Life on the treeless, 2½-mile-high Andean altiplano is about as bleak and miserable as anywhere in the world. Seeking release from this reality, the impoverished mountain Indians drink so much hard liquor that whole villages are sometimes knocked out for days at a time. The United Nations commission for technical assistance to Bolivia, currently investigating all phases of Bolivian life, has just about decided that drinking is the country's No. 1 social evil, surpassing even the coca-chewing habit.
From the age of 14 on, most Indians go on a mass toot for every festival...
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