Mountains of The Moon

Patrick and Ira

If ever I have had adventures in my life I must without a doubt include my friend Ira Wald as a partner in crime.  Ira and I spent four years together in Bolivia and during that time we used our investigative creativity to justify some ventures out into the far corners of the country.  There was almost no where Ira and I were not willing to go.  Both of us thirsted for new experiences and a chance to glimpse different parts of a wild land.

Ira truly loved his job.  In the agency he is known as a Diversion Investigator.  Domestically this typically means they investigate corrupt doctors and pill mills yet in Bolivia his mission was different.  Ira was tasked at identifying companies that chose to use their manufacturing as a basis to buy chemicals that were later diverted into the production of cocaine.  Bolivia is a source country for cocaine production and thus obtaining needed chemicals for the conversion of coca leaves to the white powder was essential.  The idea was simple.  Make it hard for them to get the chemicals and you make production harder.  Did we succeed?  Probably not but we sure had fun trying.  Mission aside, Ira's initial task was simply explaining his job to the Bolivians.  You see, for any speaker of Spanish it doesn't take long to comprehend that the literal translation of his job title was Un Investigador de Diversion... (An investigator of fun).  As an Intelligence person I simply went along for intelligence purposes, whatever that means.  In truth I wrote stunningly brilliant analytical accounts judging the situation that we discovered.

If you look at Bolivia on a map I can safely say we visited the four corners together.  From the farthest point north of Guayaramerin a dusty squalid town on the Brazilian border to Puerto Suarez in the East.  From 14,000 feet in the Andes in the south to the shores of Lake Titicaca.  Ira and I did it all.  Ira is a Brooklyn Jew.  He would be quick to  emphasize the fact that he is not Jewish, simply a Jew.   He was raised in a typical New York Jewish family his father being a pharmacist and his mother a semi psychotic, guilt ladling Jewish mother. The kind of mother that no matter what he did would ask him "Ira, why can't you be a dochhhhh-ter like your cousin Melvin?"

For some Ira might be considered one of the most annoying human beings on the surface of the earth.  For me, he is an idiosyncratic, atheist intellectual who I love and value like a brother.  Many might view him as rude and uncaring.  I see a man that has a heart of gold bigger than the treasures of King Salomon's Temple.  In his lack of 'je ne sais quoi' is a man whose uniqueness is unequaled.  At this moment he is likely sitting on his terrace outside his Florida home scanning the lush tropical garden he has created for the sight of a squirrel attempting to devour a flower from his beloved bromeliads.  With a crack, his air rifle would ring out and moments later the squirrels limp body would be hidden from his wife, interred for archaeologist to one day uncover with their tooth brushes behind his garden shed.  When that day comes they will find a mass grave, a collection of old and young.  A type of squirrels holocaust that will bring them to wonder what mythical place the site was, a place where the squirrels came to die.

Antofagasta, Chile

Ira Wald (Antofagasta, Chile)

In 1996 Ira and I ventured to one of the most remote places in the world I have ever visited.  It was so remote that we couldn't even reach it traveling through Bolivia.  The only access point was through Chile.  We flew to Arica and then with the help of the Chilean Carabineros (special police) traveled overland to Antofagasta where we spent the night.  Northern Chile is remarkable for several reasons.  The first is when we landed at the airport you could see lines of barbed wire and signs warning of landmines.  This was a preparation for a possible land invasion by Bolivia to seek revenge for the War of the Pacific that took place in 1879.  During the war Bolivia lost Antofagasta, Arica and all access to the sea.  Of course the extensive defensive preparations don't take into account the fact that Bolivia hardly even has gas and bullets let alone anything more modern than a rusting vintage tank.

Northern Chile is also the home of one of the driest places on earth, the Atacama desert.  The word dry almost shouldn't even apply to the Atacama.  There should be another word, something that describes a vast seemingly lifeless expanse where water is simply a concept, not a reality.  In some parts of the Atacama water has never even been recorded.   NASA does training in the Atacama because it is the closest thing they can find on Earth to what they believe life on Mars might be like.

