Sometime ago I saw a Quebecois movie called "Un 32 Août Sur Terre" with Pascale Bussières. I was taken with some of the surreal filming they did around the Utah salt flats and have wanted to visit such a landscape for a long while. I decided to go for the biggest one here in Bolivia - over 10,000 square kilometres big - so I hired a 4x4 and a driver and here I am.
All I can say is WOW! over and over again. What an incredible experience.
The agency picked me up at 10 and after the paper work my extremely cute driver, Abel, and I hit the dusty road to Colchani, a small salt processing town. I told Abel that I only spoke a little spanish but I could understand more so he has to talk slow, like I was stupid, which cracked him up. We passed the controversial airport site enroute. This was one point of contention that resulted in an 18 day blockade last August. The terminal building is well underway - looks like Evo came good on his promise. I am so glad that I am here now. Uyuni holds the largest proven source of lithium on the planet and I understand that Evo recently signed a deal with Korea to extract it for batteries, car batteries in the new wave of eco-cars. What once was a sometimes feared psychiatric drug is now a sign of change and prosperity in Uyuni.
We headed out onto the salar in an area where the salt is collected for the food industry. The whiteness swallowed us up in a flash. We stopped and had a look at some of the work. They are shoveled by hand and formed into 4 sided pyramids for collection by trucks with front end loaders by the looks of it. They need to pour water on each one for it to retain its shape till collection. I was surprised to find that they are many natural springs around and in the salar - refered to as Ojos, or eyes, del Salar. The drivers have to be careful or they can really get stuck not to mention the touristas. I cracked up Abel again by jumping up and down near a baby ojo. The crust of the Salar is a few meters thick and exceptionally flat. Below it lies a pool of brine between 2 and 20 meters deep. It's this brine that contains a fairly clean and easily extracted source of lithium.
Walking on the salt here is very much like walking on crispy snow.
Onward into the whiteness or should I say light greyness? The salt is far from snow white close up. Only in the the newly formed seams does it come close. The salt dries in a fairly regular hexagonal pattern about a meter or so across the flats.
Your sense of scale is completey shot with nothing but white for miles. Objects in the distance often appear as shimmering mirages. We pass a few cyclists, motorcyclists and one group of campers. All completely surreal in thier own way. Abel said that when it rains it's impossible to drive because the strong reflections of the sky are too disorienting. You can't see landmarks not even Volcan Thunupa which is usually quite prominent.
Our first destination is Isla Incahuasi. A few leftover islands dot the salt flats and half way through our 90k drive I get the feeling that we've been shrunk and we're driving though a zen rock garden. My travel karma remains strong or perhaps it's new travel charm from the witches market or maybe it's my Aunt Inez's prayers BUT whatever it is when we arrive at, what is for many tours, the main attraction of the salar, we're the only people there. Abel went to yak with his buddies in the restaurant and I had the whole trail to myself. Hee! The island is covered with giant cacti, some over 900 years old. One had died in 2007 and it was estimated that it was 1240+ years old. They were in bloom - it's the only time of year they bloom!
The views were amazing. The sky was blue with haze and clouds on the horizon. As I was ending the trail the other 4x4s started to arrive - perfect timing. We had a llama steak lunch at the small restaurant and then on to the volcano.
It's a bumpy ride half way up the volcano to the chullpa or tomb. We have a short walk from the 4x4 to the cave but it still leaves me gasping even though I'm doing better overall with the altitude. There are a number of mummies at rest in a cave that seems to be an old volcanic tube. People have left offering of coca leaves, coins and teeth - fresh looking teeth. The people looked prosperous by the looks of the worldly goods entombed with them; decorated ceramics, carved utensils, coca pouches, patterned textiles. It didn't seem right to take photos.
In the village on the way back Abel stopped to help one of the locals with their truck - he's cute and he's a mechanic. Our next little town, Chantani, featured a little local museum that this enterprising man put together of a hodgepodge of artifacts from precolumbian pottery to fairly recent chicha pots. Apparently men like Abel who drink cerverza are putting an end to chicha, which is a mildly alcoholic fermented corn drink. Abel told him to speak very slowly and a I could understand. Actually I think he told him what I said this morning about talking like I'm stupid only in a nice way - they had a good laugh. The amusing curator gave me the tour of his curios which were quite good given we were in a village of mud brick buildings. Next it was across the road to a road side attraction. He's collected odd shaped rocks over the years, animated them as llamas, foxes, mermaids, pirahna etc. and put them into a garden with another chullpa with mummies in the center. Weird, yet wonderful.
