Uyuni Salt Flats

I had one specific reason for coming to Bolivia: I wanted to see the salares, salt flats. I don't know when or where I first heard of them but they have captivated my imagination for years, so I was thrilled that I would get to share the experience with my kiwi friends.

 

Our tour's first stop was to the train cemetery. Uyuni used to be the train center of Bolivia. Trains were shipped in from England to transport raw materials to shipping ports. Unfortunately, English trains could not handle the extreme Bolivian altitude and broke down with great frequency. They were brought to Uyuni where they were stripped for parts and abandoned. Today tourists happily climb atop the trains, play on the swings and see saw, posing for photos. It reminded me of the ship graveyard in Moynoq, Uzbekistan (I implore you to google it if you don't know what I'm talking about! It's an incredible and absolutely bizarre sight).

 

From there, we visited Colchani, a small community where the residents process and package the salt. The buildings are all made of salt bricks which usually last about 15 years before being worn down by the rains.

 

Mini Bear couldn't resist jumping in a massive pile of unprocessed salt crystals. Hopefully the next step, cooking on a large metal tray, cleans the salt from Mini Bear's accumulated dirt! A man with a flaming gas cylinder sat alone in a room, filling individual bags with processed table salt.

 

We shared a fantastic lunch prepared by our guide's wife before a short drive to the salt flats.

 

Once upon a time, South America was flat and mountainless. As tectonic activity created the continent's mountains, lakes shifted and some were drained away. The salt flats in Uyuni today are composed of the salt left over from a series of former lakes. The salt flats are about ten thousand square kilometers and the salt itself is several meters deep. Due to the hexagonal shape of the salt crystals, together they form larger hexagons which can make the ground look like a giant puzzle in the dry season. Lucky for us, we visited during the wet season, when a slight covering of water transforms the land into a massive mirror. Because the landscape is featureless other than mountains in one direction, it's easy to lose your sense of perspective relative to other objects or landmarks. We had a phenomenal time posing for reflective and perspective shots.

 

While I could go on about the salt flats, I'd rather let the pictures speak for themselves.

 

Locals actively gather salt.

 

The water was surprisingly warm.

 

My legs were covered in salt.

 

Every view was gorgeous.

 

We stayed to see one of the best sunsets of my life.

Here's a super quick, 90 second video from the salt flats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFZRECmCNP8

 

I never expected anywhere would fill me with the same sense of awe as Antarctica. The salt flats are a deserving second.

 

In transit: Sucre to Uyuni

Today was an transit day with a nine hour bus ride traveling south from Sucre to Uyuni. I generally prefer to do my long bus rides overnight but my friends had already bought their tickets and I was happy to travel with them.

 

At the bus station we had breakfast cooked by nuns wearing their full habit. One of them must have been in desperate need for glasses as she held her face just inches from the pad she was writing on and kept squinting. It reminded us that life is nowhere near a level playing field and the sheer accident of what country you happen to be born in can often have lifelong consequences.

 

Before boarding the bus, we double checked to make sure our backpacks were indeed stored with the luggage below. Not only were they there, but there appeared to be a couple of coffins! I hoped they were already destined for specific people and that the bus company didn't have a general policy of keeping coffins on hand just in case!

 

It's common in many parts of for vendors to board buses temporarily to sell their goods and then hop off. This time, we were treated to a full infomercial! A man selling snake oil, I mean muscle cream, explained the benefits of each of its ingredients (so much so that in fact I first thought he was selling milk) and handed out samples to the Bolivian passengers. This was probably the first and only time on this trip that someone hasn't tried to sell me something! I got a look at the packaging which clearly read unas de gato, cat's nails. Hmm, I didn't hear him mention that as an ingredient. The best part was when he told us the price of this miraculous pain curing cream: one for 8 Bolivianos or two for 16. But wait! Today only, a special price for buying two at 10 Bolivianos or, even better, five packets for 20! The only thing missing was a free set of steak knives. The sales pitch was effective, though, as I counted at least five people eagerly buying multiple packets.

 

After about four hours, we had a brief stop in Potosi where we found a sketchy looking basement bathroom and some bananas (to clarify, we didn't find them in the same place!). Passing through town, it really looked like a miserable place. The town is featured in a recent documentary called "The Devil's Miner" about life working in the silver mines. It is truly an eye opening film.

