That evening, after the sun had set and the center of the city shone in the expansive electric light that almost explodes in the rarefied night air, I left my hotel and the flickering outdoor food kiosks of the Indian Quarter to eat dinner with some Westerners I'd met in a cafe earlier that day. The main streets of the downtown area were quiet now, in contrast to the bustle of the tourists, businessmen, cocaine-pushers (La Paz is the cocaine capital of the world). I walked past the neon signs of the restaurants and clubs that dotted the fashionable blocks of the Prado, La Paz's most fashionable street.

Finally, opposite the Hotel Sucre, the tallest in the city, I found the restaurant where I was to meet my acquaintances. As soon as I stepped inside I was almost overcome by the cigarette smoke that filled the room. A chintzy instrumental version of "Eleanor Rigby" played in the background. I moved aside as a young couple, the boy dressed in tight dungarees and wearing sunglasses, the girl in hot pants and a blouse with puffed sleeves, left their table and walked to the door, waving to their friends. After my eyes had adjusted to the dim light, I saw my friends sitting at a table near the back corner. I was late, and, having decided not to wait for me, they were already on their dessert. I sat down next to the Englishmen, who was halfway through his banana split. Opposite him was a German who looked up as I sat down, smiled at me, and then went back to concentrate on his hot fudge sundae. And, across from me, was a fellow American, who was smoking cheap Bolivian cigarettes in between sips of his coffee.

I took up the plastic menu and immediately felt my wallet burning in my pants pocket. An assortment of hamburgers and grilled meats stared back at me with their 20- and 25-peso prices. That's only about a dollar, but in Bolivia one needn't ever pay over 15 pesos for a full-course meal. I chose the cheapest item on the list, a perro caliente (Spanish for "hot dog"), which went for seven pesos. Up in the Indian Quarter seven pesos would have bought me soup, a piece of chicken, rice, and chuna, a type of dried potato. In a few minutes the waitress, dressed in a tight yellow uniform, placed a five-inch long, grease-bathed hot dog in front of me. I didn't even get a roll.

The American and I began to talk. He was from Ann Arbor, Mich., and after graduating from the university there had gone to serve in the Peace Corps. He had originally worked in southern Bolivia, in the same area Che had operated in, but after a left-wing military coup in 1971 he had been forced out of the country with the rest of the corps. He was in La Paz on vacation from Nicaragua, where he was working. He told me of his experiences while in Bolivia, and how he'd been shot at during the time of the coup. We talked about Che and why he had failed. The Englishman, looking at his watch, decided to order another banana split.

"Are you heading back to the States soon?" I asked the American.

He leaned back in his chair and ran his hand through his moderately long brown hair. He took a puff on his cigarette. "Probably," he answered finally. "I think I'll return to school and study education. But Christ, they really don't know how to teach up there."

After a while the German opened his mouth to say he was tired. We got our checks and went up to the cash register, the cashier took the check, totaled it up, and gave us our change without once looking at us. It felt good to get out into the crisp night air.

It was nine o'clock. The three of them left me to go to their hotel room. I started back alone on the walk to the Indian Quarter. Soon the streets began to rise sharply. In the distance I saw the lights of the adobe huts of the peasants flickering helplessly up the rocky walls of the canyon and blending in with the icy stars of the night.

This is the first of a series of articles on Bolivia. The second will appear Monday. Michael Massing spent the summer of 1973 working in a rehabilitory home for crippled children in Cochabamba.