The day ended at the Hotel de Sal (3696m). This is another reason I came here. There are a series of business/community joint venture eco-hotels initially built around the salar and scattered through Bolivia now. They are made of local materials, use solar and wind based energy and eventually be turned over to the communities to run. This one is lovely. Simply designed, well executed and very salty. I licked a wall just be sure. The walls, bed bases, couch bases are salt, the doors are cactus wood. Much of the fabric is local weaving. The bathroom is salt but painted glossy black...or it would melt. Jose the manager told me to shower tonight as the hot water is cold by morning. Good advice which I took.
Salar II - Saturday, December 11
I'm sitting here looking out over a llama pen, the tiny town of San Pedro de Qemez and a striped desert landscape terminating in mountains. This town looks a bit more prosperous than Tahua. It seems neat and tidy with more trees. Most buildings are mud brick but some are stuccoed and painted. A few municipal buildings follow the El Alto standard but use real bricks. Inside the hotel, it feels like an oasis, in stone, especially after a long dusty day after leaving the Hotel Sal.
Last night at Salt they fed me a huge dinner that I felt obligated to eat given what a luxury it was they they were offering. They do really nice soup here in Bolivia, maybe it's the quinoa flour. I had the best night's sleep since the ship and I think that my stuffy head is finally clearing up.
Stop one was a bumpy drive around the mountain behind the hotel and a climb that took me 50 minutes up and 10 minutes down. I'm actually getting used to the altitude when resting but any kind of incline or step does me in. I told Abel that he needed to know I was much faster in Santa Cruz (a few thousand meters lower.) My reward at the top, a sprawling pre-Inca ruin in fairly good condition and some fabulous views. It wasn't any where near as sophisticated as the later period building but still showed a knack for friction fitting stones to last centuries. Abel says there a really big ruin on a mountain north of us but you can't drive up very far. I said let's go it would only take me a a week.
More cacti of a slighly different variety abounded. This time with dark pink flowers. Oh ya, we were the only people there.
After lunch at the Salt Hotel it was back onto the salar. As we were pulling out Abel stressed that I could stop him any where for photos. So 2 seconds after he started backing up I said Pare! and I thought he was going wet himself laughing. I think he's catching on to my humour.
They sky was blue the clouds were fluffy and we just floated along. Somewhat like winter in Canada in the countryside except for the heat and the flatness and the hexagons. We had a brief stop at Isla Pescador. Similar to Incahausi but bigger and with no developments. My last bit of the salar took us south for another stop where salt blocks are cut. More surrealness with a perfectly orthogonal cut out in the ground with neatly stack striated blocks and not a soul in site. They use circular saws for the job. The depression fills with ground water seeping from below in this area of the salar and after a year the hole will recrystalize. You can't get mush more sustainable than that.
The last little bit of drive off the salar was just like winter driving on a sunny day with slush on the road with the same handling, the same sounds, the same grimey look. I told Abel he would do very well with driving on the snow in Canada. And with that it was adios to the salt and into the desert, the dusty, salty desert. The mountains were closer and the sky was bluer here. There were many vicuna - one was even rolling in the dust to cool off but took off pronto when we got close. Vicunas most resemble impala I think even though technically they are camelids. They are prettier than llamas and they don't have that llama haughtiness.
Our afternoon destination, Cueva Galaxia, a little hill as a foot note to the mountains behind. Again, Abel talks to the guide and they have a good laugh and the guide talks really slow to me which is good. First I have to cover my head so I don't hurt myself...or was it not hurting something inside the cave? In 2003 some dude accidently cut through into this cave and discovered a petrified white growth inside. No one in the Bolivian science world was able to analyse what the heck it was (I'm paraphrasing here) so they got an Italian dude to come over and have a look. So the story is that the freakish white growth is calcified plant material/plankton that solidified after Lake Minchin, the salar's predecessor, dried up. I didn't get the time frame pinned down. The cavern is about 20x30 meters and varies in height. Honest to goodness it's like stepping into a big goopy, slimey alien stomach with the odd curved rasor blade-y thing hanging down to aid in digestion - in shiny white. It was so viseral feeling you had to touch it the be sure it was stone...and, no photos allowed. Dang!
