Under a hand-scrawled poster that read chamánicos, or “shamanic,” a wizened man in a vermilion poncho puffed on a fat cigarette. He sat at a low table; two stuffed and mounted jaguar heads snarling at each elbow. Across from him, a young woman held a baby whose top lip indented toward its little nose, exposing a wedge of pink gum. A thousand lines working in his face, yellowed eyes on the child, the man chanted as he waved his gnarled hands over its swaddled form.

We meandered through the cloud of tobacco smoke surrounding the woman and her baby, the droning incantations of the shaman low and constant. I stopped to watch, even as Britta nudged me away. “Come on, Lily, what are you doing? Thirty-five centavos to cure a cleft palate? I don’t think so,” she said with a sneer, trying to catch sight of Molly, who’d been whining about getting wasted since early that morning and was probably already at the bar.

I waved her on, but she put her hands on her hips and squared off with me. “You’re really interested in this hocus-pocus bullshit? Like, abracadabra, your face is all better? Give me a break.”

“Look, Britta, I’ll catch up, okay?”

She rolled her eyes and strolled away, shaking her head as she went.

Of course his sorcery wouldn’t work. I knew that, and maybe the mother did, too; still, I couldn’t take my eyes off her—she was rapt, spellbound, lit from within. I felt a stab of sadness, even jealousy; how comforting to believe in a magical world, one where things could actually change for the better. Nothing anchored me anywhere.

I joined my friends at a café under a broken neon sign on the Prado. Around us, couples sat nuzzling; at other tables, tight knots of men played cards in tense silence. Encircled by mountains that jutted up into the night, I had the comforting sensation of sitting at the base of a vast, jagged-edged bowl. Far from the city center, ours was the last bar on a dead-end street that dissolved into a copse of trees, their branches interlocking thickly above us. To be in the city yet at the jungle’s door; this element of Cochabamba never ceased to astound me.

“Lily,” Molly said, getting to her feet. “Nice of you to show up. What’re you drinking?”

“Tequila.”

She made the sign for loco before heading for the bar.

Britta swept up her gorgeous hair in a messy bun, fully conscious of the men’s turning heads. “You crazy American bitch,” she said with a smile. “Did I tell you what I did the last time I drank tequila?”

“Fucked someone you shouldn’t have? Again?”

“Have you been reading my diary? Again?”

We had a good laugh and I loved her anew. She took a swig of her beer and glanced around. A few men at a table not far away laughed with one another as they ogled us, as if daring each other to go first.