176 THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN PERU 



In Spanish times the ritualistic festivals, incorporated with 

 fairs, followed the seasonal movement. Today progress in trans- 

 portation has caused the decadence of many of the fairs but others 

 still survive. Thus two of the most famous fairs of the last cen- 

 tury, those of Vilque (province of Puno) and Yunguyo (province 

 of Chucuito), were held at the end of May and the middle of 

 August respectively. Copacavana, the famous shrine on the 

 shores of Titicaca, still has a well-attended August fair and 

 Huari, in the heart of the Bolivian plateau, has an Easter fair 

 celebrated throughout the Andes. 



COCHABAMBA 



Cochabamba, Bolivia, lies 8,000 feet above sea level in a broad 

 basin in the Eastern Andes. The Cerro de Tunari, on the north- 

 west, has a snow and ice cover for part of the year. The tropical 

 forests lie only a single long day's journey to the northeast. Yet 

 the basin is dry on account of an eastern front range that keeps 

 out the rain-bearing trade winds. The Rio Grande has here cut 

 a deep valley by a roundabout course from the mountains to the 

 plains so that access to the region is over bordering elevations. 

 The basin is chiefly of structural origin. 



The weather records from Cochabamba are very important. I 

 could obtain none but temperature data and they are complete for 

 1906 only. Data for 1882-85 were secured by von Boeck 14 and they 

 have been quoted by Sievers and Hann. The mean annual tem- 

 perature for 1906 was 61.9° F. (16.6° C), a figure in close agree- 

 ment with von Boeck 's mean of 60.8° F. (16° C). The monthly 

 means indicate a level of temperature favorable to agriculture. 

 The basin is in fact the most fertile and highly cultivated area of 

 its kind in Bolivia. Bananas, as well as many other tropical and 

 subtropical plants, grow in the central plaza. The nights of mid- 

 winter are uncomfortably cool; and the days of midsummer are 



14 See Meteorologische Zeitsehrift, Vol. 5, p. 195, 1888. Also cited by J. Hann in 

 Handbuch der Climatologie, Vol. 2, Stuttgart, 1897; W. Sievers, Siid- und Mittelamerika, 

 Leipzig and Vienna, 1914, p. 334. 