Next to that little delight was a chulpa cave with a couple dozen tombs with various bits inside. People were a lot smaller back then. Interesting that the tomb opening didn't all face east. That is typical of most of the Andean cultures I've come across so far. The path continued up to the mirador which I huffed and puffed up to, continuing to amuse Abel. It was worth the effort. We could see all the way to Volcan Thunupu across the salar. Lovely.
There was also a very nice baño there in the middle of no where, made of salt blocks no less. From the outside it looked like the main entrance. Inside there was a real toilet with containers of water for flushing. There was a sink. The garbage pail wasn't overflowing - as in Peru, you can't flush your toilet paper, the sanitary systen can't handle it. It has to go into the garbage. There was a little woven pouch for placing your 2 Bolivianos in on the wall. I gave 5. It was practically an attraction in itself.
The last stretch of the road to san Pedro de Qemez got sandier and the scrubby vegetation got thicker. Swirly dust devels kicked up, always ahead or us. Vicunus gave way to llamas and then the town was there in front of us with the hotel on a rise above.
Desiertos, Lagunas and Flamingos - Sunday, December 12
Last night I told Maria, the senora in charge, that I wasn't very hungry because of the altitude and only wanted soup for dinner. She provided a very nice and simple vegetable soup again perhaps with quinoa flour along with some fresh out of the oven flat buns, slightly sweet. The stars were out after dinner and I had a nice view from my bed in spite of the light polution from the four street lights in the town below. I haven't seen such a clear sky since the Inca Trail, although Kangaroo Island came close.
In the morning while I was waiting for Abel I took a muchos photos around the hotel exterior. The stone work is very nice in this hotel but the roofs are showing their age. Thay have replaced some of the thatch with corrugated plastic sheets. Maria tells me the hotel is 10 years old. I almost got run over by a herd (?) of llama going to pasture while poking around.
Abel was late I thought but in fact he was timing our first stop so that the crowds would be gone by the time we got there. The road was sandy with granular rock and lots of scrubby brush about and beautiful colours on the many volcanos (mostly inactive) in the distance. We pulled off onto a road, over a rise and a whole bunch of standing stones appeared. These were in fact petrifed coral. A leftover from the retreating ocean muchos years ago. There is a whole valley of frozen coral that looks like it goes on forever. There was a prevailing current so it's all leaning in the same direction. I spent some time wandering around - I could totally see myself diving here! I was a bit miffed at having to share the space with some other tourists though. I've even had the hotels to myself up until tonight.
As we were passing Volcan Ollague a guy flagged us down for directions. There were 3 ambitious guys on dirt bikes trying to make their way to Lagauna Colorada which is our first stop tomorrow. Hope they make it - parts of our route were brutal even in a 4x4. We had a rest near some lava deposits south of the Ollague - this is the one active volcano in the area - there were some striking bright, bright green globular formations here and there that were hard to the touch. Abel told me they were a type of moss. Vaugly reminiscent of the moreki boulders on NZ.
The rest of the day were deserts of varying types, salty, sandy, rocky, windy, once through heaps of ochre, alternating with a series of lagunas all with a very hardy type of Andean flamingo. Hardy, as the birds can find and filter food in a lake full of toxic chemicals like sulphur and borax. We stopped at Laguna Hedionda to have our boxed lunch prepared by the Hotel de Piedra that morning - huge as usual with lots of quinoa, some patties with minced llama and bulgar and some small and very tasty sweet potatoes. It was 5 Bolivianos for the table and 5 for the Bano. And it wasn't even as nice as the Bano at Cueva Galaxia! Ah well, they did have the market cornered and 5 Bs is only about 65 cents.
In the end I didn't take as many photos as I expected. The views were all just too big for my camera - so I just soaked it up.
