[369]   I had booked on the steamer "Rhodopis" of the Kosmosline to Arica [Chile} from where I would travel to La Paz, which I immediately cabled to Labahn. The captain was called Reimers, nicknamed Sabelreimers or Zitherreimers by his colleagues. Firstly because he was a reserve officer of the war navy, and as such had the right to place the iron cross in the white field of the ship's flag. The flag war naturally the old black white red; the black red gold of the Weimar republic crawled away in great embarrassment to the outermost corner of the black field; it showed anyone with eyes what a negligible role the Weimar republic played in the life of the German.

All the ships of this route had names of Egyptian kings. The ship was to load a lot of cargo in Antwerp and Bremen, so I got my things on board, and could stay in hamburg another 14 days. The company provided a railway ticket to Antwerp, and thus saved itself 14 days board. I got on the sleeper car to Antwerp at the Altonaer  main rail station with a fond farewell from  Miss Mess, aunt Hand, uncle Erich, friends and acquaintances. Already in the car  it was clear that almost all of the first class passengers of the Rhodopis were present, so the travel meetings started while still in Hamburg. There were travelers destined for Bolivia among them, and when I mentioned knowing Posnanski they melted into such streams of abuse that I firmly decided to avoid his mention in the future.

We travelled through Germany and Holland during the night, and arrived at the Belgian border the next morning. All passengers were processed, but the official was annoyed at my travel documents. I had to get out of the car, he dumped my suitcase all over the platform, and the train took off. So I was separated from my travel companions, whom I did not meet again until Antwerp. I sat many hours scolding and cursing on the border station, entering Atwerp only in the afternoon. I got aboard the ship, which was not yet fully loaded. We stayed in Antwerp a few more days, went sightseeing, obtained various things, and on April 25 we departed. The Rhodopis could hold 100 in first class, but there were only 7 of us, so there was lots of room.

Aside from me there was an elderly merchant from Lima, a lady from La Paz who was returning to her parents (both of whom were ill and would die soon after our arrival in south America), a young woman who was travelling to see her uncle (the Swiss consul in La Paz, Obrist, the director of the biggest brewery), and several young people who were being sent to branches of their firms. [372] The young people stayed mostly in the more densely populated second class, where they could flirt. The older ones sat in their cabins. The captain sat alone and played the zither, from which he was nicknamed zitherreimers, so I had the whole first class at my disposal. I annexed [annektierte] the smoking room, where I was totally undisturbed. I had a whole first class cabin to myself, enough room for all my things. I had set myself a firm work plan and followed it throughout the long voyage: up at 6, breakfast at 7, walking until 8, and sat down to work. Each day of the 7 week trip I worked on Spanish for 8 hours, 8-12, and 2-6. I still had enough time for entertainment, conversation, and going for walks.

After passing through the Panama canal, south American passengers came on board and the smoking room was no longer so pleasant. The stewards then placed a luxury cabin at my disposal, where I could retreat unseen and pursue my Spanish studies.

We travelled through the mouth of Schelde river into the north sea, into the English Channel, through the stormy Bay of Biscay and took a direct course to the panama canal, where we stopped for the first time. The trip was pleasant, uninterrupted good weather, only in Biscay and the Caribbean was there a rough sea. We met a single ship on the way, and saw land only once when already close to America. After 3 weeks travel we anchored in early morning at the canal entrance. My impression was very strong: I saw palms growing out of the ground like weeds for the first time. I was in the tropics. It was beautiful.

I sent my mail, and received some, among it a cable from La Paz that startled me:

"TELEGRAPH URGENTLY DATE ARRIVE ARICA I WILL BE THERE ANSWER ONLY TO TAAKEN"

The signature was "Taaken", not Labahn! What Taaken was I did not know, [374] perhaps an abbreviation. I remember though that right after receipt I went up to the captain and said: "Captain Reimers, there is something wrong with my company, I don't know what, but something does not make sense." He calmed me down, and we travelled on, but I would not lose my anxiety until Arica, and even much later. The Rhodopis was being raised through the locks of the panama canal. I took a few photographs and got a fierce sunburn. Only at nightfall did we get to the pacific ocean, and immediately went on. We stopped at Buenaventura, Guayaquil, a few Peruvian ports. We travelled along the same desolate coast which Pizarro and Almagro sailed during their conquest and plunder. The coast is so greatly uniform and desolate, that one day, in a desert attack of homesickness, I got a terrible weeping cramp [weinkrampf]. Perhaps it was also the great loneliness with which I had encapsulated myself on board; the fellow passengers must have must have looked on me the whole time as slightly crazy. But that also passed.

