Yet the mountains provide a feast for the eye if not for the stomach. The mountains fill the senses in a way even money could not. Scenes of natural glory hide the ugliness of human deprivation. The people live firmly tied to their land and their traditions. They seem quilted by soft, even stitches to the sense that this is the natural way of life. Hard. Randomly cruel . . . and then, in the blink of an eye, possessed of great magnificence.