When I turned 50 my colleague Merlys told me that I had reached, what they call in her home country of Cuba, my "medio rueda" or my "half a wheel." I took this as being a positive saying. I also knew at that moment it meant a flat tire on my journey. It happened today in a very bleak part of the desert with sand and small stones where you could take your camion anywhere. There was nothing around but five vicuna. I didn't notice that anything had happened. We had just come out of a very rocky canyon with deep ruts and onto the "drive anywhere" part when Abel stopped and said "momentico." He had the spare on in under 10 minutes. Jacking up a 4x4 in th sand is no small feat and, some how, in the middle of nowhere he also said he can fix the puncture in 10 minutes. I needed the advanced spanish course for the details.
We were very close to a mountain grouping that had subtle Georgia O'Keefe colours running through so I asked for a photo stop and now in, my hotel room, I'm looking out across the desert at the very same mountains with the sun setting on them.
Laguna Colorada and Other Amazing Sites - Monday December 13th
Hotel del Desierto is at 4523 gasping meters so my photo shoot in the morning was much slower. I'm not as taken with this one in spite of it's beautiful situation. The design isn't quite as well thought out. The toilet and shower are in the same room with no dividing curb or shower curtain and there is a step up into each room. The windows could have been bigger or more numerous but perhaps they were worried about heat loss/gain. Main materials are stone and stucco. The roofs seem to be a shallow poured concrete vault painted. Tinting the concrete with the local ochre would have been a better choice, perhaps. The bedrooms have a skylight which is good as there is only electricity, as with Hotel de Piedra, from 5:30p to 10p. The bathrooms have a sloped translucent corrugated plastic roof panel tied down. The mass of the building makes sense as the nights are cold and the stone will hold the heat for some time. It may have dipped below freezing in the night but the room was still warm enough the next morning. Still, the place had a lot of character so any shortcomings can be overlooked.
I don't know what to say about today except that my eyes are so full I don't know if I can fit any more in. Deserts, lagunas, weird rocks, colorful volcanos, one viscacha and a zillion flamingos. All at such a grand scale that anything after this just may very well fall short.
As we headed to our last laguna, Verde, we went up a 5000m+ pass which was fine for me since I didn't have to walk anywhere. No headache and no dizziness and no oxygen needed - it was all downhill from there literally. Laguna Verde was effing cold!! I even got out my full Quark parka to take some pics. Pretty green water, made so by the cold effing winds that blow perpetually and whip up the lead, sulphuer,calcium and arsenic. I think that is was the arsenic that was keeping the flamingos out of this lagoon.
After a lunch in the 4x4 it was a short drive to the frontera to say good bye, with sadness, to Abel. What a nice guy and great driver. I knew that he kept his vehicle in good condition but today, since we ran into more people at our stops in 5 hours than in all the other days, I discovered that all the other drivers and guides go and check his 4x4 out and crawl under it and ask lots of questions. I'm glad I spent the big bucks and went with this company. In addition to giving some mechanical help to our vehicles Abel also lent his satellite phone to 2 different guys who had no means to call there base and get replacement parts as they were out of radio range.
The frontiera, or border, has a shack on the Bolivian side with a grumpy guy inside who I think may have been drunk. In any case I had my passport stamped in Uyuni before I left so I didn't have to deal with him for long. On the Chilean side, nada. A dude, and he was a dude, came and picked me up and it was bye bye Abel, hello rickety van. The customs was in San Pedro where I had my luggage searched mostly for natural coca. I am very happy to say that they let me bring in a box of 100 mate de coca tea bags - I'm hoping that Canadian customs will let me do the the same.
San Pedro looks like a booming metropolis after Bolivia. It's only 5000 people but it takes up more room than Uyuni at 14000. It's neat and tidy even though the streets are mostly not paved and mud brick is the building material of choice. The altitude is 2600m (yeah!) and the temp is 34C (boo!) but it's going down to 7C tonight (yeah!) I went and paid for tonight's star tour and I'm hoping I can book 2 more tours for tomorrow - if not, no biggie. I could use some down time.
Holy Salt Mines Bat girl but that sounded amazing! Can't wait for more photos! Hope you tipped Able well! Enjoy Easter Island and have some amazing dives and walks. Muchos Hugs!
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