South American Trails 



By LEE GARNETT DAY 



Illustrationsfroniphotographsby members of the Collins-Day South American Expedition, 1915 



PROBABLY no place in the world 

 gives the traveler more contrasts 

 in trail, scenery and climate than 

 do the Andes in the last range of the 

 Cordillera. From the barren snow line 

 at the ridge down to the headwaters of 

 the great Amazon system is but a few 

 hundred miles, yet in this distance four 

 distinct changes in the fauna and flora 

 are apparent. Starting over a hard open 

 road where we made eighteen or twenty 

 miles a day, the trail winds down through 

 a rolling country until the last pass is 

 crossed and the first signs of tropical 

 vegetation appear. Then through the 

 mountains of the Yungas the route lies 

 over forested hill and dale or along nar- 

 row-ledge trails, and eventually reaches 

 lower planes where the freshets turn 

 into narrow streams and the streams at 

 last into rivers. Here amidst the most 

 abundant tropical growth, the paths 

 underfoot more often resembled swamps 

 than terra firma and five or six miles 

 were considered a good day's work. In 

 fact the stream beds often proved bet- 

 ter] trails than the machete-cut roads 

 through the palm and cane brakes. 



Crossing South America from Mol- 

 lendo on the west coast to Para on 

 the east, by far the most eventful part 

 of the journey is the five hundred miles 

 by mule train from Cochabamba, high 

 in the Cordillera, to Todos Santos, the 

 headwaters of the Amazon, thirty-four 

 hundred miles above its mouth. Cocha- 

 bamba itself is a city of sixty thousand 

 inhabitants, the greater number of 



whom have never left its suburbs. A 



A. 



railroad is in course of construction, but 

 from Arque, the end of the rails, all 



commerce must pass by mule pack for 

 two days over the boulders of the river 

 bed. We reached Cochabamba from 

 Mollendo by rail, lake steamer and 

 coach. After crossing the first two 

 ranges of the Cordillera by rail, we 

 ascended the third by pack train ' 

 starting from Cochabamba. Our party 

 consisted of Messrs. Alfred Collins, 

 Willard Walker, George K. Cherrie, 

 Robert Becker and the writer; and after 

 securing twenty-eight mules, a chief 

 arriero or mule driver, and two Indian 

 helpers, we started for the head of the 

 pass and the tributaries of the great 

 Amazon River beyond. 



The mule trail from Cochabamba to 

 Todos Santos is far from an easy one 

 to follow, notwithstanding that it is 

 constantly traveled, being the route 

 for most of the commerce between the 

 low hot grazing lands of Bolivia at the 

 eastern base of the Andes, and the high 

 well-populated table-lands around La 

 Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro and other 

 cities. It is always very narrow, passes 

 through heavy woods, over ridges, 

 along sides of cliffs, up or down a stream, 

 and is often difficult even to locate. 

 Especially is this true in the rainy season 

 when pools of mud and tangled roots 

 encumber the way in the woods and mule 



1 The most convenient unit of baggage for transpor- 

 tation of this kind is a small fiber trunk or case holding 

 eighty pounds. Two trunks made a perfect pack for 

 the animals, compact, easy to cinch and of proper 

 balance At any time during the rainy season all 

 instruments, food and clothing must be packed in bags 

 impervious to moisture. The constant and daily 

 rain — not to mention frequent wettings from crossing 

 deep fords and mountain freshets — soon rusts arms 

 and penetrates film packs. Our moving-picture camera 

 was enclosed in three separate water-proof containers 

 and the films protected by paraffined tin cases. 



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