2653 Meanderings

January 26, 2012

Nostalgia for Abundance

The barren landscape inspires a sense of nostalgia for the vibrance of life and color. Any hint of red in the rocks or green in the crispy tufts of tenacious grasses draws the eye. Water is rare and usually a colorful brine, thanks to the myriad of minerals in the mountains and salt flats. While non-potable to humans, we are drawn to it nonetheless thanks to the flocks of four varieties of flamingo, coots, and Andean ducks which feed off microorganisms living in the high altitude lagoons. One of the more optimistic sights was the puffy white clouds, purveyors of fresh water--or depending on the time of day, snow.

Train Cemetery, Uyuni, Bolivia

Despite the desolation, the wildness was rare and beautiful. I was so fascinated by the views that I nearly a,ways had my face pressed against the backseat window of the 4x4, often rapping my forehead against the panes when we hit particularly rough washboards or potholes.

Converted to a playground with yours truly on the swing! Thanks for the wide-angle shot, Will.

Despite the raw beauty, like nothing I have ever seen before, three days in the Altiplano proved to be enough for me and I have three indications why:

1. I miss trees. And plants. Or anything green and living.
2. Water costs a fortune. We have iodine and a steri pen, but they are not equipped for desalinization.
3. My skin cannot stop peeling from the brutal sun (hardly any ozone at altitude), relentless wind, and bone-dry air despite hourly applications of sunscreen, petroleum jelly, long sleeves, hat, sunglasses, and hydration. I feel like a snake shedding my skin, except that it doesn't come off in one clean run like a banana peel.

TRAIN QUOTES
Asi es la vida... (Such is life). Se necesita una mechanica con experiencia... (Needed: a mechanic with experience).

On the bright side, I no longer have daily headaches from the thin air! Hurrah, I have finally produced enough red blood cells to keep from losing brain cells and being stupidly oxygen deprived--oh, but what I hope I didn't forget in the mean time.... I will never know!

January 25, 2012

White World

The Uyuni Salt Flat, or Salar de Uyuni measures 11,000 square kilometers. Salt is mined manually by scraping it into conical piles with a shovel or rake. It is then shoveled into the back ofthesalt trucks and shipped out of the highlands.

Bolivia also holds 43% of the worlds lithium reserves, the majority of which is located in the brine lake located under the salt crust at a relatively high concentration of 0.3%.

Uyuni

Salt is rather tough on the harvest vehicles.

Taking an overnight bus to Uyuni, Bolivia, we decided to book a tour of the famous Bolivian salt flats. The 3 day tour winds through the Bolivian high plains and mountains, exploring various lagoons, the salt flats, and microscopic towns. As soon as we disembarked from the bus, we were accosted by multiple agencies, seeking tourists to fill the last slots of that day's tour which would leave in 2 hours. We picked one that had a solid looking Toyota Land Cruiser as our high altitude, back country, off-road transport of choice. There are abundant warnings about picking an agency with a driver who doesn't drown his night in a bottle and a car that won't break down in the mountains (lest our fate be shared with those unlucky tourists who froze to death in the cab of their malfunctioning vehicle). Assuming that are chances were better than a roulette table might offer, we went for it! We used Lago Minchin.

A hotel on the salt flats made from salt bricks.

Uyuni has the same story of any other podunk town with a natural resource mined from the earth...it is small and depressingly static... Yet this town has tourists! I doubt mountain top removal sites receive nearly as much attention
Twenty foot diameter dust devils danced across the highland desert. The landscape is blinding without sunglasses, and removing them causes my eyes to fill instantly with tears.

January 19, 2012

We decided we couldn't skip Bolivia...

El Catedral San Francisco

...and we were right. La Paz, the capitol of Bolivia is beautiful! The cobbled streets and stone sidewalks are clean and quirky, packed with travelers and locals alike. Skyscrapers touch the clouds, thin brick homes tenuously cling to the hillsides, and well maintained colonial buildings line each plaza. Best of all, the food is far better than the food we have been eating in Peru. We ate empanadas for lunch, standing on the street corner, stuffing ourselves to the gills with the potato, squash, and beef filling and dousing each bite with a sweat-inducing salsa and cooked onions. I am craving another, even now when I should be preparing for bed. Fortunately, there is always tomorrow!

Llama fetuses at the witch market.

Later we strolled through el mercado de brujas ("the witch market") and surveyed wrinkly old women peddling dried plants, candles, and crates of desiccated llama fetuses. Seeking shelter from the afternoon hail and rain storm, we camped in a coffee shop, savoring South American style hot chocolate and creamed pumpkin soup. After searching for white gas for the camp stove for an hour with no luck, we realized that we should have bought a llama fetus for good luck.