uyuni

We arrived in Uyuni late and hungry, We checked into the Hostel and made outr way to the minute man pizza . This place was hopping!and the Pizza was amazing. Roasted vegetables was just the ticket. It was devoured with out a crumb left on the plate.

The next morning, after buying our tour was a tad stressful trying to squeeze in  a police report, yes Jane had had her bag stolen on the bus to Uyuni. Seems like everyone has it happen once. Luckily the only important thing in it was her camera.  With the usual bureaucracy it was not an easy task. The Police report was an eventual success after batting my eyelids and schmoozing the men in uniform, ( my favorite thing to do) trying to persuade them to actually do some work rather than stand around and feel self-important was not an easy task.  After I ran to buy train tickets to the border town for the night of our return from the tour. This was  not so successful. After waiting for 30 mins I was old I was not able to purchase them until the day of travel. Thus making myself and the rest of the jeep load of ” tourists” ( literally), 10 minutes late.

I offered my sincerest apologies which were met by a very understanding french couple, but the male half of the couple in the back replied with a cold stare behind some dark sunglasses. I decided I would melt him with kindness later.

We headed out to the first stop of the tour which was the train cemetary.

It  is an antique train cemetery. It is located 3 km outside Uyuni and is connected to it by the old train tracks. The town served in the past as a distribution hub for the trains carrying minerals on their way to the Pacific Ocean ports. The train lines were built by British engineers who arrived near the end of the 19th century and formed a sizeable community in Uyuni. The engineers were invited by British-sponsored Antofagasta and Bolivia Railway Companies, which is now Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia. The rail construction started in 1888 and ended in 1892. It was encouraged by the then Bolivian President Aniceto Arce, who believed Bolivia would flourish with a good transport system, but it was also constantly sabotaged by the local Aymara indigenous Indians who saw it as an intrusion into their lives. The trains were mostly used by the mining companies. In the 1940s, the mining industry collapsed, partly due to the mineral depletion. Many trains were abandoned thereby producing the train cemetery. There are talks to build a museum out of the cemetery. It actually made me a little sad. There were plastic bags everywhere caught in the dried shrubs, In an ignorant way it was  a coloured array of plastic beauty. There is no concept of litter in Bolivia. Trash just gets thrown out of the windows or straight onto the floor. With the blustering wind, all rubbish is strewn around the open desert catching on what ever lays in its path. The train cemetary was rusted carcases of once magnificent steam trains. The shapes and patterns were inspiring but other than the bolted textured metal, I felt this place a bit of an eyesore.

Next we drove to the salt flats Salar de Uyuni (or Salar de Tunupa) is the world’s largest salt flat at 10,582 km² (4,085 square miles). It is located in the Potosí and Oruro departments in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes, and is elevated 3,656 meters above the mean sea level.The Salar was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes. It is covered by a few meters of salt crust, up to 4 in some parts, which has an extraordinary flatness with the average altitude variations within one meter over the entire area of the Salar. The crust serves as a source of salt and covers a pool of brine, which is exceptionally rich in lithium. It contains 50 to 70% of the world’s lithium reserves,but that lithium is not being extracted yet. Yet being the operative word. 

The large area, clear skies and exceptional surface flatness make the Salar ideal object for calibrating the altimeters of the Earth observation satellites. It is incredible, Miles and miles of white crusted snow like salt. In some areas Men had shoveled the salt in to small piles ready for collection. Little of the salt is actually used for food consumption. Most is used for industrial uses and to make the gimmicky salt Hotels. Some are exclusive and are off bounds unless you are staying there. Others you couldn’t enter unless you bought something, so I just wandered around the outside. They structures themselves were uninspiring. The Novelty was that they were made out of salt, but even with this ingredient I found them a little uninspiring, A bit like cookie cutter houses you see in the burbs.

We drove for about half an hour across the endless shimmering salt flats. It had rained recently so the thin-film of water created a mirror of magnificent reflections of the surrounding  mountains and volcanoes. I thought this to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet. With a view unlike any other I had ever seen in my life. An immense space of land air and salt and nothing else.Even though I was in a crowded jeep, I could breath. The sky was vivid blue and the ground was almost blindingly white.

Salar de Uyuni is part of the Altiplano of Bolivia in South America. The Altiplano is a high plateau, which was formed during uplift of the Andes mountains. Underneath the surface of the Salar is a lake of brine 2 to 20 meters deep. The brine is a saturated solution of table salt, lithium chloride and magnesium chloride in water. It is covered with a solid salt crust with a thickness varying between tens of centimeters to a few meters. The center of the Salar contains a few “islands”, which are the remains of the tops of ancient volcanoes which were submerged during the era of lake Minchin. They include unusual and fragile coral-like structures and deposits that often consist of fossils and algae.

Incahuasi Island or Inkawasi (Quechua, meaning “Inca house”), also known as  Isla del Pescado, Isla de los Pescadores or Isla Inca Huasi, is an island in the middle of Salar de Uyuni, this is a rocky cactus ridden oddity in the middle of its serene surroundings. The total area is 24.62 ha. Geographically, the terrain is harsh; it is a rocky, hilly island. It is incredibly beautiful in its visual contradiction. There are 1000 year old cacti some of which are 12 feet tall. we stayed here for lunch. You can wander around the Island and from every angle the view takes your breath away. It was past two and I was ravenous but my eyes won the fight with my belly as the uniqueness was too good not to soak up. Lunch was a delicious fresh salad and veggie burgers. After Jane and I played around taking photos with a plastic dinosaur. The Vast space made it easy to crEate a deceiving  perspective. We Spent the night in a hostel in San Pedro Quemez where our crew of two drivers rested and the chief cooked us  lasagna. The team consisted of a husband and wife, so,  crew. Our driver was the son and in the other car, driving another crew of people,were his parents.  While we waited for dinner a 10 year old daughter of the woman who run the place, asked us if w wanted to hear a song. How could we refuse! of course one turned into five which turned in to a request for money at the end. again. How could we refuse. After she sat with us at the dinner table and we practiced our spanish she wrote down songs for me that she had learnt at school about discrimination and spiders webs. It was fun and educational. She was quite the little character.