Antofagasta is a gritty port city that seems disturbingly out of place.  Were it not for fishing, nothing could exist in this part of the world.  I once read a book called 1491 by Charles C. Mann.  There is a section that details how a group of ancient mummies was discovered in a burial site near Arica.  They were extremely well preserved and dated back to 5,000 BC.  Analysis revealed that their diet had been almost exclusively fish.  Were it not for the rich fishing grounds off the coast no human could survive in this most inhospitable world.

From Antofagasta the Carabineros drove us north toward the city of Calama.  Calama is a city that exists largely to support a giant open pit copper mine that seems determined to discover China.  Well I guess from that point of view it might be Vietnam.   When they break through they will be greeted by Huc Duc Dao and a giant bowl of Pho.   It is one of those places that I can imagine will at some point return to the sand as the mineral resources are exploited and it's reason for existence in such a hostile land becomes negligible.  We stayed a night in Calama in an odd hotel that seemed cobbled together with bits and pieces from a flea market.  Ira attempted to take a bath in about two inches of water.  In the Atacama water is almost worth more than gold and the thought of filling a bathtub with it was an excess for a king.

From Calama we continued East toward the Bolivian border.  Chile is a civilized country, Bolivia, not so much.  This became apparent as we approached the border and paved highways turned to dirt tracks.  Somehow the Bolivians seemed to think if you gave a trail a highway designation with a number it would some how become a highway. 

Chilean border crossing station

Our destination was a boric acid mining facility located literally near the top of the world.  We were ostensibly to conduct an audit on their consumption of sulfuric acid as part of their production process.  I had become particularly interested in the investigation because of allegations of environmental contamination.  Being the strident environmentalist that I was the thought of a company polluting one of the few precious water resources that flowed out of the Andes into the Atacama was abhorrent.  At some point we stopped at a Chilean Border crossing station.  As I recall, wherever we entered Bolivia there was no Bolivian inspection point to be found. Maybe they were on a beer run.

Growing up in Alaska I spent my youth in one of the most remote places in the world yet it felt like Manhattan when compared to this forgotten corner of civilization.  Perhaps it was the trees and green of Alaska that some how compensated.  As  we continued to bounce down the worn trail like roads meter by meter we gained altitude.  The horizon became dominated by conic volcanoes that seemed like the world's chimneys.  Express routes to the bowels of the planet whose fire was spit out to create this vast moon-like landscape.

Flamingos

I am no geologist so what I say is said from a point of great ignorance.  Perhaps I could even be categorized as holding the ignorance of an ancient Indian hearing thunder and declaring it as the anger of the gods.  Still, as we bounced down the dirt trail and passed vast white salt deposits as we headed toward the Laguna Capina, I couldn't help but think these ancient mineral deposits, the last vestiges of ancient oceans, were almost like the residue left in a bathtub as the water spun down a drain.

Tierra Limitada by air

When I think of a flamingo I think of South Florida.  I think of tropical lands.  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think of the Bolivian highlands yet as the clouds of dust surrounding our trucks broke open there was a lagoon in the distance.  The water must have been extremely salty yet in the distance there they were.  Graceful creatures living in the most forbidding world.  The elegance of the flamingo was only rivaled by the gentle beauty of the highly endangered vicuna. A protected cousin of the llama with the softest fur in the world they would walk around and shyly glance in our direction wondering what creature had four wheels. 

I had completely lost track of time as we approached the mine.  My heart was beating rapidly in my chest as I stepped out onto the lunar landscape.  The altitude had surpassed 14,000 feet and even living in La Paz at 10,000 feet my body was not prepared for this.  Beside me Ira equally breathed deeply trying to compensate for the lack of oxygen.  I always worried about Ira when I would hear him breath yet truth be told, twenty five years my senior he had the physical ability of a man 20 years my junior.  Each breath I took seemed a laborious task.  I wanted a better look of the surrounding area and as I climbed up a small hill near the mine for a better perspective each step became slower and more difficult.  I must have been close to 15,000 feet when I stopped.  I turned and looked out at the snow covered mountains in the distance.  It was the 16th of October yet snow still clung to the mountains as the Andean spring had arrived.

