Salt of the Earth
The landscapes of Northwest Argentina were beautiful and strange. The landscapes of Northeast Chile were less beautiful, but more strange. But neither of these areas compares with Southwest Bolivia. I just spent the last three days driving from San Pedro de Atacama to Uyuni, Bolivia and I have seen things that were way stranger than I had ever imagined from the reading I have done and the videos I have seen. And the strangeness was only eclipsed by the beauty. Earth has once again proven itself to be beyond the human imagination and comprehension.
We started in a small bus which took seven of us through Chilean immigration, through Bolivian immigration (in the middle of Nowhere, South America) and to an even more remote location before five of us loaded into a Toyota Land Cruiser with driver and the other two went off with another driver because they had a four-day tour rather than our three-day tour. I was with a Brit, Scot and two Frenchman (from Strasbourg my favorite place in France, but living in Guadalupe Island and French Guiana – bet you know no one from these places!!!) and the local driver, Pedro. Other than Pedro, everyone else was much younger than me. It was a good team… one to keep me young.
The drive basically followed four-wheel paths, some gravel roads and salt flats. It was a rough ride, but for the most part the roughness was overwhelmed by the surrounding scenery. Our first stops were at the white and green lagoons. Laguna Blanca is a lake which appears to be white because of calcium. Laguna Verde was nearby, but much stranger in that it was green due to copper. Most of the surrounding landscape has only small grass and shrub-like plants because it is so dry and the altitude is up to 4800 meters where we drove up to well over 6000 meters on the volcano peaks.
Our next major stop was at a geyser field. It seemed innocent enougn from the vehicle with just steam streaming into the sky. But when we walked out in the field we found craters with bubbling mud and water as well as mud walls made up of all kinds of colors. Once again we were allowed to walk freely and do whatever we wanted including getting ourselves killed if we were stupid or unlucky enough. We were intrepid (fine line from stupid) enough to walk into craters bubbling away and spewing toxic fumes to get incredible views and, of course, photos. I liked one hole where mud bubbled at the surface in a manner where it formed perfect circles one on top of another in decreasing sizes (imagine a circular pyramid). The scariest thing in the field was a crater which was blowing steam with such force that it sounded like a very loud jet engine. Picture putting your head next to that jet engine and you can imagine us!
We ended the first day at Laguna Colorado, a red lake formed by a mineral which I assume to be iron. It was filled like many of the lagoons with pink flamingos. We stayed at a really basic, repeat really basic, “hotel” at the lagoon. It was freezing at this location where it is around 4300 meters high and the winds didn´t stop howling. The five of us made the best of it having a good time talking before trying unsuccessfully to sleep well. I was gad to find the wind stopped early the next morning and was ready to get out of this place. We drove to 4800 meters where my head hurt, but things got better when we dipped back down. We visited a rock formation area where the stone tree exists. We also stopped at some lagoons which were not as exciting as those that we saw the day before although they contained flamigos and other birds which were easily viewed. We also saw a lot of vicunas and the green rabbit-like creature. We visited a couple of towns that I can only describe as hell-ish. They were empty of people and filled with horrible buildings. I can´t think of a place I would wish to live less than these places. One called Jalaca is almost a ghost town on the Calama-Uyuni railroad line. It was a great place to photograph a dying rail town including boxcars that will never be used again.
We stopped this night on the edge of the highlight of the trip – the Salar de Uyuni or the Uyuni Salt Flat which is the largest in the world (more EST!!!) at 10,000 sq kms and twenty-five times the size of Bonneville Flats. The night was much better with warmer temperatures, lower elevation, better beds and food. And they had beer!!! I woke up to watch the sunrise and it was basically a dud, but it was a beautiful morning with no wind and warmish air. The salt flats below us were incomprehendible in size.
We drove onto the flats and cruised across at 100 kph, a nice speed although I was thinking it would be even more fun at 2-3 times that speed (not in a Land Cruiser). We got out in the “middle” and observed the weirdness of it all. There is no scale. The ground is blindingly bright white as far as you can see. The mountains on the horizon appear to float in midair. Where there are no mountains, the sky and salt melt together. There is no trace of a human as far as you can see. There was no wind so there was utter silence… until we started playin around with photos. Due to the lack of scale and no horizon, you can do weird things like have someone in the foreground with hand outstretched to their side and have another person in the background lined up with the hand. The result is that a photo looks like the hand is holding a tiny human! We also did poses where two people were holding up the vehicle and where one person has a whole mountain lifted above their head. All very whacky and I will post them so you can see in the future.
We then drove to Incahausi Island which is an old coral reef (all of this area used to be under a salt water sea) which is now an island in the middle of the salt flats. It is about a 100 meters (?) high and is made up of ancient coral outcroppings with giant cacti growing. There is very little life beyond the cacti. The views from the top of the island are spectaculary weird. It feels and looks like an island surrounded by a sea, but there are no waves lapping at the shore. The mountains in the distance looked like they were floating more than they did on the surface of the salt. The name of this island is due to the Incas being there five hundred years ago. I can understand their infatuation with the place.
Our last stop on the flats was at a salt hotel. The place was built from bricks cut from the salt flats which are about five meters deep in salt. The hotel is closed because they have an environmental problem with getting rid of their sewage. Nice idea, but maybe not too practical. Leaving the salt flats was disappointing. I could have stayed out there all day. We went to Uyuni which seems to live up to its poor reputation. It has little to offer although I loved walking around and seeing the indigenous people in all their glory once again. I do believe those baby Incans peering out from the blanket over their mom´s back are the cutest children you can find. Their big, dark eyes would make the Grinch melt.
In Uyuni, we did the one activity that is a can´t miss. We visited the train cemetery on the edge of town where old American and British steam train engines and other cars are off the track rusting away. Considering all of the train lines which have disappeared in South America, this was quite a fitting site. It was also a great place to take interesting photos of which back and white seemed best. The place was a bit eery athough nothing like Jalaca with its adobe homes that were “melting” back into the earth alonside the rotting rail cars.
The last three days have been sensational far exceeding what I thought would be one of the weirdest places on earth. The place almost makes the American Southwest seem quite normal. I can´t say one is better than the other, but this part of South America certainly holds its own when it comes to greatest landscapes by Pachamama. Thanks to Andy, Pamela, Felix and JB for making the team so much fun. Hope we run into each other further north in the great and magical country of Bolivia. I´m off to Potosi tomorrow, site of the greatest silver mine and a tour that has me scared…
Tags: bolivia, south america, Travel
vagabondrick
Bolivia is really beautiful. Based from this article, I can say that you are really fascinated with the place. I hope I will flying there soon.