES to be chosen by his party to run again in 2019.

    MORALES attempted to claim victory in the October 2019 election, but widespread allegations of electoral fraud, rising violence, and pressure from the military ultimately forced him to flee the country. An interim government, led by President Jeanine ANEZ Chavez, prepared new elections that took place in October 2020; President Luis Alberto ARCE Catacora took office the following month.

    CIA World Factbook: Bolivia

Area of Bolivia: 1,098,580 sq km
slightly less than three times the size of Montana

Population of Bolivia: 9,119,152
July 2007 estimate

Languages of Bolivia:
Spanish, Quechua & Aymara (all official)

Bolivia Capital: La Paz

LA PAZ WEATHER

  Bolivia Reference Articles and Links

Wikipedia: Bolivia - History of Bolivia
BBC Country Profile: Bolivia
US State Department: Bolivia Profile

WikiTravel: Bolivia

  Bolivia News Websites

Hoy Bolivia in Spanish
ExpressPress Datos in Spanish
La Razón in Spanish

Radio Fides in Spanish

ABYZ: Bolivia News Links

Interactive sat pic-map of Lake Titicaca area Latitude: -15.985094 Longitude: -69.216614
THE SACRED ISLES OF LAKE TITICACA.

    Lake Titicaca has many beautiful islands. The most of them are rocky, ragged mountain peaks, which have their bodies under the water and a thin coating of soil on the rocks above it. Eight of the islands are inhabited, and these are cultivated to the very tops of the mountains... Patches of soil as big as a bed quilt are surrounded with stones and carefully tilled. Bits of land between the rocks are green with scanty crops of potatoes, barley and quinoa, which are about the only things that will grow at this altitude, and you see people working the sides of hills where they almost have to hold on with one hand while they use the rude little hoes of this part of the world with the other. This grubbing for a bare existence goes on over the greater part of the plateau in which Lake Titicaca lies...

BOATS OF STRAW.

    How would you like to sail over Lake Erie in a boat made of straw? I can see a dozen straw boats from where I am writing... These balsas are made of reeds, which grow in large quantities on the banks of the lake, and they are, in fact, rafts formed of rolls of reeds so tied and woven together that they keep out the water. Only a roll of reeds about the top of the balsa keeps the passengers in, and they must sit flat on the floor.
    These reeds are also used for making bridges, ropes and baskets. The people roof their houses with them, and they are almost as important plants to them as the bamboo is to the Chinese.

THE LLAMAS OF THE ANDES.

    Much of the freight that is brought to Lake Titicaca is on llamas. The word is pronounced "yahmah." These animals are, to a great extent, the freight wagons of the Andes. You see them by the hundreds everywhere on this Titicaca plateau. I found them loaded with silver ore at the mines in the mountains of Central Peru, and saw thousands of them feeding upon the pampas over which I crossed on my way here.
    They have heads like a camel, bodies like sheep and feet and legs much like a deer. They are not sulky looking, like the camel, and are far more aristocratic in their actions. When you load a camel he cries like a baby. The tears roll down his cheeks, and he pouts and pouts and groans and groans. The llama carries his burden with a proud air and pricks up his ears for all the world like a skye terrier at every new thing he sees.

    He will only carry so much, and the usual load for a llama is 100 pounds. If you put on more he does not cry or groan, but calmly kneels down and will not move until the load is lightened. If you make him angry, he does not bite you, as does the camel. He merely shows his contempt by spitting upon you...

    The wool of most of the panchos which form the overcoats and shawls of the people of this plateau is from llamas. It is spun by the women, who, whether tending the flocks or walking along the road, always have a spinning spool in their hands. They weave the wool themselves, and out of it make all of the clothes of the family...

    On the plateau of Bolivia in which Titicaca lies there are not even bushes, and almost the sole fuel is composed of the droppings of the llama. Every hut has a pile of this fuel beside its fireplace, and the better classes of houses have special quarters for it.
    La Paz, which is a city of nearly fifty thousand people, depends entirely on the llamas for its fuel, and the steam which moves the dynamos of the electric-light plant of the city is created by a fire of llama manure.

    The cooking is all done over such fires, and for this reason I have for the time given up such things as broiled beefsteaks and mutton chops, and am now sticking religiously to soups, fries and to all victuals cooked in pans...
FRANK G. CARPENTER.

The Federal Reserve Bank's estimated consumer price index shows that $1 in 1898 was equivalent to $24.60 in 2007.

The New York Times, July 1, 1968:

Guevara Messages Show
Castro Led Bolivian Drive

by JUAN de ONIS

    The secret papers found in the knapsack of Ernesto Che Guevara when he was captured by the Bolivian Army on Oct. 8 reveal clearly that the guerilla movement and Mr. Guevara's role in it were under the close and personal supervision of Premier Fidel Castro of Cuba.
    For nine months Mr. Guevara--who was executed by the Bolivians on Oct. 9--and Mr. Castro exchanged frequent coded messages by radio that discussed military and political strategy, recruitment, arms requirements and the dispatch of couriers to and from Havana.
    The messages, decoded, were recorded by Mr. Guevara in a blue-covered notebook now in the possession of the Bolivian Government. Also found were some of the messages in their coded form.
    The Cuban Government has announced that it will publish today what it says is an authentic copy of a diary kept by Mr. Guevara during his Bolivian operations. Havana did not disclose how it came into possession of the diary.
    ...The original of the diary is contained in two ledger-sized notebooks locked in a safe in the Bolivian Army high command's offices in La Paz. Mr. Guevara made entries each evening for 11 months. Jungle rain drops made the ink run in some places, and dried insects are stuck in some pages. It is a record of military and personal disaster.
    ...The papers indicate that Mr. Castro was induced by a combination of misplaced political hopes and faulty intelligence on Bolivia to put trained men, money and a far-flung subversive apparatus at the service of Mr. Guevara, a restless exponent of world revolution.
    ...The long-term investment in personnel and operations represented years of work and millions of dollars.
    ...The operation was conceived as a grand design for insurrection that was to have spread from Bolivia to neighboring Argentina and Peru.

He Was Named the Leader
    The leadership of the movement was assigned to Mr. Guevara, the 39-year-old Argentine-born revolutionary who gained fame as a guerilla strategist while fighting with Mr. Castro in the Cuban revolution.
    The papers show that in Bolivia he was beginning a "second Vietnam" that would involve not only Latin-American but eventually United States military forces, as was the case in the Dominican Republic in 1965.
    ...Bolivia is a land-locked nation of four-million people, half of whom are Indian peasants. For an area twice the size of France, Bolivia had an army of only 5,000 men, most of whom were poorly armed recruits doing a year's military service.
    ...For the first few months of the counterguerilla operation, while specialized forces were being trained, Gen. Alfredo Ovando Candia, commander in chief of the Bolivian armed forces, adopted the tactic of sealing off the guerilla zone with 2,000 men and just waited.
    "They had to come out to where there were farmers or a town to eat," said General Ovando. "Then we would close in and they had to stay on the run."
    ...One of the most effective actions taken by the army was the development of a counterguerilla intelligence unit. Made up of 16 men trained by the special forces mission, they moved through the countryside, speaking with peasants in Indian languages and often dressed as peasants. This work kept the ranger battalion on top of the guerillas throughout the two final months of the action.
    ...Not surprisingly, the Bolivian military assessment of the Guevara operation contrasts sharply with the Cuban. General Ovando summed it up:
    "Guevara chose the wrong country, the wrong terrain and the wrong friends..."

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