SONS OF THE MOON A Journey in the Andes<i> by Henry Shukman (Charles Scribner’s Sons:$17.95; 184 pp.) </i>

When Henry Shukman was 18, he took a spectacular six-month hitchhiking and walking tour of the Andes. His goal was to visit towns that were almost untouched by the modern world.

What this young Englishman found during his journey from northern Argentina to Ecuador were sad outposts of once proud peoples--Aymaras, Quechuas and Altiplano Indians, all of whom predate the Inca Empire. Almost everywhere, he was the beneficiary of spectacular hospitality and, on many occasions, he had the chance to observe the rituals of traditional life. But he also observed terrible poverty, epidemic drunkenness, pervasive violence and lives that seemed to be lived out in sullen desperation.

The title, “Sons of the Moon,” refers to the Aymara, a people who had a great empire on the vast Altiplano plateau more than two miles above sea level. Legend has it that the empire flourished under the gentle light of the moon, but then the sun rose, drying up the fields and bringing the conquering, sun-worshiping Incas. The sun, it seems, has never again set on the Aymara, who are portrayed by Shukman as particularly sad and devoid of hope.

However great a story he has to tell, Shukman’s narrative is unfortunately mostly bloodless. The soul of great travel writing is how it affects the traveler--how it changes his or her view of the world. Although Shukman dutifully reports what he sees, he seems unmoved by it all. He is the observer, always a bit distant. He seems to have experienced few memorable encounters with native peoples or other travelers.

The most excitement he conveys is when he writes about his short stay in the city of La Paz in Bolivia, near the end of his journey. He describes how wonderful it is, after several months of isolation, to receive mail from home (picked up from the British Consulate), how he read the letters repeatedly and even forced people he met to read them.

It is in these passages that the book finally comes alive and we get a sense of who Shukman is. He is a man for whom exotic travel, in itself, is the main goal. The letters, he writes, “made my journey seem valuable in a way I was normally unaware of: They reminded me that I had a home I would return to, and that when I did I would be a person who had crossed the Altiplano of the Andes.”