 

It turned out to have been a great idea to take the bus in the day. Not only were there no lights whatsoever along the road (which was mostly unpaved) but the view was incredible. Snow poured over mountains like a spilled bag of sugar. Other mountains were an intense burnt sienna color that must positively glow at sunset. Jagged rocks displayed the geological history of the area.

 

The land itself was often a scrubland that reminded me of the drive between Urgench and Buihara, Uzbekistan. At other moments, it looked identical to Nepal with its cliff-hugging winding roads. In fact the bus's brakes whined a high pitch squeal every time we descended. I fell asleep at one point only towake up to the sound and momentarily thought I was at the dentist listening to a drill. Wild cactuses grew in a few areas and I noticed a bus of Asian tourists had stopped to have their pictures taken. We passed fields with vivid red and gold flowers. In case this wasn't enough to remind you that you were in Bolivia, donkeys and llamas (or were they alpaca?) roamed the plains and hills, happily grazing.

 

The sky alternated between rain clouds and bright blue with fluffy clouds. I've never been to Montana, but I think Bolivia could be a rival for the nickname "Big Sky Country."

 

We passes several villages, each more rural and isolated than the last. A few were clearly abandoned, leaving behind unstable looking rock structures missing thatched roofs.

 

As I mentioned, the five hours from Potosi to Uyuni was mostly on unpaved roads. Along the way we saw countless road crews busily working to create a paved road. The road crews all wore bright yellow jumpsuits and balaclavas, causing them to look like hobbyist bank robbers with day jobs. I do wonder what impact a paved road will have on the local communities and whether or not the road will actually be maintained once it's completed.

 

I had just commented to my Romanian seat mate that the scenery was gorgeous when we approached Uyuni. Plastic of every shape and color littered the ground, caught on the low bushes. It was hideous. A nearby factory displayed a sign that read something like "order and cleanliness are not luxuries, they are necessities." All along the way, passengers had been throwing their garbage out of the windows. Empty plastic food container? Out the window. Dirty diaper? Out the window. And so it continued. I had to dispose of a banana peel and was eventually persuaded to throw it out the window which felt so wrong, even though it's organic matter. As unappealing as the litter was, it got me thinking that the only difference between litter and a landfill is that a landfill is organized litter. Guidebooks warn that Uyuni is a dump and exists mainly as a jumping off point to see the salt flats (exactly the reason why I'm here), but I do wonder when the town lost its charm. Or if it ever had any charm in the first place.

 

Sucre: a kiwi rendezvous

A kiwi friend from my Antarctica cruise had been traveling around South America for the last few months and, thanks to cheap domestic airfares, today I was finally able to catch up with him and his girlfriend in Sucre.

 

We met at the town's main square, Plaza 25 de Mayo.

 

From there we headed up up uphill to a great lookout. From here, Sucre could have been any Mediterranean town with its green hills, blue skies, and terra cotta rooftops. The only thing missing in this landlocked country was a coastline!

 

We visited the Casa de Libertad, where Bolivia's independence from Spain was signed. Since there wasn't an English tour anytime soon, we made up our own history of Bolivia. I'm not sure how accurate it was, but it was more entertaining than the stuffy Spanish language tour.

 

As a snack, we picked up some chocolate. How can you ignore a shop called "chocolates for you"?

 

I spent the afternoon wandering around town on my own. I visited a couple of quiet churches before walking to Simon Bolivar Park.

 

I had noticed on the map something labeled "mini torre Eiffel" so I had to investigate. Sure enough, there was a miniature Eiffel Tower in the park.

 

It's common in Latin America to name streets after dates, famous people and battles, but this was by far the oddest and most specific street name I've discovered so far.

 

From there, I trekked to the cemetery. The skies were threatening but that didn't keep family members away. It was very similar to Buenos Aires's Recoletta cemetery with its large tombs, wide boulevards, and immacutely manicured greenery, minus the Evita seeking crowds.

 

My friends and I met up again for dinner and, as we walked home in the rain, we were followed by one of thehealthiestlooking stray dogs I've ever seen. He looked identical to the Littlest Hobo, Canada's 1980s TV show staring a do-good nomadic German Shephard, except his Bolivian counterpart didn't sport a red bandana around his neck. He kept up with us as we crossed streets, dodged traffic, and told him to go home. When we split ways to go tour respective hostels, Hobo followed my friends and even waited outside after they had shut the door! He was gone in the morning and we all lamented that we couldn't keep him.