Month: June 2021

You’d think that I would not have much of a connection with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. You’d think that me and a couple of legendary outlaws share little to nothing in common. You’d think that stories of Wild West gangs marauding and pillaging the frontier, were nothing more than tall tales and romanticized legends cooked up by Hollywood movie makers and idealistic rememberings of years gone by.

And you would probably be right.

But my brain works wildly. And as much as I want to minimize the story I’m about to share, I simply cannot. To me, I share a connection through more than a century and a half with the two bawdy outlaws. They did the thieving, and I got the loot.

Once upon a time, in the Old West, when outlaws robbed banks and trains, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid led the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang in a series of crimes throughout Wyoming and Idaho and a ton of other places. Their fast shooting and even faster getaways are the stuff of Hollywood fodder. The 1969 movie, starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman, tells the highly apocryphal tale of the romantic American West. And those that remember the movie will recall that they eventually flee the US and head south, to Argentina and, eventually, Bolivia.

I’ve always loved that movie. It has possibly one of the greatest endings of all cinematic time. Cassidy and the Kid lay hunkered down inside a small shack in a tiny Bolivian pueblo. The Bolivian army has pursued them constantly. Our boys are tired, injured, at their end. And they know it. They lead us on with talk of further escape to further lands. But we all know what’s coming. This is it. Ever the optimists, they help each other up, and tie their guns to their hands. They jokingly note that their archnemesis isn’t out there with the Bolivian army and say, “for a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.”

They burst out of the shack to their gun-fiery end. It’s a moment of clarity for them and for the viewer. They knew they’d be gunned down. We knew it too. But the romantic ideal of going down in a blaze of glory rules the day. Dying was the least of their worries. How were they going to do it? Now that’s what matters.

This has stuck with me over the years. And I thought a lot about those two outlaws almost 16 years ago when I lived in Bolivia. My time was spent in various small towns in the Vallegrande province. I traveled back and forth between the larger town of Vallegrande and the smaller village of Pucara, where I stayed with friends and out of trouble (most of the time).

This was my first major international trip, and my longest. My dad gave me his old oil-skin fedora hat and I wore it with pride. Along with my long-sleeved shirts with the first few buttons undone and my ratty jeans, I imagined myself to be the next generation of Indian Jones. (A far cry, believe me)

All of that to say, I was in it for the adventure. Or as Indy would say it, “fortune and glory, kid, fortune and glory.”

Now, at the top of the hill in Vallegrande stood a German restaurant. You heard me. Or, at least, a German man owned it. Of course, in my mind, I thought this meant that he had escaped from Nazi Germany or had a relative that had done so. There was always talk of Nazis fleeing to South America. What can I say? I have an imagination.

Somehow, I cannot remember how, but I had heard that this German man had come across some buried treasure. I had no details other than that.

I got up my nerve, kickstarted the ol’ Honda scooter, and drove up the hill with some money.

I wanted in.

This man spoke no English.

I spoke no German.

We both spoke some Spanish.

I introduced myself and asked him about his recent discovery. He sat me down with a glass bottle of cold Coke, and shuffled off into the other room.

Soon, he returned with a small bundled towel and laid it on the table in front of me. He knew of a man building a house in a village about three hours away. This is the village of Postrervalle—or, the “last valley.” The road ends there. It is the last establishment surrounded by mountains.

At the start of the build, this man set to digging and laying the foundation of the new adobe home. To his surprise, his tools struck a chest hidden in the earth. They uncovered it out of the dry Bolivian clay. Though I didn’t see this chest with my own eyes, the German man told me that it was roughly 18 inches long and locked with a heavy lock. You know, exactly like you’d imagine buried treasure. The man was overjoyed and sold the contents to his moderate fortune. The German man now came into possession of a handful of the contents.

At this time, he opened with towel and displayed 24 silver coins, each dating in the late 1800s- early 1900s. The bluish silver gleamed with the Bolivian seal on the back.

“Who would bury a chest of silver?” I asked, staring at the coins.

Turns out, robberies and “wild west” style crimes were not isolated to the US. Many times, criminals would rob a bank and bury the loot for recovery later. That is, unless they got gunned down first. My mind raced. The only wild west outlaws I knew of in Bolivia were the leaders of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It took very little stretching to tie this lost, buried, and most obviously stolen treasure to those two infamous criminals. Clearly it was their doing. Cassidy and the Kid had robbed a Bolivian bank and stashed it all for later. But they had died before they could recover it. And now here I was: the boys robbed the bank, and I came to claim my share.

The German man and I made a deal and I walked out of there with 11 of the silver coins. Not a lot, but enough buried treasure to last me a lifetime. I fancied myself quite the adventurer. Cassidy, the Kid, and I had done it again.

The stolen money jingled in my colorful Bolivian bag as I slung it over my shoulders.

On went my oil-skin fedora.

And I rode off into the sunset on my little Honda scooter, the only surviving (honorary) member of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang.

anthony forrest