One nice morning we were in Callao (the port for Lima, Peru) and I decided to pass my exam in Spanish. When I left Hamburg, in spite of the Berlitz school, I could not speak a phrase of Spanish. I decided to visit Lima. When everyone on board had left I took a boat to the coast, and a the electric train to Lima. I stayed there a whole day, visited churches, post office, stores, restaurants, cafes, talked with police officers, sales people, waiters, and it went brilliantly. Reassured I returned to the Rhodopis. I was now sure, come what may, I knew Spanish, written still better than spoken, and we travelled past Mollendo to Arica. I wanted to land, but it was not to be. [376]

Three of us in the first class were to go up to La Paz from Arica. We were ready. On deck stood 4150 kg of heavy crates, and my hand and cabin luggage. In the first boat that approached the Rhodopis sat my old friend Labahn, so everything must be in the greatest shape. As the ship was opened to visitors Labahn was the first up the gangway. There were south American abrazos and then we went to the smoking room to relax a bit. I noticed that his clothing was a bit shabby, he must have sensed that, since he said he had been on the train all night without a sleeper. But all his teeth were rattling in his mouth, and glowed full of gold. That must come from the climate I thought. What would happen next? That he was here was a relief, but his appearance was just the opposite. But he did not leave me ignorant very long. Our company, the "Bolivian Exploration and Exploitation Co.", that had me emigrate, which consisted only of Bolivian swindlers had been dissolved. A new comparable Chilean company had been founded. I was to speak to the captain immediately, and book further to Valparaiso. There I was to stop at the hotel Rohlf and wait for him. The conditions were to be the same. I immediately demanded from Labahn a further travel advance, which seemed to squeeze him, probably he was not flush either, but he pulled something out. So my crates had to go back into the hold, my luggage into the cabin, and I composed a cable to father:

"COMPANY DISSOLVED NEW COMPANY OLD CONDITIONS VALPARAISO ADDRESS ETC."

At that point Labahn, along with the travelers I had expected to join in the trip to La Paz left the ship. I was looking at them wistfully when I was asked to see the ship's doctor. There a man sat, and introduced himself with the name Taaken. "Aha" I thought, the signature of the cable in the canal. So, after all a person and not an abbreviation. He made a quiet and very distinguished impression. He requested that I come to La Paz with him. He claimed to be the representative of the company that had let me emigrate, that Labahn was a bad swindler. Labahn, who owned 30% of the company, had placed his stock as a guarantee for my emigration before my travel money was issued. Now, the night before my arrival, he had the guarantee transferred to another name, and had traveled secretly in the 2nd class (Indian coach) to Arica to fool me. I was not to listen to Labahn, and go up to La Paz with Taaken. You can imagine what I felt and what was going on inside me! I could see quite clearly then that I was surrounded by swindlers in a foreign land, could not trust anyone, had no money to return, and had to make a difficult choice. I decided to choose the lesser evil. Taaken was unable prove or document anything, he had nothing but his business card, and Labahn I had known for ten years. So I rode on to Valparaiso, though with very mixed feelings. We left Arica in the evening, and drifted quite slowly to Iquique, where we stayed for two days due to Witsun, then again in Tocopilla, and finally got to Antofogasta, where we had to anchor for a long time, since most of the cargo was destined there. We lingered there more than a week. I lived as I was used to, worked much Spanish, which no longer gave me any difficulties, read, and looked at the waiting ships, with the many ships, there was no wharf at that time.