Tierra Limitada

Below me were the mines industrial buildings, adobe bricked edifices constructed in a similar manner to all housing in a part of the world where the memory of a tree did not exists.  The main production building seemed like something out of a horror movie.  I wondered if sections of the metal roof that were missing were blown off in a horrific explosion.  "What was boric acid used for anyway?" I wondered.

The air was filled with an acrid sulfuric smell of some chemical burning.  When I entered the main production building I was greeted with the sight of something that looked more akin to a mad scientist laboratory than a mining facility.  Huge vats of something had created a surreal coating over metal containers that seemed like stalactites and stalagmites you would find deep within the earth.  Outside pools of chemical laden water were collecting and I shuddered to think of it seeping into the ground water or overflowing and entering the small creek of life giving water that passed by.

Inside one of the adobe buildings I poured over hand written records with Ira not sure what I was looking for yet whatever they were, they seemed woefully incomplete. Whatever the truth, those at the mine insisted that the complete set were at the office in La Paz.  I guess it took a journey of thousands of miles for the Bolivian fingers to point backward in a circle toward the point we had started from days before when employes in La Paz pointed to the mine for the necessary documentation.  Perhaps it was their way of trying to call the bluff of an old Jew and his comical side kick.

Returning to La Paz we continued to work on the investigation and eventually the head of the company a Belgian man and two of his close associates were arrested and tried in a Bolivian court for massive diversion of sulfuric acid.  I cannot profess to know if they were innocent or guilty of what they were accused.  I can only say that I pity anyone who tries to make their case before a Bolivian court of justice.  It was a system ripe with corruption and undoubtedly remains so to this day.  I did however read an article by a leftist oriented journalist that was written in 2003.  She said that the Belgian, his lawyer and an accountant were all convicted and sentenced in a Bolivian court.  She presented a convincing argument of why the entire case was unjustified.  How it was simply an effort by multinational companies to seize control of the boric acid  mining industry in Bolivia at the expense of 250 poor Bolivians who worked at the plant and depended on the cooperative for their livelihood.  True or not, the Belgian continues to operate his mine and his image was rehabilitated by the leftist Evo Morales Government.  He now occupies a post as Evo Moarles scientific point man on lithium mining.

Hans Kundt

Bolivia has a long history of inviting Europeans in to administer portions of the government.  From turn of the century German advisers to Hans Kundt a Prussian Eastern Front World War One Commander who organized and ran the Bolivian military during their ill fated Chaco war with Paraguay in 1932.

Who was right and who was wrong is difficult to say.  I suspect the truth exists somewhere in the middle.  As far as I know there was no La mano negra (Black hand) or "multi-national" conspiracy as alleged.  I can also say that the journalist, Maria Botey Pascual, emphasized her argument by noting the 250 + poor Bolivianos in Bolivia and 50 more in Chile that were forced into unemployment.  As is easy to judge by photos attached this desolate outpost near the ceiling of the world hosted no where near 250 dedicated Bolivian workers.  Perhaps ten or fifteen at most.  I also found no evidence of the associated medical doctors paid for by the company who were allegedly providing health services that she noted.  Was their widespread diversion of sulfuric acid?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  I can say that the companies records were woefully inaccurate and I am sure their legal argument must have reflected this.  If it didn't they most certainly created records after the fact.  I can also say that unless my eyes deceived me the mine was responsible for significant environmental pollution an act which should be considered criminal in its own right when destroying water as precious as life itself.

One thing I can say for certain is that this adventure was just one of many more Ira and I would have.