Within a few days after reaching Sucre, our necessary business affairs had been looked after and we had decided upon the upper Rio Pilcomayo as our next field of operations. Pack-mules were not to be had; the few _patrones_ who owned herds of these very necessary beasts were all en route to or from Cochabamba. A weekly motor-bus service is maintained between Sucre and Potosi, and the powerful cars passed within a stone’s throw of the spot we decided to visit; but the list of waiting passengers was long, and even though a little monetary persuasion might have been helpful in securing an early passage for ourselves, the transportation of our luggage by that means was out of the question. We therefore secured the services of a _coche_. Six mules hitched to a lumbering vehicle that had seats inside for ourselves, with the luggage festooned about the exterior, took us thundering over the rocky, uneven road at a fast pace. The driver sat in front and diligently plied a long, thin whip that cracked with reports like those of a pistol, but inflicted little punishment on the mules, while a Quechua boy ran alongside and encouraged onward the panting animals with ear-splitting whistling and volleys of stones. I was never able to understand how these urchins could keep up the fast gait maintained by the mules, and at the same time have sufficient wind left with which to do the whistling. Within an hour after leaving Sucre we had reached a point where the road ran along the rim of an attractive valley filled with trees, shrubbery, flowers, and pools; a number of queer structures combining Chinese, Arabian, Greek, and several other styles of architecture, were scattered about promiscuously and detracted greatly from the natural beauty of the spot. This place, known as _El Recreo_ is the property of a Bolivian woman who calls herself a princess, and who for reasons unknown to me makes her home in far away Paris. Soon after leaving El Recreo with its lovely vegetation and disfiguring minarets, stained glass, and other hall-marks of poor taste, the large town of Yotala was reached. Yotala is well-known throughout Bolivia for the excellent quality of the peaches and apricots that are grown and preserved there; and locally it enjoys the reputation of producing the best bread of the vicinity, although I could never agree with the latter assertion. The finest bread we had in all Bolivia was prepared by the hospitable señora living on the banks of the Pilcomayo, and in one of whose huts we resided the following eight days. After an hour’s halt at a house called Pulqué, where the mules were fed and watered, and where we refreshed ourselves with weak coffee at thirty _centavos_ the cup, we resumed the journey, and 3 o’clock P. M., found us on the bank of the great river we had sought--having come a distance of nine leagues since 7.30 o’clock that morning.