Volume 53, Number 14 · September 21, 2006
The New Bolivia: II
By Alma Guillermoprieto
The altiplano of the Bolivian Andes is a great expanse of flat, dry land set 13,000 feet above sea level, and dotted only occasionally by a brown cluster of adobe houses or a white cluster of sheep. La Paz occupies a narrow, deep depression scooped out of this parched land, but at 12,000 feet above sea level it is still situated at a height hostile to trees. The embedded city, modest in all its proportions, and the jagged cliffs that surround it are uniformly the color of dust, and one is constantly aware of the absence of birds. Nevertheless, in the early hours of the day the snow-covered peak of the Illimani, the city's sentinel, glistens brightly on the horizon, and the steep streets smell freshly scrubbed. This is when the cabinet members of the new Evo Morales government prefer to give interviews, and on one such bright morning in June I went to meet the Bolivian minister of justice.
Feature, 4799 words
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