The next morning we awoke at 8pm to visit a mutated landscape of petrified plants, coral shapes wind beaten and wizened. All of this area was once covered with sea. Once the volcanoes erupted and the land rose rapidly exposing all that had been marine life. With the combination of salt , high winds  and high temperatures all exposed plant life was petrified into a rock like state. As if Medusa had layed her  piercing stare across the land and turned everything to stone. Next we drove to Laguna  hedionda. This Laguna was rich in sulphur and tinged green with the mineral. The wild grasses growing around the lake blew in the cooling winds, Flamingoes fed and the green waters off the lake changed from white to green depending on the depth of the water. The weather grew cold. we ate lunch outside which was again prepared by our chief. We ate quickly as rain was imminent. We drove to a different lake. Laguna Onda. This was a bigger lake  and we  were able to get closer to the flamingoes. The mossy black volcanic earth squelched under my flip-flops. The surrounding mountains were layered with colour and the grey sky and the black sand off set the green waters of the lake to a beautiful tone of teal. The yellow grass, dry and straight, bent in the rushing air.

We next drove to the 7 coloured mountains. Not wanting to spend 5 bolivianoes on a squat down toilet at the lunch stop, by this point we were all about to wet ourselves. As the jeep drove through the rocky road that split the wind swept sand dunes in half ,our bladders sloshed and eyes squinted with necessity. As soon as we stopped we all ran for cover behind the nearest dune. Relieved and able to concentrate we took in the 7 coloured mountains.These magnificently layered multi coloured mountains are the result of millions of years  of volcanic eruptions. The different minerals which have been exposed have created a rainbow of muted colours. It was late in the afternoon and the light was golden projected on their peaks.

From here we went to The Arbol de Piedra is a volcanic rock formation in the desert Siloli in Bolivia. The rock is unique because the natural elements have carved its shape into that of a tree. Quite amazing.  The only bummer about this tour is that everyone else and their aunt is in Uyuni for exactly the same reason. To see the salt flats. All of the tour companies go the same route and so when you pull up to a site there are hoards of people already there milling around. I found this site the worst for that. boys showing off their rock climbing skills on National Monuments. Climbing the tree of Stone and taking pictures. The Rock that it is made from is very soft and in time just as it has been shaped by wind and rain it will eventually break at the base. Like the beauty of a young woman it is slowly deteriorating. Therefore this kind or treatment only erodes it more it is not durable enough to be abused in this way. This behaviour annoyed me, but I think I was mor annoyed at not being able to get a clear shot with out one of these dudes constantly in the way. I mean How inconsiderate! Didn’t they realise I was trying to give the photographic illusion of having the place all to myself!!

The last stop of the day was the Laguna Colorado. This was absolutely incredible. A mass of red water surrounded by a myriad of  yellow grass, green moss and white salt. Unexplicable beauty. Flamingoes basked in the red waters made red from the micro organisms living in it. This lake holds vast amounts of Borax. There were no other groups at this spot. It was tranquil and the wind blew just enough to create an atmospheric edge to the experience. It was calming and the perfect situation for reflection. Which I think we all did as we seemed to sit enough of a distance from each other to feel as if we were all there alone. It was the perfect end to the day.

We jumped into the car and headed to the hostel. Once we got there , the girl in charge came and met the jeep. She looked sheepish! The wind was blustering and sand whirled around us. two llamas roped up, put on a show for us while we waited, strutting and jumping around as if performing a mating call.

The roof had blown off the hostel that we were supposed to stay at. It was inhabitable. We drove to 3 others which were all full. The hostels were situated in a line. There were several all built next to each other and this is  the only accommodation available for miles and miles. We were literally in the boonies. I could tell the driver was nervous. Finally, after driving back and forth along the line of small bungalows we found one that had room. But all six of us were crammed into one room with an inch of space between the beds! That night we bought two bottles of wine and over dinner, drank and got to know each other. It was our final night together and even though we had been crammed in the close quarters of the jeep we hadn’t talked that much. We had been soaking up the beauty of our surroundings. We slept well on full bellies of wine and food.

It was an early start the final morning. We arose at 5am to make it the geysers. Natural boiling mud formed by the volcanic activity under the surface.  On the way we drove past the rocks they call the Salvador Dali rocks. These are in the far distance but with the contrast of the vast sand dunes these strange surreal rocks dot the land scape. It is as if you have just stepped into one of his paintings. We arrived at the geysers as steam billowed out of the earth. These crates of boiling mud were literally that! Boiling! Next we drove to some secluded hot springs. Finally I had my rustic hot spring experience, with sulphur waters and the view of the morning sun starting to rise. It was perfect. especially as non of us had had the opportunity to shower the day before.

In peru I had soaked my spirit in the ancestory of the place. Bolivia I had been mostly cities. Lots of research, but not much soothing activity. This trip had been the soul food that I needed. As we drove back to Uyuni, I felt fulfilled.