One morning a Mr. Kruger from the ship Ebro, on its way to Valparaiso, came to me on the Rhodopis, introduced himself as a friend of Labahn and member of our company, and said he had been on his way to Valparaiso with Labahn to greet me, but Labahn had been arrested in Iquique and was sitting in jail. I was definitely not to go to La Paz, there they were all swindlers. When I asked what was to become of Labahn, he told me that if I wanted to free Labahn I had to go to La Paz, since that was why Labahn had been arrested, because he had embezzled the guarantee for may arrival. When I arrived in La Paz he would surely be freed. So my choice was decided: to La Paz, but how to accomplish that? It was made easy for me; Almost daily cables from La Paz arrived that I was not to listen to Labahn, but to come to the only proper  company. So I cabled back that I was convinced, asked for another travel advance, which I received immediately through the german bank via telegram, and went permanently with sack and pack onto land in South America. I stayed in the Hotel Londres, which was just as bad then as it is now, 18 years later. I telegraphed to Libau that the Arica cable was to be cancelled, and confirming the La Paz address. What my father would think of these exited and contradictory telegrams was not clear, it was not a nice feeling. I bought a large dictionary and "Don Quijote", which I now could finally read in the original, got on the train, and trundled  up to La Paz. I had gotten rather fat from the good life on the Rhodopis, and weighed over 120 kilo.

The friendly people in the Hotel Londres told me that if I was even alive when I arrived in La Paz, I would come back to the coast on the next train, "por la altura" (because of the altitude) there simply was no compromise, especially with my weight and everything else. The train was still narrow gauge at that time, only 65 cm. This stretch was built for ore transport by a former president of Bolivia, who owned the silver mine of Huanchaca in Pulacayo. It went via Uyuni to Pulacayo. At that time one had to switch trains in Uyuni, to the one meter wide Bolivian Railway which just completed connection to the argentine railway for the Bolivian Independence Centenary. Arce, who had built the first railway in Bolivia, and in so doing unlocked the land, was accused by his enemies of having built the line only to ease the invasion of Bolivia by the Chilean army. That the line could also be used in the opposite direction they did not consider. However, the railroad that only had a 65 cm track behaved like a grown up; there were sleeping cars, dining cars, ore cars with 30 ton capacity. Then, and for a few more years, one left Antofagasta in the evening, and was in Calama, Chile the next morning, in Uyuni, Bolivia that evening, where one had to switch trains, next morning at 7 in Oruro, and in the afternoon in La Paz. I left on 13 June 1925, froze terribly, then during the day it got quite warm. I carried two altimeters with me, calibrated by the naval observatory in Hamburg, since one might fail, smoked my Hamburger cigars, and curiously watched the rise. I expected altitude sickness to start between 2500 and 3500 meters altitude, but it did not start. We rode over the Ascotan pass at 4000 m, I felt nothing, and continued smoking, and I did not notice anything from the height after my arrival, nor on subsequent trips over the Condor Pass to Potosi. We traveled among frozen lava flows, past the weakly smoking volcanos San Pedro de Atacama and Ollague, past a [msp 384] gigantic borax lake, then the second night in somewhat more comfortable cars. In the morning I came through Oruro, where it did not occur to me to look more precisely, or even to think that it would be Oruro of all places where I would spend and work through the longest closed continuous time of my life, that I was to marry there, and that you, Nardi, the grand-grand-grandson of Lemchen Herzenberg of Pilten in Latvia, were to be born there.

At noon we were in Viacha, and there Takken promptly looked me up. I had met him 14 days earlier in the cabin of the ship's doctor on the Rhodopis, in the harbor of Arica. So we travelled on into La Paz. The landscape with the alpine chain of the Illimani, Mururata, Huayna Potosi, and the distant Illampu, which I have seen so often in the last 18 years, still affects me  just as overwhelmingly as it did that first time. Then we came to the Alto (the edge of the high plain surrounding the valley of La Paz) and saw, lying 300 meters below us, the city of La Paz, looking like a toybox, not as extended as today, but even more beautiful than today, since at that time most of the roofs were covered with red tiles, rather than gray corrugated iron. The trip down in those days was a fast and dangerous descent, indescribably romantic, and not the present, slow, hour-long stretch. I also made the trip by foot at that time, and took photographs. Unfortunately the lighting relationships were foreign to me, and the film was overexposed. So, on 15 June 1925, I arrived in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. [385]
 
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